Community

HILR’s strong community and personal relationships are the heart of our volunteer-based organization. This chapter explores our common experience within our evolving institution, founded to promote learning in study groups. How does each member find a way to participate that respects both personal interests and community requirements? How does our shared commitment to intellectual activity extend to other needs we might have? Most of us feel a sense of belonging that inspires our contribution to joint success. Each of us also has a unique view of the whole, so any one generalization can’t capture the richness of our multiple perspectives.

The Organization

Organizations go through stages of development, as do its members and the community itself. Members join, establish a unique presence, and eventually depart. Each successive director leaves an imprint. At 33, HILR is one of the oldest learning-in-retirement programs and may have the oldest membership. We are meeting challenges now that newer programs may encounter later in the same form: developing a more formal organization, nurturing and supporting an ever-aging community, shifting to a more computer-based culture, sustaining quality, and facilitating retirement from HILR itself.

Some learning in retirement programs are very loose and exact only casual commitments from those attending classes. Others have procedures and policies sufficient to warrant handbooks and the term “membership.” HILR is at the formal end of this continuum.

Because of constraints on classroom space and a desire to maintain a sense of community, we limit enrollment to 550, with an even balance of men and women. Members must apply and be accepted. To be selected, in addition to showing a breadth of experience or achievement, you have to show a willingness and ability to contribute. Most report relief and joy upon receiving their letters of acceptance:

I went for the interview and faced the reality of more applicants than could be accepted. A stroke of luck in the form of a welcome to the program was something I really could appreciate at a time when I was struggling to find myself. (Jane Weingarten)

Belonging to HILR affirms our identity as learners and doers and for those who want it, provides an annual rhythm for our lives. The course catalogues whet our appetites before each semester begins. We request study groups, get our schedules, buy books, attend classes, and volunteer on one or more of many committees from serving coffee to making curriculum decisions. Since we are all schooled persons, these rhythms are familiar to us—the structure fits.

Increasingly, membership requires taking on responsibility, which appeals to former professionals who enjoy achievement. Commitment involves being prepared for every class as well as volunteering. Each member is expected to contribute according to his or her strengths, through intellectual, managerial, or supportive “behind-the-scenes” activities. The organization’s structure is a gift—a gift of opportunities for its members.

The Community within the Organization

HILR has the characteristics of any voluntary community, enhanced by our embrace of active participation and peer learning. Members share values—most obviously a love of learning and a respect for Harvard. We all have regular contact with each other in study groups and during breaks, which are at a common time for all study groups. There are additional informal opportunities at lunch and in the hallways of our two floors of small classrooms. The Member Directory facilitates personal telephone calls and get-togethers. Class excursions and less formal trips allow participants to spend extended times together. Finally, the new HILR website is increasingly central to communication and our sense of belonging.

Over time, sharing thoughts in study groups enhances the intellectual experience and creates stronger bonds. We get to know each others’ histories and ways of thinking. Conversations may become quite intimate in a poetry-writing course or in a group discussion about a memoir describing the death of a spouse. A literature study group can exchange ideas about marriage, and a philosophy study group can examine our feelings and values about truth and lying. All these personal exchanges strengthen social bonds and foster mutual caring.

The fact of age impacts aspects of our lives together. Everyone jokes about memory lapses, for example, and many study group leaders have ways of compensating by putting notes on the board or distributing lists of questions or key points. We also have continual negotiations about managing our physical needs. Adjusting the heating/cooling system is a frequent matter of debate. The flow of air may be too strong for those whose body temperature is less easy to maintain, and there are the usual misunderstandings about how thermostats work. The ventilation noise also provokes those who hear less well and brings them into conflict with those who fall asleep if there is insufficient air circulation. Over time, each study group usually reaches an accommodation as people adjust their seats and clothing.

HILR also comes together as a large community several times a year. Annual rituals, beginning with the fall convocation, give us the occasion to affirm our belonging as a whole group. A holiday party marks the end of the fall semester. Some individual study groups hold end-of-semester luncheons. The luncheon for study group leaders at the end of the academic year is a time of celebration, of informal conversation, and of acknowledgement and thanks to those who have led. Members depart, off to their summer destinations and plans until we come together again at the fall convocation. Throughout the academic year smaller gatherings for presentations and workshops, open to all, contribute to our sense of a common enterprise.

Community in an Evolving Organization

New members of HILR enter a community with more than 30 years of history and firmly established traditions. What began as a relatively small and informal operation with 92 members, with an average age of 65 (almost 90 percent under 70) has evolved over time into a highly structured institution of 550 members with an average age of 76 and about a fourth of the membership over 80.

Membership growth has generated many more activities and opportunities for leadership, but it also raises the classic question of how to balance informal and collaborative initiatives with the need for a more formal structure. Voluntary participation continues to be central to everyday operations:

We are an economy based on mutual gift-giving and mutual recognition. Most of us are trying very hard but no one is working in a conventional sense. Everything people do here, like teaching and committee work are gifts. It’s public service, not work, and that’s one of the beauties of the place. Maintaining quality in the context of mutual aid becomes a complicated enterprise. (Maurice Stein)

As with all organizations, growth involves tradeoffs. Only some people feel they have a sense of the whole; most members become familiar with one or more parts through their volunteer and study group choices. Decision-making becomes more institutionalized. Our Council, chosen by the members in annual elections, is the body for discussing issues formally. Such a lively community is full of opinions. Sometimes differing goals or conceptions of roles and responsibilities press the concerned parties into conflict. Fortunately, the overall ethos of community usually prevails and diffuses or settles disputes.

Belonging

Community members go through a typical cycle of entry to exit, with a longer period of stability in between. New members now attend an orientation and meet assigned “buddies” as classes begin. Our pictures alongside our self-written narratives appear in our newsletter and on the HILR website.

New members ask themselves questions and make choices: How will I be recognized as myself in this large organization? Do I belong with all these old people? Will people like me? Who might be a new friend? How does my membership here relate to other communities that I’m part of? What can I do, given my physical limitations, including diminished energy and hearing?

Although entering a new community can revive old social insecurities that go back to high school days, we join HILR with more skills under our belts. The Common Room is the place where we go for coffee breaks, eat our brown bag lunches, and attend numerous functions. Our experiences there represent the highs and lows of our communal life. While the focus on learning at HILR provides ready topics for conversation, some find it easy to join in while others do not:

At first, slightly timid in the Common Room, I soon found people to talk to. I attended brown bag lunches and anything else that was offered. I took advantage of all opportunities and began to see some people socially. (Rhoada Wald)

I still don’t gravitate to the Common Room. I don’t like the noise and the congestion. It gets harder and harder to hear anyone, but I often meet HILR friends elsewhere in the Square. Even though I don’t linger in the Common Room, my 14 years at HILR have turned me into a joiner. (Lillian Broderick)

Some members remain on the periphery, simply attending study groups and going home. Perhaps their desire for social contact is low or they are more active in other communities. Others plunge in or gradually become more active. HILR may serve to replace a work community, lost spouses, or lost friends. Since HILR maintains a gender balance, everyone can have the satisfaction of making both male and female friends as individuals or in couples. Some couples join HILR together; and a few members who met here have married. HILR can be the entryway to a new city for those who have moved here from other places. Such members, including many contributors to this volume, take on new roles and make HILR increasingly central to their lives:

It is amazing how much of what I need now is to be found at HILR—a hiking club, a writing club, travel groups, play-reading and acting clubs, political and contemporary affairs clubs, language clubs, a poetry club. I love having a new world of peers, many more highly educated and far more conversant than I on many topics. To know them is to learn. (Ross Neisuler)

I didn’t have a big base of friends in Boston, so to that extent HILR saved my life. If I hadn’t found HILR, I probably would have gone back to NYC. I have no question about HILR being powerful because one’s mental competencies don’t necessarily fade as your physical ones do. (Pat Ruopp)

Sustaining Quality

Partly because we have admission requirements, the term “elite” is sometimes attached to HILR. We don’t feel this is very prominent, but it does get mentioned from time to time, especially outside of HILR, so it’s worth addressing briefly. Harvard University as a whole has good reason to believe that it is elite in the sense of being among the very best institutions of higher learning in the country and the world. HILR sometimes feels a reflected glory. Along with privilege sometimes comes an accusation of exclusivity. In some senses, strong communities have strong boundaries. It cuts both ways: enhancing community internally and also being seen as exclusionary from outside. We are fortunate, not superior:

There are quite a few colleges and universities in the Boston area that offer this sort of thing and I ended up choosing Harvard’s, partly because of the name. It sounds good at cocktail parties when people ask me what I do and, after I say: “I’m retired,” I can also add: “I’m at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement.” (Peter Kugel)

Some members make deliberate efforts to connect HILR to the larger Harvard community, including the many young students around us. Members have a long volunteered to have conversations with students who are learning English as a second language. Recently, others have gotten involved with Harvard students around green initiatives on campus.

The HILR culture also values the differences we bring from our varied lives. Nevertheless, in spite of ongoing efforts, we’ve attracted very few people of color. We are always hopeful that a series of new initiatives will change our racial and ethnic diversity and also add more political conservatives. These goals are central to broadening our perspectives and enriching our discussions, as well as providing opportunities to others.

As described in previous chapters, HILR is a place for many to exercise and develop new leadership skills inside and outside the classroom. This work can be exhilarating; and yet there are occasions demanding decisions that are not well received by others because they imply a negative judgment on an individual or because they are politically unpopular. We have joined an organization that prides itself on high standards of academic pursuit; integral to excellence are judgments about quality.

For example, course proposals are submitted for approval to the Curriculum Committee, whose members, along with those on the Teaching and Learning Committee, give assistance in course planning. Another example is that each new member completes a new-member review form that a standing committee reads over at the end of the third year. This process was set up four years ago to bolster and sustain overall participation. Thus, even at this stage of life members are subject to review by others. Such evaluative activities are part and parcel of choosing a communal organization with a commitment to quality and with limitations on the number of active members.

How Strong a Hold?

The five of us who started New Pathways feel that HILR has some sort of magnetic force that draws us into the community in ways we’re still trying to understand. There’s something remarkably positive about our unusual commitment to making the community work and the good feelings we derive from being here.

What is the hunger to connect at our age? We’ve each lost important attachments and anticipate losing more of them. And as we rework our identities, we often seek new companions. Sometimes our conversations feel like those bull sessions in college when we were also exploring the meaning of our lives with new peers, figuring out the things that really matter. Formal roles don’t matter. Our more fluid identities help us find newly kindred spirits:

For me, this holistic culture provides feelings of affirmation and meaning and is a sharp contrast to the sense of alienation and isolation I often feel as a mature, adult woman in contemporary society. (Rhoada Wald)

Each time I leave HILR, I experience a feeling of buoyancy…. It’s a general feeling, not attached to any one conversation or new insight gained in class. I believe it comes from a sense of belonging, a guarantee of social and intellectual context for me as I age. (Prudence King)

For better or worse, we’ve left behind our professional reputations and much of our personal histories. A new sense of belonging is something we have to earn, and our essays describe ways we have sought to make ourselves known and respected in this community. Discussing our writings within a small group is a remarkably effective way to develop intimacy and community. Many of us feel we have made a long-term commitment, and we count on HILR to continue to be part of our lives:

And then there are the friends. Enough of them are friendly to me to give me a sense of family. They are my new peer group, and we are likely to have friends from HILR for many years, maybe till death. Stunning, really. (Ross Neisuler)

How much of a safety net can we realistically expect this community to provide in times of need? Estimates of whether the HILR community is strong enough to sustain us through significant personal disappointments, disagreements, and losses range from doubt to confidence. Do we even want HILR to serve that function? Some members do not expect it to be more than an academic institution. We traditionally have not been oriented towards offering personal support in times of illness and loss, though we do announce member deaths and a service committee sends cards and flowers. The growing use of our website offers new possibilities for communication and commemoration. This New Pathways project has identified areas where some members feel that we could do more. Our ways of addressing these issues are being reconsidered.

Letting Go

Since we don’t graduate or move on to other jobs, we may belong for 20, even 30 years. The irony is that membership ensures yet another retirement. As with other pathways in our lives, the HILR path comes to an end for us all.

Letting go of intense activity at HILR can be difficult. As our frailties become more pronounced, it may be necessary to let go of roles that we’ve filled for a long time. Some of us will be alert to the signals and act accordingly; others may deny them, just as we continue to play tennis when the game exacerbates our shoulder problems, or more seriously, continue to drive when our reaction time is significantly poorer. When this happens, those serving as leaders have a responsibility to communicate with the denier, to inform him or her that their offered services are no longer wanted. Since we are not in our positions to serve as geriatric counselors, nor would such a role fit with our culture, this can be a rough spot for both parties.

Fortunately, self-regulation works for the vast majority of individuals. Often, fading health prevents ongoing participation. Others wish to expend less energy and are ready to give up the many hours expected of an active member. In 2003, HILR recognized the letting-go stage by creating the category of associate member. For a significantly reduced tuition fee, those who cut back are eligible to attend all special events but not enroll in study groups:

Some members speak of concern that after many years at HILR, that somehow it might fail them. Rather, I fear that at some point, it will be I who will fail HILR because of physical or mental incapacity. When that happens I hope I will recognize my incapacity and become an associate Member, giving my cherished place to a deserving baby boomer. (Ellie Porter)

HILR is a caring community by intent and practice. The aging of our membership, however, presents us with unusual challenges as well as possibilities. We exist to promote active learning for older persons. Yet, for some of us, as we move into the later stages of aging, our minds and/or bodies present formidable, if not insurmountable obstacles for an active life of the mind. Therein lies the inescapable reality in which we live.

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