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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2088
igaa057.2088
Abstracts
Session 5715 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Why Age Matters in Higher Education
Montepare Joann  
Lasell University, Newton, Massachusetts, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”615 615
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
At the core of behavioral and social scientists’ work in the aging field is informing and supporting the well-being of individuals and their communities. With the shift in age demographics and the aging of our populations, broadening educational efforts are more important than ever. However, advancing knowledge about aging and creating age inclusive educational opportunities has been a challenge in higher education, reflecting its historical, age-segregated structure, among other things. The pioneering Age-Friendly University (AFU) initiative, recently endorsed by GSA’s Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE), offers a valuable set of guiding principles that institutions in higher education can use to assess the extent to which their programs and practices are age inclusive, as well as identify gaps and opportunities. This presentation will discuss how the time has come for scientists to help shape more age-friendly institutions, and what they can look like in the years to come.