In the past several years, a promising new field of research that analyzes aging at the cellular level has begun to decipher the life-timing role potentially played by DNA strips at the ends of chromosomes. For this brave new old world, Ellen Langer, professor of psychology and member of the Harvard medical faculty's division on aging, offers an encouraging perspective on mental function during life's later years. 47. stereotypes used to depict older people and shows how, from youth to old age, people progressively apply these stereotypes to themselves with debilitating results, both physical and mental. Her group experiments have shown that staging a personal and social revolution against these mind-sets can dramatically invigorate both mind and body at a time in life when it is presumed that growth and development are arrested or in decline. The curriculum is not imposed by the academic establishment from the top down, but rather formulated by the member-consumers from the bottom up.
Many topics are one-time offerings, but some continue for years.
The record is held by the creative-writing group that Betty Hodges '31 has offered every term for the last 20 years. At age 88 she has recently acquired a computer and modem and is eager to explore cyberspace. The spring 1997 curriculum presents a variety of study-group topics, including languages, literature, history, philosophy, politics, economics, music appreciation, and science, along with such practical subjects as public speaking and the use of computers for writing, research, and communication. Readings range from Aeschylus's Agamemnon to today's newspaper. That the program allows and even encourages this is one of the unique aspects of the third-age learning experience.