Gore speaks via satellite

By Laura Pelner
Campus Editor

In the last 100 years a person's average life span has increased by 30 years, which former vice president Al Gore said is "astonishing."

Gore, who's a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, spoke to a group of 30 universities Monday night via live satellite about families and the need for intergenerational relationships, especially as so many different generations coexist. Purdue's gerontology program sponsored the link between Purdue and Gore's class.

"I think this was an exciting opportunity to get some insight into ways to build community," said Janet Wilmoth, assistant professor of sociology.

Wilmoth said the topics discussed during the two-hour lecture were relevant to a course she teaches on gerontology — Sociology 591A, "Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Aging." She said the class talks about many different age-related issues.

"Many of the topics (Gore and the panelists) talked about are also talked about in courses at Purdue," Wilmoth said, including demographic changes in the elderly population and different caregiving options.

There was only a handful of people at the lecture and Wilmoth said most of them were getting a minor in gerontology. She said that for those students the presentation was a great experience.

Gore and two others spoke during the lecture — Fernando Torres-Gil, associate dean for academic affairs at UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research, and Brenda Krause Eheart, executive director of Generations of Hope, a non-profit corporation for improving the lives of children through adoption and the establishment of intergenerational communities.

"There's been a demographic shift within the elderly," Gore said. "It's amazing how many healthy, vibrant Americans over 85 there are. It's as if we added a new age to the human life span; it's a new day."

Gore said, though, that as the elderly population increases so does the isolation among the elderly and their respective families and communities. He said people should redefine their attitude toward the elderly to further include them in society, which Torres-Gil reiterated.

"Our concerns about the elderly reaffirms our need to reconnect families and communities," Torres-Gil said.

Eheart added that the relationship between the elderly and the young is an invaluable one for both groups. "Seniors have a gift I wish I had — the gift of time," Eheart said. "They need a purpose to get up in the morning and when they have it they give and give and give."

Before and after the lecture Gore and his colleagues accepted questions. Kathleen Kisselburgh, a senior in the School of Liberal Arts, phoned one in to Gore and Eheart about people with disabilities. Gore also received calls from someone at Indiana University and Manchester College in northern Indiana.

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Campus editor: Laura Pelner

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