Contrary to what one might think, Bishop’s University’s Senior Academy for Lifelong Learning has not been in complete hibernation these past four months. According to Wade Lynch, who heads up the continuing education program, the spring has been a difficult time, but not an idle one.
“It’s been challenging,” he said. “Since about the 14th of March anything that said senior on it was pretty well closed down. All of my programming that was live ended then but we did manage to keep a course going online and I started looking for other opportunities.”
For the immediate future Lynch said that all of the work of the academy has moved online, but projects what would have been face-to-face are being modified to make that reality work. The “Write here right now” writing workshop series, for example, has just launched in a digital format, and he just got permission to start up a webcast version of the senior citizens’ fitness program that had previously been happening at the Grace Village home in person.
“I hope that someday we get to do face-to-face again,” Lynch reflected. “There are so many interested and active seniors out there, all of whom resent being at home right now. People want to get out and get around, so we’re looking at new ideas all the time.”
