Our Next Chapter:
Community Colleges and the Aging Baby Boomers

Reprinted from: League of Innovations Leadership Abstracts,
November 2004, 
Volume 17, Number 11

by Judy Goggin and Bernie Ronan

The baby boomers are the largest generation in American history. This generation born between 1946 and 1964 is twice as large in number as the generation that precedes it, and half again as large as the generation that follows it. Baby boomers have caused significant economic, political, and social changes – sometimes bordering on revolutions – as they have moved through the demographic pipeline of American life. And now they are starting to retire, which will have dramatic implications for community colleges, as it will for the rest of society.

The aging of the baby boomers embodies, above all, unparalleled opportunities. The relative health, wealth, and skill of this generation mean nothing less than the emergence of a new stage of life beyond middle age. This as-yet-unnamed stage – call it the next chapter – is taking shape between the end of primary careers and childrearing and the onset of true old age. Because this new stage of life is likely to span several decades and will be characterized by general good health and an active, engaged lifestyle, adults entering this uncharted territory are finding little in the way of guidance and appealing opportunities for shaping these bonus years. And community colleges, which have throughout their history typified themselves as resourceful and adaptive to new educational opportunities, are better suited than perhaps any other American institution to respond to this new stage of life for Americans.

Civic Ventures, a national nonprofit organization that works to expand the contributions of older Americans to society, began work in 2001 on a project originally called Life Options and recently renamed The Next Chapter. The initiative calls for community organizations to develop a new set of approaches that enable postmidlife adults to clarify their vision, then develop a practical plan of action that includes civic engagement. Civic Ventures, together with other partners, developed a blueprint for organizations interested in the idea, a description of which is available on the organization's website at www.civicventures.org.

Next-chapter or life-options programming to respond to the educational and social needs of aging baby boomers is under development at several colleges around the country. Such programs are designed to help adults approaching the traditional age of retirement to make a successful transition to the next phase of their lives. The core components of these programs include

• Life planning assistance,

• Meaningful engagement opportunities through employment and service,

• Continued learning for new directions, and

• Peer and community connections.

Central Florida Community College (CFCC) in Ocala recently hosted a conference to help communities develop Next Chapter centers. The conference focused on the special features of the Pathways program, which includes a life-planning element that trains peer life coaches to assist other adults entering retirement as they think through their dreams and their options. Life planning is the entry point to the CFCC program, and the conference focused considerable attention on whom to recruit as life coaches and the training these individuals might need to assist their peers in assessing how they want to spend the next chapter of their lives. CFCC developed its program through a public-private partnership model that included a regional medical center, a local newspaper, and a retirement community.

Mesa Community College (MCC), with the assistance of the Maricopa Community College's Center for Civic Participation, is offering civic engagement opportunities to boomers which include a mix of café discussion sessions, more formal issues forums, voter education, and community service activities. The Center for Civic Participation helped to lay the groundwork for this program development by working with the Leadership Center of Yavapai College, under the auspices of the Arizona Community College Association, to convene community forums on The Coming of Age. These forums brought groups of citizens together in a National Issues Forum framework to deliberate about the challenges and opportunities for Arizona's aging population.

In addition, MCC and other Maricopa Colleges are being assisted in developing Next Chapter initiatives through grants from the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. To lay the groundwork, the foundation partnered with two national organizations, Civic Ventures and Libraries for the Future. The two organizations convened the Maricopa County Commission on Productive Aging, a broad-based planning process to raise awareness of the aging demographics and inherent opportunities. The commission's recommendations challenged libraries, colleges, and other community partners to think creatively about how to serve the needs of aging boomers.

Foundations are providing the catalyst in other communities. Cuyahoga Community College (CCC) received a two-year grant from The Cleveland Foundation to develop its Pathways program, a Lifelong Learning and Development Center based on the Next Chapter concept developed by Civic Ventures. The program links self-assessment and life planning with civic engagement and learning opportunities to retool for new careers. While the CCC program model is spearheaded by the Center for Applied Gerontology, the components of the concept are each delivered by teams of both internal collaborators such as the counseling and career centers and external partners such as local community centers, the Visiting Nurse Association, and the city's Department of Aging. CCC's program challenges each individual participant to "write your own definition of retirement, determine what you need to make it happen, and link up with organizations that can utilize your unique talents, skills, and experience."

One theme common to these innovative programs is that they are not modeled on traditional seniors programs, the type currently offered by community colleges nationwide. The new focus of these programs is based on market research and opinion surveys of this population that clearly indicate baby boomers are not attracted to the retirement options that have traditionally been made available for aging adults.

Community colleges must radically rethink their seniors programs if they wish to reach out to and serve aging baby boomers. Traditional volunteer opportunities offered to seniors represent one example of this change in approach. Research into adult development and recent opinion surveys conducted by Civic Ventures point clearly to a desire on the part of postmidlife adults for meaningful engagement opportunities. They want to combine passion and purpose in a way that offers them continued growth and learning. What these active adults are looking for are flexible schedules, creative compensation plans, and work – whether paid or unpaid – that uses their talent, experience, and skills. In short, they don't plan to pursue the traditional model: formal retirement followed by the pursuit of a full-time leisure lifestyle. They are more likely to seek a mix of activities including project-driven civic engagement. This shift will result in a blurring of the boundaries between unpaid service and compensated work.

In the community college setting, traditional student services models will likely leave this population wanting something different. We can expect new retirees to fiercely protect their newfound freedom and flexibility while they learn and contribute on their own terms. They will want and need guidance, resources, and pathways to new opportunities, many of which will require additional learning or credentials. And many of these baby boomers will need to continue working at some level in order to supplement their retirement income. We can expect them to pursue a mix of volunteer activity and paid employment. They will be looking for customized programs for re-careering rather than our college's traditional occupational programs.

Colleges can do a number of things to address the educational needs of this cohort and to leverage this enormous resource for community contributions.

• Develop a clear understanding that this new student cohort has explicit desires and expectations.

• Conduct an audit of existing programs and services with the characteristics and goals of this group in mind.

• Develop new programs and services based on the expressed desires of adults at this life stage.

• Adapt existing service learning, leadership training, and workforce development models to the needs and interests of postmidlife adults.

• Create a simple and specific access point for existing and new programs that will appropriately serve this group.

• Partner with other community organizations such as libraries, community centers, other community-based organizations, and government agencies to build a collaborative network for life planning, meaningful engagement, continued learning, and community connections.

• Partner with and educate the workplace and the nonprofit sector about the ways they will need to change to take best advantage of the contributions these experienced adults can make.

Because of their distinctive mission, community colleges have been adept over their history in adapting to and capitalizing on changing demographics and emerging social trends. The aging of the baby boomers should be no exception. Think of what it could mean for credit and noncredit enrollment if our colleges tap into even a modest percentage of this huge cohort with innovative instructional offerings and training programs. Life planning looms as a new occupational field, given the size of this age group and their diverse needs. Colleges can be at the forefront of developing certification for life-planning coaches and instructors helping to professionalize this fast-growing field. And finally, the tradition of political activism and civic participation that characterizes this generation weaned on the Great Society and the civil rights, women's, and antiwar movements offers rich potential for community colleges to garner political support for legislative agendas and capital campaigns. To accomplish this, we need to turn the baby boomers' next chapter into our next chapter as change agents who respond creatively to our communities' needs.

Judy Goggin is Senior Vice President of Civic Ventures. Bernie Ronan is the Director of the Maricopa Community Colleges' Center for Civic Participation.