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Retirees To Teach, Learn in New Institute
The Edna McConnell Clark
Foundation of New York City has
awarded a three-year $95,000 grant to
E>uke to help establish an Institute
for Retired Persons.
Annduncement of the grant came
from Dr. George L. Maddox, director
of the Center for the Study of Aging
and Human Development, and Dr.
Jean O'Barr, director of the Office of
Continuing Education. .
The institute, which will be
formally dedicated in May during
Senior Citizens' Month and is
scheduled to open in July, wiU be an
association of retired or partially
retired persons over the age of 50
with a common interest in
education, according to Maddox.
Institute members will design and
administer their own activities
which will include courses, field
trips, discussion groups, peer
counseling and commvmity service
oriented programs. One of the few
requirements for becoming a
member, Maddox said, is that
individuals agree to teach a course or
lead an activity in which they have
some expertise.
“Students in the 1960s complained
that education tended to be a
one-way street," the sociologist said.
"There was- no exchange, and you
either had to be a teacher or a learner.
“In the program we have
envisioned, a person must be
prepared to give as well as receive in
the learning process, and because
there won't be any paid professors.
Spach Named Duke Professor
Dr. Madison S. Spach, professor of
pediatrics, is one of three faculty
members appointed to James B.
Duke Professorships, the
imiversity's highest academic honor.
The others are Dr. James David
Barber, professor of political science,
and Reynolds . Price, well-known
author and professor of English.
They were honored at a dinner on
the campus last week, along with
others who hold distinguished
chairs at the university. Their
appointment brings to 50 the
number holding James B. Duke
Professorships, including 18 emeriti
professors and three who will retire
Aug. 31.
Spach is a specialist in heart
diseases among infants and young
children. He is chief of the Division
of Pediatric Cardiology in the
Department of Pediatrics and in
recent yecirs has played a key role in
developing new techniques for
mapping the electrical activity of the
heart.
Spach is the author of more than
DR. MADISON S. SPACH
100 articles in professional medical
journals. He is a past president of the
North Carolina Heart Association
and holds membership in numerous
research and professional societies.
A native of Winston-Salem, he is a
Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke
and also attended Duke Medical
School. He took.both his internship
and residency training here and was
appointed to the faculty in 1957.
the cost to members will be low,
perhaps $100 a year."
Self-Supporting
Maddox said the Clark Foundation
grant will lend administrative
support and continuity to the
institute during its early years. As
more retirees begin participating,
the program will be supported
entirely by its members.
In the plaiming stages since 1975,
the institute will/be a division of the
Center for Lifetime Learning, a joint
effort of the Center for the Study of
Aging and the Office of Continuing
Education. It will be located in a
white wooden building that was
once the home of the dean of Trinity
College behind the library on East
Campus.
"The establishment of the institute
represents a very important
development for Duke University
and its surrounding community,"
Maddox said. "It reflects the growing
awareness in this country that
education should be thought of as a
lifetime affair and not just an activity
for children and young people."
Lifetime Education
The sociologist said continuing
education was once believed to be "a
second-rate activity that some
colleges and universities did for
those people who weren't really
scholars."
Along with the realization that
professionals like doctors and
engineers need to keep up with the
rapidly changing technology, also
came the notion that limiting
education to the young "runs
counter to our sense of fairness in
this society," Maddox said.
"More and more older people are
coming to late life in better health,
with better educations and with
more adequate financial resources,"
he pointed out. "Many of these
people have discovered that learning
is an excellent way to spend their
leisure time, but only recently have
universities begun to respond to
Promotions Co To Five Medical Center Faculty
Five promotions in two medical
center departments have been
announced by Frederic N.
Cleaveland, university provost.
Dr. Jesse Oscar Cavenar has been
promoted from assistant professor to
associate professor of psychiatry,
and Dr. William N. Grosch, associate
in psychiatry, will become assistant
professor on May 1.
Promoted to assistant professors of
obstetrics and gynecology are Drs.
Herbert J. Schmidt, Gary Wayne
Sheldon and Selman Irvin Welt,
former associates in the department.
Cavenar earned a B.S. and M.D. in
1963 from the University of
Arkansas, in his home state.
He completed an internship and
residency in surgery while serving in
the U.S. Navy, 1963-68, and served
his psychiatric residency at N.C.
Memorial Hospital, where he was
chief resident in 1971.
Certified by the UNC-Duke
University Psychoanalytical
Institute in 1975, Cavenar is head of
outpatient psychiatry services at
Duke and chief of Psychiatry Service
at Durham’s VA Hospital.
He joined the Department of
Psychiatry here in 1971 as an
associate.
Grosch came to Duke in 1970 as a
psychiatric resident and earned a
Master of Divinity degree at Duke in
1974.
He holds a B.S. degree from
Albright College, Reading, Pa., and
earned an M.D. from Albany
Medical College in 1970.
Grosch is a staff psychiatrist in the
VA Hospital.
Schmidt graduated from the
University of Missouri in 1955,
earned his M.D. degree there in 1959
and completed his internship and
residency in obstetrics and
gynecology there in 1963.
He served in the U.S. Air Force,
l%3-65, and was in private practice
before coming to Duke as a faculty
fellow in Gynecologic Oncology in
1975.
Also from Missouri, Sheldon is a
1967 graduate of St. Louis
University, where he received his
M.D. degree in 1971. His residency
there included rotations in Colorado
and Los Angeles hospitals.
Welt was awarded a B.S. degree by
The College of William and Mary in
1968, and an M.D. by the UNC
School of Medicine, 1972.
His obstetrics and gynecology
residency was completed at Bames
Hospital in St. Louis, where he was
chief resident, 1974-75. —
Welt came to Duke ift 1975 as
Fellow in Fetal Maternal Medicine.
His wife. Dr. Ann Groce, is a chief
resident in the Department of
Anesthesiology.
their educational needs."
Extensions of University
The institute and the Center for
Lifetime Learning which admits all
ages to short courses and conferences
are not to be in competition with the
university, Maddox said. Rather,
they are "logical extensions of it."
Jane Monroe, associate director of
continuing education, said the
membership goal for the institute'*s
first year will be 70 persons. Within
three years, she said that number
should increase to approximately
300.
"The New School for Social
Research in New York City, where
the first institute for retired persons
was founded 16 years ago, now has
800 members and a long waiting
list," she said. "Currently, there are
about a half dozen of the centers
located at universities across the
United States."
Degree Not Required
Monroe, who has been working
with an organizing committee of the
institute's first members, said retired
business executives, physicians,
lawyers and teachers have all
expressed interest in the learning
venture, but a college degree is not a
requirement for joining.
"All we ask is that a person have
some knowledge or experience that
he or she is willing to share with
others and that members make a
commitment to take some sort of
active leadership role," she said.
Persons most suited for the
institute are those who read a lot,
continue to leam all their lives and
want to share their talents for
personal and social good, she added.
More TV Coverage
Dr. William W. Shingleton,
professor of surgery and director of
the Comprehensive Cancer Center,
will answer questions about cancer
asked by UNC President William
Friday on the UNC Television
Network this Sunday, May 1, at 6
p.m. The program will be
rebroadcast Tuesday, May 3, at 7:30
p.m.
WUNC-TV (Channel 4) will carry
the interview in the Durham —
Chapel Hill area.
HOW NICE TO SEE YOU—Or. Lillian Blackmon (right), unit physician for the
Intensive Care Nursery, and other staff members had a chance to see the results of
their efforts in the happy, healthy children who attended the ICN reunion.