Hooray for OLLI Day
August 20, 2024
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Siblings Margaret Renkl and Billy Renkl attended Auburn in the 1980s, with Margaret graduating in 1984 and Billy in 1985.
The founder of OLLI at Auburn, Mary Burkhart, right, has enjoyed making friends with people like Francine Marasco from OLLI at University of Alabama.
Associate Provost Royrickers Cook, vice president of University Outreach, greeted chapters from around the state at OLLI Day.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Auburn University hosted its annual Alabama OLLI Day celebration at the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center on Aug. 7, welcoming back Auburn alumni Margaret and Billy Renkl to the Plains as speakers.
Margaret Renkl, award-winning author and opinion writer for The New York Times, read from her novel “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” a collection of essays following the seasons of the year beginning with the winter solstice. The book received the 2024 Southern Book Prize, which Renkl has won twice, and was on the Barnes & Noble Best Books list for 2023.
Margaret’s brother Billy Renkl, artist, educator and the illustrator of his sister’s latest novel, joined her to discuss their literary partnership, their experiences as students on campus and life after graduation. Featured in galleries throughout the South, including Marguerite Ostreicher Fine Arts in New Orleans, Louisiana, The Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee and Auburn’s own Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Billy currently has artwork on display at Biggin Hall, a solo exhibition titled “The World is on its way to you always.”
“To me, being here feels like coming home,” Margaret said. “It’s like a family reunion, even with people I haven’t ever met before, because of the common ground — the shared experiences bond us.”
The two siblings attended Auburn in the 1980s, with Margaret graduating in 1984 and Billy in 1985. While here, they worked together on the Auburn Circle staff, neither realizing at the time that experience would foretell a future of further collaboration.
“Auburn is where I turned into myself,” Billy said. “So, to be back here — in the building where that happened, teaching in the classroom I took a class in my first semester — it’s such a moving experience for me.”
The event was attended by visitors from across the state, including OLLI chapters from the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Huntsville and OLLI at Auburn’s satellite campus at Auburn University at Montgomery. Members from each chapter were recognized for their dedication to the program and for facilitating the growth and advancement of OLLI for the sake of everyone who relies on it, including Mary Burkhart, the founder of the Auburn OLLI chapter.
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“I can’t tell you how many people have told me, ‘OLLI saved my life,’” Burkhart said. “People that have lost spouses and loved ones, feeling as if they had no one anymore — they’d say, ‘[They] were all I had and I didn’t know what I would do without them, but [through OLLI] I found friends.’
“It's about having an extended community — not just taking classes but meeting people, making connections and gaining a family. I’ve met people through OLLI that I consider family.”
OLLI Day, which was made possible by University Outreach, the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Alice M. Leahy Memorial Endowment Fund for Excellence, was first hosted in 2020 to celebrate the resilience of OLLI chapters throughout Alabama and their ongoing collaboration to enhance the quality of life for older adults. This year, the program has served more than 500 people in the Auburn area, offering more than 200 classes, 30 public lectures and 20 socials and field trips.
OLLI at Auburn emphasizes lifelong learning and the vitality of remaining active and engaged members of one’s community. By providing stimulating opportunities and encouraging its members to live well-rounded and holistic lives, OLLI continues to serve the older population, maintaining a name for itself as a space dedicated to the retired community.
“OLLI makes our lives better,” Burkhart said. “Taking classes you thought were interesting or maybe classes you never even thought of taking, then meeting people that share those interests and growing closer with them — it’s fulfilling.”
