This fall, senior citizens from the city of Claremont were eligible to audit select Pomona College courses through the Claremont Avenues for Lifelong Learning Program (CALL) for the first time in six years, since the program was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People were really, really excited about this program because it had been a few years since we’ve offered it,” said Jennifer Helé, the senior recreation and human services supervisor at the city of Claremont. “People in this community are really passionate about lifelong learning, and this is such a unique opportunity to be able to take college-level courses, especially at [institutions] such as the Claremont Colleges.”
The program offers seniors tuition-free college-level courses, creating opportunities for intergenerational connections. Auditors can choose from three levels of participation: level one classes allow auditors to only listen to discussions, level two classes let seniors join in discussions and activities without completing assignments or exams, and level three classes involve full participation, including coursework and assessments.
Under the newly digitized registration process, seniors can now select courses online instead of waiting in long lines on registration day. CALL provides those aged 60 and older with the opportunity to audit certain classes at Pomona. The program began in 2002 and spread to all five colleges over several years.
This year, classes are available only at Pomona, with Tomás Summers Sandoval, a history and Chicana/o Latina/o studies professor at the college, overseeing the program. Helé said they’re looking to expand the program to other schools in the consortium, as they did pre-pandemic.
“It’s very much our hope that it does get extended,” Helé said. “I know that professor Sandoval is working on that to broaden the reach. That would really be more of a return to how the program was in the past when we did get broader participation from the five colleges.”
Over the summer, the city of Claremont published a public-facing online interest form available to senior citizens aged 55 and older for fall registration, which received around 200 responses. Prospective auditors received a randomized time slot and digitally selected their top three courses based on availability, which auditors described as a more fair process compared to doing so in person. Previously, auditors would line up and courses would be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. Helé said the new registration method also allows seniors to familiarize themselves with online platforms.
“I think it makes a lot more sense that we’ve really tried to emphasize this to our participants: that to be successful in this program they need to be comfortable with email and online and accessing materials online,” Helé said.
In class, seniors can join discussions and interact with students interested in similar topics. Ezekiel Chavez, a returning longtime participant in the program, is excited for its return.
“When you retire, you say, ‘what am I going to do?’ … So this program was available. I signed up, and my friends signed up, and we would take two classes, one in the morning, and one somewhere in between,” Chavez said. “After that, we would go to eat lunch. What a life.”
For many Claremont retirees, auditing classes makes their daily lives more dynamic.
“It, in terms of our lives as retired people, does add something to our schedule that isn’t a doctor’s appointment or golf, and we look forward to it on Monday and Wednesday,” Anne Ellwanger, a CALL auditor, said.
Pomona alumna and CALL auditor Julianne Flora-Tostado PO ‘76 said she was excited to return to her alma mater for the course “Death, Dying, and the Afterlife in East Asian Religions,” where she can share her experiences and engage with current students.
“As someone who got their degree at Pomona 50 years ago, it’s interesting to hear different perspectives too,” Flora-Tostado said. “We have a lot of lessons we’ve learned over the course of our lives.”
Facebook Comments