195: Leading a Lifelong Learning Institute with Chris McLeod of OLLI

With a mission of improving quality of life and engaging minds, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) provide a distinctive array of lifelong learning opportunities and activities specifically developed for seasoned adults who are interested in learning simply for the joy of learning. And as the director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University, Chris McLeod leads one the top ten largest Institutes in the country (there are over 120 nationally), which are all associated with universities and colleges. In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, Jeff talks with Chris about the general commonalities of the learners they serve and the opportunities and challenges that come with serving them. They also talk about the role of membership in OLLI’s business model and the factors that tend to underpin the success of the most successful programs. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode195.  Thank you to our sponsors for this quarter: CommPartners helps learning businesses conceive, develop, and fulfill their online education strategy. Their solutions begin with Elevate LMS, an award-winning learning platform that provides a central knowledge community and drives learner engagement. To extend the value of Elevate, CommPartners provides a wide range of online education services including curriculum design, instructional design, fully managed Webinars, Webcasts, livestream programs, and virtual conferences. Find out more at https://www.leadinglearning.com/goto/commpartners. ** Authentic Learning Labs is an e-learning company that offers products and services to help improve your current investments in education. One key product is Authentic Analytics, a dedicated suite of visualization reports to help analyze and predict the performance of education programs. Organizations use Authentic Analytics to easily scan through volumes of data in intuitive visuals, chart performance trends, and quickly spot opportunities, issues, and potential future needs. Find out more at https://www.leadinglearning.com/goto/authentic.