Promoting age-friendly organizational culture through lifelong learning programs in higher education: experience and insights from faculty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research has identified the benefits and challenges of creating multigenerational classrooms for the purpose of intergenerational learning in higher education. However, much less has been written about the systems of support needed at the organizational level to promote intergenerational learning within lifelong learning initiatives as a key component of their multigenerational engagement strategies. This paper analyzes the development of a college’s lifelong learning auditing initiative along with narrative responses from faculty who participated in the program to offer insight into the formal and informal structures needed to develop and sustain a lifelong learning program. Results indicate limited faculty knowledge about the lifelong learning auditing program at the college. Many faculty who participated did not understand their own role in the program and offered suggestions to help address these issues within their narratives. For example, faculty recommended more formal structures to acknowledge the work of those faculty who participate in the program, and to engage more professors and older adults in the community to ensure program success. Ensuring continuous program evaluation has been key to this initiative. In order to embed cultural change toward a more age diverse and age-friendly university, formal structural change led from the top-down is as important, if not more important, as creating informal networks that start at the faculty level.