Member Spotlights

I attended OLLI at UNLV classes for about two years before I began instructing mathematics classes.

Students, Volunteers, Committee Members, Instructors

Members since 2018

“So you know, the bottom line is OLLI is a fundamental part of our life, you know, when people ask us, ‘Well, what do you do with your time? I think the first thing that comes to mind is we're involved with OLLI. It's really a fundamental part of every week.

Following my career in community mental health and a post-retirement coda teaching over 150 college and university courses, the prospect of retiring was daunting. I wanted to keep on helping people and I hadn’t yet had my fill of teaching.

I first learned about OLLI from a friend in an organization that I volunteered with who is also from Hawaii like me, and I joined OLLI five years ago. Then two years later, we faced the pandemic, but we didn’t really miss a beat because we have the Zoom virtual learning.

Around five months after losing my wife, I was spending time at a senior center and my friend Dawn told me about OLLI. She said that I would really enjoy it, and she was absolutely right.

When I retired in 2017 and moved to Vegas to be near family, I didn’t know anyone. I started going to Meetup lunches and happened to meet someone who regularly attended OLLI.

I heard about OLLI at UNLV from my friend Steve. He and his wife and I have been friends for years, and he was taking classes here at OLLI. He told me about it and I said, sure. I began taking a class he was teaching and I really liked it and I started taking other classes and I've enjoyed it.

I discovered OLLI at a turning point in my life. After 3 years of caring for my husband of 50 years who passed away from ALS, I found myself with a lot of time and energy, and nothing to do with it.