MANDEL SCHOOL
NEWS AND EVENTS
October 05, 2011
Active Aging Symposium Draws Local, International Experts
Local leaders from around Cleveland - and international experts from around the world - gathered at Case Western Reserve University on October 1 to talk about a topic that most 60-something boomers don't care to discuss: what it means to grow old.
Nearly 250 people attended the Active Aging Symposium to talk about the aging workforce, the impact of global aging, redefining retirement and civic engagement among senior volunteers.
Participants arrived for a full day to attend breakout sessions and hear academics talk about their theories on why active aging is part of a growing global movement.
Graduate students, faculty from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and experts from around the country moderated sessions attended by students, university alumni, business consultants, social workers and professors from schools across campus.
"Who, here, is over 60?" asked keynote speaker, Dr. Alexander Kalache, who currently serves as Senior Advisor to the President on Global Ageing at the New York Academy of Medicine. "We were activists in the 1960s and this generation is making its transition into old age. It's not going to be the same as when our grandparents aged. We are going to reinvent this transition and we are going to age loudly."
Kalache is part of an elite team that has been studying the aging phenomenon for the last 40 years. His research has allowed him to connect with Merl "Terry" Hokenstad, the Ralph S. and Dorothy P. Schmitt Professor at the Mandel School and a Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve. The two of them met at a U.N. conference in New York in 1999, and it was at that time that they first discussed the concept of active aging.
Hokenstad, who celebrated his 75th birthday in July, has been a trustee of the National Council on Aging. He is a member of the United Nations’ Non-Governmental Organization Committee on Aging and served on the U.N. Technical Committee responsible for drafting the International Plan of Action on Aging. In 2002, he was named to the United States delegation to the U.N.'s World Assembly on Aging.
"Health and social service policy makers and providers need to respond to the fact that baby boomers are an active part of our aging population," said Hokenstad. "Policies and programs need to focus on this reality and that's what we're trying to do here today. Baby boomers are not going to be content with fading into the sunset and we need to do something about that."
One alumna in attendance, 91-year-old Belle Likover of Shaker Heights, spent decades of her life in social work and has served as a voice for seniors for many years. She calls her involvement with senior advocacy a "third" career, having worked as a research assistant, then a mother, and then an interested student who completed her master's degree in 1969 at the age of 49.
"I think my retirement years may have been my most productive ever," she said. "The issues that affect older people are issues that affect everyone."