Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at JHU Gets $1 Million Grant

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Johns Hopkins University has received a $1 million grant from its parent foundation.

The award comes from the Bernard Osher Foundation, which is based in San Francisco, Calif.

“This generous grant from the Osher Foundation will make it possible for the Osher at JHU program to meet growing community needs, to explore new possibilities and to continue to recruit outstanding lecturers and faculty,” said Mary Kay Shartle Galotto, the director of Osher at JHU.

Osher offers courses, lectures and learning opportunities for semi-retired and retired individuals in Montgomery County, Baltimore and Columbia. Osher has been very successful since coming to the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County campus, growing to more than 700 members and adding classes at Asbury Methodist Village, according to a press release from Johns Hopkins. An additional 400 people are on the waiting list. The program offers courses in a variety of subject areas, including urban planning, political science, literature, music and history.

The grant will allow Osher to explore additional area partnerships and locations to accommodate more students, Galotto said. The grant will also allow Osher to identify larger and better space for the Baltimore Osher program and to upgrade audio-visual technologies. Funds will be used to attract the “very best instructors,” Galotto said.

“The pioneering efforts and vision of the dedicated individuals who founded the program in 1986 established a standard of excellence and a model of active member involvement that have become hallmarks of the Institute,” Mary G.F. Bitterman, president of the Osher Foundation, said in the award letter. “We recognize that the Institute’s success represents the collective achievement of its excellent staff and dynamic community of intellectually vigorous members who give generously of their time, talent and financial resources.

“We applaud, too, the University’s leadership for its steadfast support of the program and for embracing the notion that – at its best – education is a lifelong pursuit that has the power to elevate, delight and forge our connection to one another and to a larger world,” Bitterman continued.

About Krista Brick

Krista Brick is a multi-media journalist with Montgomery Community Media.

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