Mission, Values, and History
The Department of Gerontology is committed to collaborating with students, alumni, and our community regularly.
Mission Statement
We develop knowledge and educate and inspire future leaders to positively influence the aging process and to advocate for older adults, their caregivers, and the communities in which they live.
Core Values
We are the primary provider of expert gerontological education in Nebraska with a global impact. We provide essential teaching, training, and service opportunities for students who aspire to careers in the field of aging through research, practice, and engagement.
Core Purpose
- Through our on campus and online degrees, we develop graduates to be leaders in the field of aging.
- Our alumni bring unique age-sensitive solutions to the marketplace in areas such as business and industry, government, higher education, and other emerging fields.
- We develop relationships with our alumni, fostering a community aging network that is both local and global.
- We design and disseminate innovative research that is imperative for current and future aging opportunities.
- Through community outreach, we enhance the ability of those working with older adults to understand, serve, and advocate for the aging population.
The History of Gerontology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha
In 1972 the Gerontology Program was established at UNO as a part of CPACS. Here is how that happened: In 1965, the then-newly established U.S. Administration on Aging (AoA) began to administer the Older Americans Act, Title V of which provided funding to establish university gerontology academic programs. The grants were for five years, designed to provide 100% funding the first year and then winnow down by 20% each year. The hope was that the grantee universities would thus put their own hard money in place of the decreasing federal dollars, and by the fifth year the soft money would be completed, and the grantee university would fully fund its own gerontology academic unit.
The success of this grant program was spotty. Many universities (e.g., the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) simply took the federal dollars and then dissolved their gerontology program when the grant was completed. Others (University of Michigan) added strength at already-existing programs. Some (University of North Texas, Wichita State, the University of South Florida) eventually started up their own gerontology departments that continued after the end of federal funding. At this time, the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education was founded as a lobbying organization to keep the AoA dollars flowing to the member colleges and universities (as one founder said, "It was to keep our noses in the federal trough").
The Title V Career Training Grant program at AoA was run pretty much by one individual, Clark Tibbetts, who had been with the Social Security Administration and was, along with his colleague Wilma Donahue of the University of Michigan, one of the few established scholars in the then-new field of gerontology. I have seen correspondence from Tibbetts in 1970 offering a five-year career training grant to the University of Georgia if they would take his intern, a new PhD from Michigan named David Peterson, to run the program. Georgia turned him down and did not receive the grant.
In 1972, Dr. David Peterson became the founding Director of the Gerontology Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. It was 100% grant funded at the time, but grants in social gerontology were available to good grant writers. Added to the AoA Career Training Grant (which ran from 1972 to 1980 - beyond the original time limit), several people were supported by a Nutrition Training Grant, which was given to UNO to provide training in the region for people who had been hired by the aging network to run newly-established Title VII nutrition programs for the aged. These were community-based hot lunch programs, many of which have evolved into senior centers. There were many other grants during those years to train staff members of AoA-funded state and local agencies.
A small academic program was developed in 1972 - 1973, offering a four-course undergraduate Certificate in Gerontology and a five-course, graduate-level Certificate to people who had received scholarship support through the Title V Career Training Grant (about 20 people in the first year). The course offerings expanded as people were added to the faculty, and there were over 100 gerontology students - not all of whom received grant support - by 1977, the year that the Board of Regents gave its approval for UNO to grant the Certificates.
The Gerontology Program had formed an alliance with Teacher's College at UN-L, which paid 10% of Peterson's salary, to cooperate in the offering of doctoral degrees for people who wanted to specialize in gerontology. The first two, Christopher Peterson and Richard Citirin, received PhDs in Educational Psychology in 1979. The first recipient of the PhD in Adult Education with a concentration in Gerontology was Elizabeth Baines in 1980. This arrangement continued over the years until 2016. The program eventually became the PhD in Human Sciences with a Specialization in Gerontology, a specialization recognized and approved by the Graduate College at UN-L, and about 60 people received a doctorate as a result of this inter-campus and inter-departmental cooperation.
The first state funding was received by the Gerontology Program in 1974. The AoA Career Training grants finally were completed in Academic Year 1979-1980. During the final several years of that funding, the Program offered courses at different centers throughout the state (North Platte, Columbus, Grand Island, Scottsbluff, and Lincoln) giving students an opportunity to receive a Certificate in Gerontology. A professor would go to the site and teach Friday evening and Saturday morning, and a complete cycle of courses could be completed over the course of five semesters. This was done for two certificate cycles at several of the sites, and for a total of three in Scottsbluff.
Ultimately, all of the full-time faculty became state-supported in tenure-track positions. In 1988 the Board of Regents gave approval to offer a master's degree, and the name of the unit changed from "Program" to "Department" in 1989. In 2011 the Dual Degree in Gerontology and Law was approved in cooperation with UNL College of Law. In 2011 the Master’s Degree approved as two options: Thesis and Non-Thesis. In 2012 the Department offers online programming at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In 2013 the Graduate Certificate in Gerontology with a concentration in design was approved. In 2015 the Bachelors of Science in Gerontology was approved by the Board of Regents and the CCPE. In 2016 the final PhD in Human Sciences with a specialization in gerontology was awarded. And in 2017 the Doctor of Philosophy in Gerontology was approved by the Board of Regents and the CCPE.