PRESIDENT'S CORNER: June 9, 2017

GatesNotes.com  Did you know Bill Gates had a blog where he reviews good books? The last issue of Time had a piece by him recommending five good summer books, including: A Full Life by Jimmy Carter, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, and Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance.  I have read the last two and can testify to their excellence. I have also read several of Jimmy Carter’s books and have always found inspiration in them. So, check out Bill’s blog for yourself. Here’s a piece of advice he gives: You don’t really start getting old until you stop learning. Isn’t that why we are all joining OLLI and coming to classes and discussion groups?

Reflections III: Some of you have asked me if I am going to continue writing this column after July 10. I was not trying to create a monster with this thing.  When I started as your president, I took a leaf from my time as chair of the Theater Dept. in trying to find ways to communicate effectively with my faculty, staff and students.  I published a weekly one-page newsletter that was posted and put in all faculty/staff boxes. And yet, after 5 years, when I was evaluated by the Dean, I was found lacking in communication skills! I am still scratching my head over that one…until an old chair friend told me a great piece of advice. He told me that in the typical faculty, you could divide the group into thirds: 1/3 of them would take your instruction and you could forget about it because it would be done to the letter; 1/3 might do it if they had nothing better to do; and the final third…well, you should just do it yourself, anyway because it would never happen otherwise! I hate to say it, but I found this advice to be absolutely true. Any of you had that experience?

So, the answer here is, there will be a new president on July 10 and I think it will be up to him/her to write their own column, or not. If I am asked to write something occasionally for the newsletter, I’ll be happy to be part of that third that you can count on.

Meanwhile, let me just thank each of you for your encouragement, support, criticism, and loyalty to this thing we call OLLI at WVU. Right now, I am particularly grateful for the Film Forum group that has trusted me to bring some interesting films to show and discuss, and to the Writing Group for giving me the excuse to start writing a series of personal memoirs that has made my memories start flooding back in and take flight in these writings. I urge you to think about this for yourself—do you grannies and grandpas write things down for your kids and grandkids? If not, WHY NOT? This is buried treasure and we all have wonderful memories and stories to tell. In the summer term, Alan Rosenbluth is offering his Telling More Stories class again, so give that a try.

We’re now in that hiatus between terms where we can kick back and rest or start preparing for the next term, if we are teaching, or reflecting on what we’d like to take if we are students. The summer catalog will be to you in the next week, so get ready to plan your summer OLLI activities, and don’t forget to sign up for the Annual Meeting lunch and meeting on June 21.

Jim Held, President