USF Sarasota-Manatee’s Senior Academy updates name and approach, prior to moving into new regional campus

 

 

SARASOTA, FL (July 19, 2006) – The Senior Academy at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee is getting a facelift with a new name and attitude, as the move to the new USF regional campus nears.

 

The Senior Academy’s name will be changed to the USF Academy of Lifelong Learning (USF-ALL) to better fit the current needs of the program and its target audience.  Previously, the program had an age limit of 50 and up, but now the age limit will be dropped and the program opened to all ages.

 

“The name ‘Senior Academy’ may no longer apply,” said Jerry Meketon, director of the newly renamed entity.  “More and more people of all ages want to take classes not for credit, but because they are interested in learning in a college environment simply for the joy of learning.”

 

Registration for the Fall 2006 semester at USF-ALL is now open, and the course catalog will be released during the first week of August for a semester start date of October 9.  Meketon hopes that the new name and the removal of an age limit can attract a wider range of students to the Academy for the fall 2006 semester and beyond.

 

“We are enormously enthusiastic about this,” said Lois Seiden, vice chairperson of the Board of Overseers for the USF Academy of Lifelong Learning.  “This says to the community that our program is not just for ‘old people’ but to adults of all ages who have a desire to broaden their minds.  All research shows that mature adults don’t like to be called ‘seniors’.  This expands our audience and our way of thinking.”

 

The USF Academy of Lifelong Learning at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee is a continuing, non-credit education program for adults, designed to stimulate members to pursue a broad spectrum of intellectual interests; to foster a lifelong commitment to learning in an atmosphere that supports a social as well as an intellectual bond.

 

The new USF Sarasota-Manatee campus will be a three-story, 108,000-square-foot facility with 24 classrooms. It also includes a 190-seat lecture/exhibition hall, seminar and video-conferencing rooms, computer labs, a planned childcare center, student gathering places, faculty and staff offices, a technology and learning center, dining facilities, and training facilities for the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

 

The new campus is located on US 41 across from the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, just north of USF Sarasota-Manatee’s current campus location – which has been shared with New College of Florida for 31 years.

 

For more information or to request a catalog, call (941) 359-4296 or visit www.sarasota.usf.edu/academy.

 

Photo caption: Members of the Academy of Lifelong Learning at USF Sarasota-Manatee attend a lecture at the college. The program has changed its name from “Senior Academy” and dropped the age requirement in order to appeal to adults of all ages.