Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) offer noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to adults over age 50. Since 2001 philanthropist
Bernard Osher
Bernard Osher (born 1927) is an American businessman, best known for his work as a philanthropist.
Life and career
Osher was born to a Jewish family and raised in Biddeford, Maine. In 1948, he graduated with a B.A. from Bowdoin College. He ...
has made grants from the Bernard Osher Foundation to launch OLLI programs at 120 universities and colleges throughout the United States.
Background
Bernard Osher, a native of
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
, managed the family hardware and plumbing supply business before heading to New York to work for
Oppenheimer & Company. He moved to California and became a founding director of
World Savings and a founder of its parent company
Golden West Financial. He bought the San Francisco auction house
Butterfield & Butterfield in 1970 and sold it in 1999 to
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
. World Savings merged with
Wachovia Corporation
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo and Company in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States, based on total asse ...
in 2006, which was in turn acquired by
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...
in 2008. In 1977 he established the Bernard Osher Foundation, headquartered in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, which contributes to higher education, the arts, and social services, with education receiving nearly 80 percent of its grants.
Osher was impressed by the
Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning
The Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco (USF) offers noncredit courses with no assignments or grades for adults age 50 and over with no other objective than the love of learning. Organized in 1976 with support ...
at the
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
, and approached the Senior Program at the
University of Southern Maine
The University of Southern Maine (USM) is a public university with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston in the U.S. state of Maine. It is the southernmost of the University of Maine System. It was founded as two separate state universit ...
(USM) with his interest in supporting noncredit programs for older adults. He awarded USM an endowment grant in 2001 to expand its program, which was renamed as the first Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
[
] Ed Stolman, a friend of Osher’s who had retired to
Sonoma County, California, approached
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, US. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 Bachelor's ...
(SSU) to encourage development of an OLLI program.
[
] The Osher Foundation made a development grant to SSU which quickly attracted an audience of older student members. Encouraged by the success of these two programs, Osher decided to greatly expand his grant support for similar lifelong learning institutes.
OLLI program development
In 2002 the Osher Foundation began making program development grants of $100,000 a year for up to three years to launch new OLLI programs. The initial focus was on California, which now has OLLI programs at seven
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
and 16
California State University
The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...
campuses. In 2004 Osher established a National Resource Center at USM to distribute information about effective educational programs for older adults via a web site, a research journal, and an annual conference. In October 2014 the NRC was relocated to
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
's downtown
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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campus.
Under current practices, if an OLLI program has 500 fee-paying members by the end of its fourth year, the university is eligible for a $1 million endowment grant from the Osher Foundation. When it reaches 1000 members, it is eligible for another $1 million endowment grant. As of 2015, the Osher Foundation was supporting 120 OLLI programs at universities and colleges in all 50 states and the
District of Columbia
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.
The Bernard Osher Foundation’s executive director is
Barbro Sachs-Osher.
See also
*
Lifelong learning
Notes
External links
The Bernard Osher FoundationOLLI National Resource Center{{authority control
2001 establishments in the United States
Lifelong learning
Universities and colleges in the United States