Then and Now

Ron Manheimer served as the founding director of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement (NCCCR), an award-winning lifelong learning, leadership, research, and community service program of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Following a major endowment gift from the Osher Foundation, NCCCR was renamed the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute or OLLI in 2012. Ron is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at UNCA.  Before becoming the NCCCR’s first director in 1988, Ron was director of older adult education for The National Council on the Aging (NCOA) in Washington, D.C. 

Since his retirement from NCCCR/OLLI in 2009, Ron has been engaged in a variety of roles that include:

• Teaching philosophy courses in the College for Seniors at OLLI in the fall and spring semesters.

• Publishing articles in professional books and journals; additionally trade books on philosophy and philosophers.

• Working with children at Woodfin Elementary School through enrichment programs.

• Serving as President of the Carolina Foundation for Jewish. Seniors, headquartered in Greensboro, NC.

• Facilitating as Chair of the Steering Committee of the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Asheville.

• Serving on the editorial board of two scholarly journals in the field of gerontology: The Gerontologist and the Journal of Aging Studies

• Providing consultation to businesses and non-profits on the dynamic changes in how we age and how we seek to thrive in later life.