Lee James Ray lives in Wilson Apartments in Muncie. He has been burdened by heart disease, diabetes and was not disciplined when it came to medications, making many of his physical health problems even worse. The man was lonely, depressed and not at all physically active.
But in the spring of 2008 Ray was partnered with graduate student Rahul Padmanabhan for the Guided Life Review course with the Fishers Institute of Wellness and Gerontology. In this course, graduate students are paired with an older adult in the area. They spend the semester interacting with him or her and getting to know the person. It's all about getting the adult to open up to the student, revealing story after story, life lesson after life lesson. Then, at the end of the semester, students write a biography for the individual he or she spent the semester with and gives it to them.
Padmanabhan got to know Ray and worked with him, learning about his life story. He even restored some pictures of Ray's parents for him using Photoshop.
All this work with the Institute is done through the Community Center for Vital Aging. The program was started in 2001 and works to get students involved in the community and assists older adults in Muncie with getting up and moving.
"The mission really is to provide programming and outreach to people 50 and older in the greater Muncie area," said Kathy Segrist, interim director and gerontology program director at the Fishers Institute of Wellness and Gerontology.
More than that, though, the program works to improve the overall wellness of older adults in the community.
"Our official mission is that we promote wellness throughout the lifespan and that we do life-long learning," Elton said.
The CCVA is an extension of Ball State's Fishers Institute of Wellness and Gerontology, and all graduate students in the program are involved in the CCVA. Within the program, there are four different teams of the graduate students. One team is responsible for marketing. The outreach team travels throughout the Muncie community to provide various programs for older individuals. The programming team designs the programs for each semester. The computer team holds computer classes for older individuals, teaching them how to e-mail and use simple computer programs.
The program is not limited to graduate students of gerontology. Anyone on campus can participate. The program has seen a multitude of disciplines volunteer and has also hired a number of interns from other departments, including journalism and social work. One way the CCVA involves different students is through their A Taste Of program. The CCVA brings in international students to give a presentation about their cultures and bring in traditional dishes from their home countries.
"The international students add a gem to what we do," Elton said.
Not only do international students from outside the program participate in this activity, but international students also make up a large portion of the graduate students in the gerontology program itself. There is a wide range of ethnicities represented in the program, including students from Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, China and Japan.
"They're seeing the aging in their countries and they want to come over here to study gerontology, what we're doing in gerontology," Segrist said.
Older people are viewed differently in other countries, and facilities available in the United States, such as nursing homes and senior centers, don't exist in other countries around the world.
"Outside of the United States, older people are revered. They are (people) to be valued in other cultures," Elton said.
A large part of the draw for students like Padmanabhan is the embodiment of Ball State's Immersive Learning objective.
"It exposes the students to the best immersive learning experience, in my opinion, anywhere on campus," Elton said.
The objective is to interact with the target population, which consists of those 50 and over. And the Guided Life Review course is a great example of this.
"It's not like we do a project once in the course," Padmanabhan said. "Most of the course, we had to interact with an older adult. And we are evaluated by the changes or responses we get from that older adult."
The CCVA also focuses on getting information out to the older population. Information is powerful, Padmanabhan said, and health programs and talks help present necessary information to the older population of Muncie. The goal is to show these individuals how to live better lives.
"We always focus everything we have in our program on the seven dimensions of wellness," Segrist said. "So we focus on wellness, not the decline of aging, but how people can maximize their aging experience."
The CCVA outreach team does this by traveling around Muncie. On Fridays, students go to various places, including Wilson Apartments, Golden Living and Ashgrove Crossing, to interact with and run programs for older adults in the community who can't go anywhere on their own.
"We want to go to people who either don't come out or can't come out based on where they live," Segrist said.
It's unlike any other program offered in the United States, and according to Elton, is really special for Ball State.
"We offer a very unique, hands-on experience for the entire duration of being a grad student," Elton said. "Even in class, there are probably more outside speakers and more opportunities to interact with older adults," Elton said.
The programs' size continues to increase. In 2003, the CCVA held 11 programs a semester and a 435-person mailing list. Now, the CCVA holds 58 different programs and has 2,400 people on its mailing list.
"I just see us getting bigger and expanding further and further," Elton said. She hopes to see national recognition for the program in the near future.
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