The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

$20,000 grant enriches gerontology curriculum

Daily Egyptian

The School of Social work is offering something new in every one of its courses in an attempt to bring a closer look to the study of aging.

In January, SIUC's School of Social Work received a $20,000 grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation and its Geriatric Social Work Initiative for each of the grant's first two years. SIUC funded the school $12,626 for the first year in January and will fund $10,000 the second year. The grant will allow the school to infuse the foundation's Geriatric Enrichment in Social Work Education Program into the classroom.

"The students are going to learn and hear more about issues relating to aging," said Elaine Jurkowski, assistant professor of social work. "We have a very fast growing population of seniors in the nation. We are going to see more seniors and there are a host of new issues now."

The 2000 U.S. Census Bureau projects that the senior citizen population will more than double by 2040, creating a greater demand for senior healthcare services. In the Southern Illinois region, the elderly population has shot up 30 percent since 1971.

Jurkowski said more grandparents are raising their grandchildren, more elderly widowed women are living independently, and on a greater scale, rural communities are affecting the lives of its senior demographic.

The range of seniors age 65 and older is 15.2 percent to 23.9 percent in Southern Illinois. The overall state average is 12.5. Since 1970, the southern region has seen a 30 percent increase in senior citizens 65 and older.

These numbers present a pressing issue, particularly for Southern Illinois, Jurkowski said.

"Small communities are dying and [seniors are the] backbone of these communities, so we really have to be responsive to their needs," she said.

Most of the grant funding will go toward new instructional materials and the training of educators in geriatric subject matters. Jurkowski also said the school will hire a graduate student to help the faculty obtain appropriate teaching resources.

The money is not being used to create a new course, but to enhance geriatric content in all of its existing courses, Jurkowski said.

"We didn't want to develop a course that would die after the grant was over," she said.

During the summer Jurkowski visited senior citizens in 25 counties in Southern Illinois with Ed Little, instructor and curriculum consultant, and a couple other graduate students.

Little said the seniors gave differing answers when he asked them what constitutes an elderly person.

"Some of them defined elderly by the degree and amount of independence they had, the state of their health, by material wealth," Little said. "It was interesting getting these different definitions of what constitutes an elderly person."

Jurkowski said she learned about issues some seniors grapple with as they age.

"It was a phenomenal experience. Every county was a little different too," she said. "They want to be recognized for having a unique personality. They wanted to be able to still contribute. They had fears, loss of independence, loss of their driver's license for those in small counties, and their ability to take care of themselves was a huge issue,"

Tsukasa Okino, a graduate student in health education from Hokkaido, Japan, also accompanied Jurkowski and Little to the counties. He said the inclusion of more geriatric subject matters in undergraduate studies serves as mutually beneficial for young people and the seniors.

As students learn about the aging process in more detail, they can begin making significant lifestyle choices to age healthy and happily, he said.

"Many people don't tend to think about aging, so many people don't understand senior citizens' feelings," Okino said.

Reporter Jane Huh can be reached at jhuh@dailyegyptian.com

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