A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community .This is the first of a two-part series about the senior citizen’s education program at the University of the Virgin Islands.
As Alphonso LaBorde’s life opened, it was set to music.
“My memory begins that I was taking piano lessons,” he said. He doesn’t know exactly how old he was, but he can’t recall an earlier event.
As a boy he so wanted to learn to play the organ that he and a friend used to sneak into the Lutheran Church at odd hours and practice on the Hammond organ there.
But when he turned 16, silence descended. His father told him he couldn’t spend his time with music anymore. He had to study and prepare for a “real” career so he could earn a living.
“Remember now, this is 1955,” LaBorde said. “So essentially my father controlled my life… and these were the days when you were supposed to do practical things.”
The ban was long but, as it turns out, still only temporary. He never really stopped dabbling on the keyboard and for decades has been a stalwart voice in many choirs. Now in his 70s, Laborde is taking classes in music theory, piano and choir. Music theory is daunting, he says, but necessary if he’s going to fulfill his dream to compose music.
Like scores of others in the territory, he’s taking advantage of the Senior Citizen Education Program at the University of the Virgin Islands. Established by legislative Act 5358 in 1988, the program provides that residents who are 60 or older may take regularly scheduled UVI classes for free, with few restrictions.
To be eligible, you must be a V.I. resident for at least a year and you must have a senior citizens card issued by the Department of Human Services; like any other student you must meet prerequisites for the given course or courses you want to take, if there are any; and you have to wait to register for the class or classes until registration for regular students has closed. Seniors are admitted on a space available basis.
This semester, there are 42 seniors in the program on the St. Croix campus and 65 on St. Thomas, according to Francisca Barry, acting registrar. She could not say exactly when UVI started to implement the program, but it appeared for the first time in the university catalog in 1992, so it has been at least 22 years.
Most are non-matriculating students, that is, they are not formally enrolled at UVI, said Dr. Xuri Maurice Allen, director of Admissions and Recruitment. Many of those seniors take enrichment courses for personal fulfillment. Some only audit classes, but some take courses for credit. A few are actually enrolled and working toward a degree and those must meet more stringent entrance requirements.
Besides his administrative duties, for the last three years Allen has taught an in-depth orientation class required of all freshmen, including matriculating senior citizens.
“They have been a very welcome addition to my classroom,” he said. “Just their presence demonstrates that today there’s the need for life-long learning.”
Like LaBorde, some senior learners are trying to recover interests they had to set aside earlier.
Edith Ramsay-Johnson, retired professor of nursing at UVI, enjoyed a highly successful career in health and academia. But her love of music and her natural talent for it – perhaps inherited from her mother who had a superior singing voice – had to take a back seat. She had a crowded schedule her first time at college, she said. “Nursing didn’t offer much opportunity for electives.”
Now she’s taking applied music, piano, “not with any goal in mind other than learning,” she said. “It’s for my enlightenment … If one stops learning, you might as well not be here.”
At 77, former English teacher Elisa McKay teaches yoga three times a week, runs a small messenger service and is also a self-taught visual artist. Normally, she said, she works in fabric. She sells cards and prints at arts and crafts shows and regularly participates in exhibits on St. Croix. In the fall of 2013 she took a painting course with Cynthia Hatfield at UVI; this past spring, she took Hatfield’s drawing course.
“I’ve learned quite a few techniques,” she said. “It’s been real beneficial for me.”
McKay said the drawing class, which included working with a live model, especially intrigued her. “And what was so nice about it, I didn’t have to pay. No way I could have taken that class” otherwise.
Dorothy “Habiba” Evans, also a retired teacher, has taken four art classes at UVI: composition, painting I and painting II, and drawing.
“I’ve learned a lot about color,” she said, adding that she has been able to apply much of her new found knowledge and skill to her hobby of quilting.
“It’s a wonderful thing to look at yourself again,” she said. “You get a chance to move outside of yourself … You run into people (in class) who are overjoyed to be there.”
It’s an experience she couldn’t have afforded on her own, Evans said.
“I wouldn’t pay $500. That’s a lot of money for something you don’t really need,” she said.
Explaining his return to school, senior learner Williams Bowles said, “It’s the time of your life when you explore interests.” He took a drawing course in 2012 and said he’s looking forward to taking a video photography course. He’d be in it now, but he lives on St. Croix and this semester it’s being offered only on St. Thomas, he clarified.
Anthony Rodrigues took a basic computer course conducted as community outreach by the university’s Cooperative Extension Service. When he decided he wanted to learn more, the teacher, Marthious Clavier, suggested he check out the introductory course that Clavier teaches at UVI, and Rodrigues signed up for that too.
“I just take it for fun,” he said. “I’m retired and I’m enjoying retirement.”
That seems to be the prevailing sentiment, but a few over-60s are taking courses at UVI with career goals in mind.
Michael Sentz is attending full-time, living in the dorm on the St. Thomas campus and picking up on college studies he abandoned in the early 1980s. He’s studying communications, particularly radio.
“I want to gain enough knowledge so I can move back to Florida and find a small radio station that I can work with,” he said. That way, he’ll be near his granddaughter.
(Next week: the challenges and the advantages of late learning; the mix of traditional and senior citizen students.)
