September 3, 2024 // Diocese

Fifty Years of Forever Learning: Classes from Coding to Crafting

Kasia Balsbaugh

When his wife passed away unexpectedly two weeks into his retirement, William Gilroy knew he had to do something to cope with the grief. After seeing a course catalog for the Forever Learning Institute, Gilroy signed up to take some classes. Five years later, Gilroy now teaches on average two classes a semester for the program, usually on history of the American West or the history of the local Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Gilroy is one of 120 volunteer teachers who offer classes for seniors with the Forever Learning Institute. The institute was founded in South Bend by Holy Cross Father Louis Putz in 1974. Father Putz’s vision for a school and community for seniors began with 115 students and has grown to 1,700 students as it celebrates its 50th year.

The Forever Learning Institute’s current Executive Director, Eve Finnessy, has been overseeing the program’s “exponential” growth for almost eight years. Now, the program not only offers classes from sign language to choir to theology, but it also offers opportunities outside the classroom, from international travel to tours of local museums and book signings. Forever Learning also just hosted a 50-year anniversary gala on Thursday, August 22, complete with performances from the program’s musical groups. “Anything we can think of, we do,” Finnessy said.

Coming from her previous position as a catechist at St. Pius X Church in Granger, Finnessy is the institute’s only full-time paid employee. She credits much of the institute’s success to its volunteer-run classes and volunteer board, calling the institute a “service organization” at heart. This echoes Father Putz’s view of the senior years as “the age of returning” – giving back to family, the community, to each other.

“He felt that seniors had a lot more to offer than was recognized,” Finnessy said. Pointing out how many seniors do volunteer work in their communities, she added, “Senior folks frequently retire to do.”

Finnessy called the friendships formed in the program another of its secrets to success. Not all the events are planned by the institute but by its students, casually. For instance, several men from a chess class continued playing chess once a week at the local library, while members of a French language class met throughout the summer to make French food and practice speaking the language together.

Gilroy has seen this “camaraderie” in the classes he’s taught for Forever Learning.

“They’re so supportive of each other,” Gilroy said of his students. “We live in a disputatious society. … We do have vigorous discussions, but there’s a respect to it, a willingness to listen and consider different viewpoints, which is kind of an oasis after what you see every day in the news.”

A former history professor at the University of Scranton before working in public relations at the University of Notre Dame, Gilroy also appreciates what he called “the purity of the learning” in the Forever Learning Institute. Classes have no homework, tests, or grades.

“They’re serious, committed students just for the love of learning,” Gilroy said of the seniors in his classes. He added: “I love undergraduates, but you’re always dealing with, ‘My parents will kill me if I don’t get a good grade,’ ‘I won’t get into medical school,’ ‘I won’t get into law school.’”

Of his senior students, Gilroy said: “Almost all of them who come in want to experience history. … Either they had to take history courses where they had to memorize names, dates, places, and found it boring, and they want to see if it’s different, or the people who’ve taken courses and read extensively and just want to expand on that knowledge that they already have.”

Gilroy said he usually begins classes assuming no prior knowledge, and then “students who know more, have experienced more, will ask questions that lead us into deeper, more detail about the courses.”

Frederick Greiner began taking classes with Forever Learning on his wife’s recommendation. Literature is a particular favorite of his. He reads six or seven books a semester with the courses he takes.

“I’m trying to catch up with things I should have read years ago and never did,” Greiner said. One class he is looking forward to this semester will read Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” alongside Percival Everett’s recent novel “James,” a reimagining of the story from the slave Jim’s perspective.

Greiner’s wife, Margaret Whitmer, also said she didn’t have as much time for needlework until she decided to begin teaching it for Forever Learning.

“I wanted to get it out there to see if anyone liked it,” Whitmer said. She loved it and ended up teaching the class for several years. She called her project-based class for adults “a whole different ball game entirely” from her 43 years as an elementary school teacher.

Most classes with the Forever Learning Institute take place in the parish center of St. Thérèse, Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend. Classes run during the day, and the parish uses the space at night. Finnessy is especially grateful for the “strong partnership” of parish and institute because of Indiana’s lack of funding for a senior community center anywhere in St. Joseph County.

Gilroy echoed the institute’s important place in the community.

“Forever Learning fulfills such a critical role in the lives of seniors, because there’s lots of research that shows loneliness and isolation is such a tremendous problem amongst seniors,” Gilroy said. “The fact that they can come together with this community of learning that’s so supportive and welcoming, it gives them a sense of connection.”

Both Greiner and Whitmer highly encourage seniors to try out classes, which are only $55 each per semester, with scholarships available.

“I’ve told a lot of my friends who I know can’t afford it, go for the scholarship,” Whitmer said. “This is too wonderful an experience not to try it.”