The mission of Intergenerational Learning at Purchase College is to improve the lives of Purchase College students, faculty, staff, and Broadview residents through intergenerational collaboration and programming.
Uncommon Learning in the Learning Commons
Open to the entire Purchase College community, the Learning Commons will be a center for engagement, a laboratory for lifelong learning, offering students of all ages intellectual and social growth opportunities beyond the typical experiences available on either a college campus or at a senior residential community.
The space will hold a dining venue, multimedia seminar rooms, a computer lab, and studios for art and movement. Imagine a place where residents can grab lunch with a professor or a student; where a dance student can lead senior citizens in a movement class; where a psychology major collaborates with residents as subjects for a research study; where a film student can screen their work, creative writers can impress an audience, and journalists can find new source material.
Stereotypes will break down, learning will cross age boundaries, and lasting relationships will form over coffee and conversation.
Sustainable Surroundings
The Broadview complex occupies 40 acres of formerly vacant land within our 500-acre campus. A full 80 acres is preserved as “forever wild.” The trees removed to make way for the build will be replaced by native trees, shrubs, and grasses that require less maintenance and fewer resources to thrive. Read more about our sustainability commitment.
Funding
The project sponsor is Purchase Senior Learning Community Inc., a non-profit, 501(c)(3) set up by the college to develop the senior learning community. Approval for the project came from the State of New York through enabling legislation passed in 2011. The Purchase College budget is not impacted by the construction of Broadview.
“Intergenerational Learning occurs when intergenerational projects or activities are purposefully planned to include one, or several, learning aims and outcomes across the generations, i.e. both sides learning from or with each other, to gain skills, values and knowledge. This learning could take place in a formal, nonformal or informal setting but one or more of the primary aims would include an intergenerational learning outcome.”— Generations Working Together
