UI Senior College lets older students pursue passions, explore topics deferred during careers

This story first appeared in Prestige - May 2025, a biannual special section distributed in The Gazette dedicated to Iowans 55+.

For retired University of Iowa English professor Miriam Gilbert, being able to teach courses at the UI’s Senior College has allowed her the satisfaction of continuing her life’s work.

“There’s nothing quite so much fun as talking about Shakespeare with adults, with grownups who have life experience, who understand things, who make comments that show that life experience,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert has been teaching at Senior College for more than 20 years. Senior College began in 2002 when a group of retired UI professors wanted to provide educational opportunities for seniors in the Iowa City community. The program offers 10-14 courses each semester, taught by emeritus and current UI faculty members as well as experts from the community. The classes typically meet for four two-hour sessions, either on Zoom or in person, at locations around the Iowa City area.

While some things have changed over the years — the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated incorporating Zoom, a practice that has continued to be offered for some classes — the price hasn’t: each course has remained just $30.

Emil Rinderspacher, chair of the 15-person volunteer Senior College Committee, said the program has grown to include more than 1,000 students every semester. The committee chooses the courses and schedules the locations. While Senior College started off holding classes on UI’s campus, a number of issues made that difficult, including parking and space availability.

Using larger venues such as the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, which seats 480 and has underground parking, has allowed them to increase class sizes. So has incorporating Zoom.

“Zoom kind of transformed our offerings,” Rinderspacher said.

Senior College worked with a task force at the university during the pandemic in 2020 to learn Zoom, how to set up meetings, and how to educate the students about it. Five years later, at least five classes each semester are offered via Zoom.

“Zoom is so popular, you can imagine, because it reached a lot of local people who were place-bound,” Rinderspacher said. “It also allowed us to reach out to the rest of Iowa and to other states. It also helps in the winter when people don’t want to drive. So our enrollments have really exploded.”

The Senior College Committee — made up of retired UI faculty and staff — use their connections to find instructors, which sometimes includes faculty from other universities who’ve retired to Iowa City, or experts like Tim Hankewich, music director of Orchestra Iowa.

Classes range from theater to music, AI to forensic analysis, history to environmental studies and more.

Gilbert, who is teaching “Shakespeare, Page to Stage: Romeo and Juliet” this semester, is a kind of Shakespeare expert that she has a second home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

She teaches a Shakespeare course every spring, working in conjunction with Riverside Theatre to teach whichever play will be performed in their free summer Shakespeare Festival.

“I like the idea that we work with the play, but then they have the treat of going to City Park and getting a free production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ this summer,” Gilbert said.

Since COVID, Gilbert has been teaching her classes on Zoom, which has allowed her to grow her following. During one recent class, 140 students were signed on from 17 different states. Some semesters, she even has students in other countries.

Susan Loomis, of Iowa City, is taking Gilbert’s Shakespeare course this semester, one of four Senior College classes that she is taking. “History of Jerusalem: What is Zionism?” and “Brain Myths: Debunking Common Misconceptions About Our Most Complex Organ” are the others.

Loomis first heard about Senior College from friends after moving back to Iowa City and started taking classes in 2015. She has taken multiple classes every semester since then, loving the fact that she can take classes she wasn’t able to in school while she was busy fulfilling requirements for her political science and political geography degrees.

“It’s opened the possibility to explore things that I would never have taken before,” Loomis said. “It makes life in Iowa City even better, which is pretty wonderful anyway with all the arts and cultural events going on here. But the Senior College is wonderful to me to have as an extra enrichment.”

For those interested in taking classes through Senior College, Rinderspacher recommends getting on the e-mail list because registration usually fills up within two hours.

“I’m so dedicated to Senior College that I miss Aqua Fitness Class on the day that registration opens to try to make sure that I get the classes,” Loomis said.

For more information about Senior College, including how to get on the e-mail list for class registration, visit the UI’s Center for Advancement Web site at foriowa.org/senior-college.