Today I spent the afternoon with an older generation.
Elon hosts a program called LIFE@ELON in Johnston Hall Alumni Center that offers seminars to community members who are over 50 years old.
I have to say, the seminar was not what I expected. I envisioned a stuffy room full of 20 people politely listening to some professor’s lecture. However, what I found were around 60 engaged individuals. The speaker was Professor Rebecca Todd Peters, the Chair of Religious Studies Department here at Elon. Her talk was about the economic crisis in the United States paired with the crisis of values in this country.
Instead of an unengaged audience, I found them to be inquisitive and alert. They may have had more grey in their hair and more laugh lines on their faces, but they were certainly more engaged than me and my classmates were at our 8 a.m. this morning.
Professor Peters gave a statistic that said Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion on pet food every year. She asked the audience if they thought we should cut back.
One audience member whispered to the man next to her, “Well, we’d have a lot of dead pets if we did.”
Audience members felt free to chime in when they disagreed with something the presenter said. They made intelligent contributions. They were curious and inquiring and didn’t simply take what the presenter told them as the truth.
Afterwards I spoke with an audience member named Joyce Peterson. Her husband taught business at Elon for 15 years and serves as an adviser for Elon’s Lambda Chi Alpha chapter. Peterson wore a festive red fuzzy sweater for Valentine’s Day. She was the cheeriest person I talked to all day.
“I think it’s wonderful to always be learning new things and not to become stagnant,” Peterson said.
I gained a little perspective from spending my afternoon at the alumni center. I tend to forget that I chose to be here and sometimes see my work as more of a chore than a choice. The people at LIFE@ELON were grateful to be learning and I think I could take a cue from them.