OLLI at UC Berkeley

Hot off the press: Our winter brochure! 🔥

Registration opens Monday, October 12. Politics, history, music, film, literature and more are all on tap.

Flip through and start making plans
🔗 bit.ly/4dsxe6J

Great community, great speakers and a great turnout at today’s Lafayette Senior Symposium. The roles cognitive and social stimulation play in healthy aging — ie, what what our 2,700 members enjoy daily — was discussed over and over. Yet more reasons to join!

Annnd we're off! The first field trip of the academic year was a hit. We explored San Francisco's Salesforce Transit Center and its stunning 5.4-acre rooftop park, with botanical gardens galore — hundreds of trees and thousands of plants arranged into themed ecosystems ranging from Mediterranean Europe to Western Australia.

Many thanks to our wonderful guides, Rodney and Robin, and to all the members who came — happy and ready to make a great day of it. 🕶️ ☀️

Our fall term is off and running! We were delighted to see so many members in class this week, in person and online, wading into everything from rebuilding democracy to Virginia Woolf's visionary novels. More courses start next week including two at The Freight on Wednesday — looking at you, "Global Lens: Documentary Films with a Wide-Angle Point of View" and "Of Thee I Sing: Celebrating Songs About America at 250."

Still time to register!
https://olli.berkeley.edu/courses

Yesterday's Solano Stroll was a joy! So much community, conversation and good cheer wrapped up one. Sunshine, too! Thank you to our member volunteers extraordinaire — Jerry, Gerry, Hugh, Stella, Michael, AJ and Valerie — for being such star ambassadors. ✨☀️

The Solano Stroll hasn’t officially started yet and we’re already chatting with visitors! Stop by our table in front of 1742 Solano! Going to be a beautiful day !🌞🕶️

Cheers to all the members who came to our second annual Back-to-School Night at Fieldwork! Great company and great brews all in one. What could be better?🍻

Classes start Monday!

We're busy gearing up for fall and the start of dozens of new courses taught by Berkeley faculty and other top scholars — plus field trips, socials, speaker events, and more.

Check out what's on tap and sign up to join us:
https://olli.berkeley.edu/courses

"It is like a war in a way down there. It is a fight against the past and for the future. It must be won but it can't if everyone sits at home."
— Peggy Ryan Poole, writing to her parents in 1965

That summer, 18-year-old Peggy Ryan answered the call to join the fight for civil and voting rights in the South. Sixty-one years later, this longtime OLLI member looks back on that pivotal summer — and what it taught her about showing up.

Read her story 👇
https://bit.ly/4cvm3JX

Image description: Peggy Ryan Poole (second from left) on Registration Day, August 2, 1965, reviewing the registration form with local residents

What a place, what a tour! 🎭✨

On Tuesday, members explored the Art Deco masterpiece that is Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. Many thanks to Laine, our wonderful guide, and to the entire Paramount team for opening their grand doors to us. And a big thank-you to OLLI’s hard-working Member Engagement Committee for making it happen. 👏

If you haven’t been to the Paramount — or have only experienced it when it’s packed with people — we highly recommend taking a tour. Check out their calendar for deets.

This was the 20th — and final — field trip of our 2025-26 academic year. What a ride it’s been! Hundreds of members have joined us on these excursions, which have been educational (of course!) and, just as key, have fostered a deep sense of community, connection and belonging.

Here’s to many more adventures ahead!