2022 Symposium Schedule of Events

CHRIS FLEILLER

Fleiller is one of Milwaukee's premier theatre professionals who for years headed In Tandem Theatre and is now with UW-Oshkosh. Later in 2022, he will direct the Saint John's Players.

'NIGHT MOTHER– a play in one act

“'night, Mother” is a taut and fluid drama that addresses the impact of deep and abiding loneliness in the lives of simple people. “…honest, uncompromising, lucid, penetrating, well-written, dramatic, and…unmanipulatively moving...It is at once sparse and concise, introspective and penetrating, powerful and uncompromising, intense and intelligent, warm and theatrical."  -NY Magazine

By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious Hull-Warriner Award, four Tony nominations, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

THOMAS KAMBER, Ph.D.

Dr. Kamber is the founder and executive director of Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) and Senior Planet. He is a leading expert on aging and technology and is regularly featured in national media. Under his leadership, OATS and Senior Planet have developed award-winning programs for older adults across America and are now charitable affiliates of AARP. He has taught courses on technology, urban studies and philanthropy at Columbia University, is widely published in professional and academic journals and has presented his work on five continents. He is also a co-founder of the Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance (which has won multiple Grammy awards) and serves on several non-profit boards of directors and public commissions.

CONNECTING OLDER ADULTS: HARNESSING THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY

All social change implies a theory of change—a conceptual map of causes and effects, of linkages between action and outcomes. It is these inter-related assumptions about the mechanics of the world that underpin effective strategic thinking. As an organization that has taught tens of thousands of classes to older adults determined to learn challenging new skills and information so that they can work, communicate, get around and take care of themselves, OATS has developed a strong appreciation of the transformative potential of older adults. We have seen first-hand how much older adults desire to remain independent, to continue learning and growing and to contribute to the world around us. At OATS and Senior Planet, the goal is to harness technology to change the way we age. It drives strategy and is the basis for programs, so it is essential to understand what we mean by changing the way we age, and how we can engineer new systems that are shaping the future of aging and translate them into operational terms.

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Describe a new theory of change that affirms the potential of older adults
• Understand how technology can be mobilized to change the ways people age
• Explain how seniors can improve their social connections and counter social isolation and loneliness by interacting with technology.

DIANNE STONE
Associate Director, National Council on Aging, Center for Healthy Aging

Dianne Stone has more than 20 years of experience with senior centers and aging issues primarily as the Director of the Newington Senior and Disabled Center in Newington, Connecticut. Ms. Stone has also worked, volunteered and held leadership positions with a variety of organizations in Connecticut including Connecticut AgeWell Collaborative, the ADA Coalition of Connecticut, Connecticut Medicaid Oversight Council and the Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity and Opportunity.

She has served on several legislative task forces and has held leadership positions with the National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC). Ms. Stone joined NCOA in January 2022 as the Associate Director of Network Development and Engagement where, as a member of the Center for Healthy Aging, she is focused on supporting senior centers throughout the country through the Administration on Community Living, funded by Modernizing Senior Centers Resource Center and NISC.

SENIOR CENTERS – IMPROVING LIVES THROUGHOUT THE AGES

Since 1943, Senior Centers have been there for their communities, providing the programs, services and activities that improve lives as people age.

Today there are more than 10,000 Senior Centers across the country. They come in all shapes and sizes – no two look alike – and reflect the community they serve.

In this presentation, we will talk about what senior centers are doing today and how they continue to evolve. We will share how NCOA, the national voice of senior centers, connects senior centers to supportive services and to each other through the National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC) and the new Modernizing Senior Centers Resource Center. And, we will share how NCOA is improving the lives of 40 million older adults through its social impact goal and equity promise. 

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Understand the role of senior centers in improving lives and reducing isolation
• Identify best practices for senior centers and social connections
• Know how NCOA supports senior centers through NISC and the Modernizing Senior Centers Resource Center.

CHARLES PITRE HOY-ELLIS, Ph.D., M.S.W., L.C.S.W.
Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work

Charles Pitre Hoy-Ellis, PhD, MSW, LCSW, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, College of Social Work. He received his MSW in Clinical/Contextual Practice, and his PhD, in Social Welfare from the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Hoy-Ellis teaches Diversity, Social Justice and Ethical Reflexive Social Work Practice and Aging Advanced Practice for MSW students.

Dr. Hoy-Ellis’ scholarship focuses on the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people, especially midlife and older adults. He has nearly 20 years’ direct practice experience as a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) providing services to the LGBTQ community. Dr. Hoy-Ellis was a member of the research team of the Caring and Aging with Pride (CAP) project, the first of its kind, federally-funded (National Institutes of Health / National Institute on Aging) national study that began to systematically examine the health and well-being of LGBTQ midlife and older adults. The initial CAP project was so successful it is now an ongoing longitudinal study that continues to explore the health and well-being of LGBTQ midlife and older adults over time – Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, Sexuality, and Gender Study (NHAS) that Dr. Hoy-Ellis continues to collaborate on.

LGBTQ+ OLDER ADULTS AND THE IRIDESCENCE OF LONELINESS

The Iridescent Life Course Theory illuminates the intersection between identity and context that produces distinct experiences of the life course and aging process across the lives of marginalized people, including older lesbians, bisexual women and men, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals and gay men (LGBTQ+). One of the many consequences of their ongoing marginalization is that compared to heterosexual/straight peers, older LGBTQ+ adults experience significantly greater loneliness. To understand the loneliness among LGBTQ+ older adults today, it is critical to understand both current and historical sociocultural contexts across the life course.

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Understand and utilize how applying Iridescent Life Course Theory can support awareness of unique factors that contribute to loneliness among LGBTQ+ older adults, and consequential social, mental and physical health disparities
• Create strategies and/or actionable steps to reduce loneliness and isolations among LGBTQ+ older adults
• Know of programs available or that can be adapted in their communities and organizations to serve LGBTQ+ older adults in culturally sensitive ways.

SAM GOODRICH 
TimeSlips Tele-Stories Program Manager and Master Trainer

Goodrich oversees several TimeSlips projects including Tele-Stories, connecting with under-connected elders via phone, and other projects in which seniors living with dementia are creatively engaged for better health outcomes. With a performance background, time spent as a professional caregiver, and a personal connection to caregiving for someone with memory loss, she hopes to bring light to the benefits that creativity can have on a person with memory loss, as well as the relief it can bring to loved ones and care partners.

LEARNING AND CONNECTING WITH BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS 

Tele-Stories was/is designed to engage older adults who were/are isolated during the pandemic and beyond, in meaningful, creative engagement. The program was expanded to Detroit, where Goodrich guided artists with A Host Of People through a similar process. The artistic products that were created through this power program will be shared and guide the audience through an exercise to learn the power of Beautiful Questions firsthand.

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Know the definition of Beautiful Questions
• Compare and contrast the impact of asking open, generative questions to that of closed questions
• Identify models that demonstrate integrating Beautiful Questions into everyday care relationships and systems.

E.A. CASEY, L.G.S.W., M.P.Aff.

E.A. Casey – who goes by Casey and uses they/them pronouns – is a clinical social worker and community-based Dementia Navigator, supporting clients and families in Washington, DC. Casey holds a Master of Public Affairs and was a long-time strategic advisor to AARP Foundation’s social connectedness initiatives. Before making the switch in 2021 to social work, Casey led the development and implementation of national strategies and programs to combat isolation and loneliness among vulnerable older adults. As a Dementia Navigator at a community aging services provider, Casey facilitates support groups and Club Memory sessions and provides case management services and other support to people experiencing dementia and their caregivers. 

BUILDING CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

This presentation is designed to serve as a workshop to educate community members about isolation and loneliness and the steps they can take to live more socially connected lives. Participants will have a unique opportunity to both participate in the workshop and learn how they can adapt and deliver the workshop themselves. Activities include developing a 1) Friendventory and 2) personal Social Connection Plan.

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Understand the causes and consequences of social isolation and loneliness
• Identify opportunities and action steps for both communities and individuals to become more socially connected
• Adapt and deliver the workshop in their own settings and communities.

MARK FREEMAN, PH.D

Dr. Freeman is the Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, Worchester, Massechusetts  where he has taught since 1986. His writings include Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (Routledge, 1993); Finding the Muse: A Sociopsychological Inquiry into the Conditions of Artistic Creativity (Cambridge, 1994); Hindsight: The Promise and Peril of Looking Backward (Oxford, 2010); The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self (Oxford, 2014); and Do I Look at You with Love? Reimagining the Story of Dementia (Brill | Sense, 2021). Winner of 2010 Theodore R. Sarbin Award in the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, as well as 2021 Joseph B. Gittler Award from American Psychological Foundation, Dr. Freeman is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and also serves as Editor for the Oxford University Press book series, “Explorations in Narrative Psychology.”

LIVING BEYOND LONELINESS: THE PLACE OF THE OTHER IN NOURISHING THE SELF

Isolation and loneliness may be said to entail a kind of “existential undernourishment,” wherein one is deprived of stimulation critical to vitality of self. What might be done to counteract such undernourishment in a time like now? Drawing on works of Martin Buber and Viktor Frankl as well as musings from my book The Priority of the Other, I will offer that attention, responsiveness and responsibility to what is “other”—other people, but also nature, art, perhaps God—can serve as important vehicles for finding meaning, providing hope and sustaining self’s vitality and well-being in the face of the challenges at hand. 

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Understand nature of loneliness and its potentially deleterious consequences for the vitality and well-being of the self
• Appreciate the various ways in which loneliness may be counteracted and diminished
• Craft actionable steps and/or strategies for “nourishing” the self through both personal practices and community-based opportunities and organizations.

SIMONE GHELLER, Ph.D.
The Church of Saint Jerome, Oconomowoc

Dr. Simone Gheller was born in Padua, Italy, in I978. After graduation from high school, he received four Master's degrees from the Pedrollo Conservatory in Vicenza, Italy, in Piano, Organ Performance, Music Education, and Choral Music and Choral Conducting. He earned a Doctorate in Organ and Organ     

Composition, cum laude, at the Venezze Conservatory in Rovigo, Italy, where he studied with Andrea Toschi. 

In 2008, he received a "Medaille d'Or en Superieur d'Interpreta-tion" with Eric Lebrun at the Conservatoire National de Paris.  Dr. Gheller has an extensive performing history spanning the last 28 years, with concerts in prestigious locations in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and America among others.

Currently, Dr. Simone Gheller is Music Director and Organist at St. Jerome Catholic Church in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and professor of piano & organ at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee.

Dr. Gheller has recorded three CDs: Liszt and Reubke organ music, the Orgelbuchlein by J.S. Bach for OnClassical label, and The Complete Choral Works with organ by Alessandro Scarlatti for the Tactus label.

SHERI MASIAKOWSKI
Dean, Milwaukee American Guild of Organists

Sheri Masiakowski is Minister of Music at Greenfield Avenue Presbyterian Church, West Allis, Wisconsin and Music Director for the Permanent Diaconate Formation Program of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. She plays consistently for numerous parishes in the Archdiocese. Sheri is Dean of the Milwaukee Chapter—American Guild of Organists and serves on the Board of the MacDowell Club of Milwaukee. She is a graduate of Alverno College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and holds advanced degrees in organ/liturgical music from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey and St. Francis de Sales Seminary, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She currently studies with John Chappell Stowe, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in pursuit of a Doctor of Musical Arts in organ.  

LARRY WHEELOCK
Organist – Plymouth Church, Milwaukee

Born in Indiana, Larry Wheelock, began his musical studies at the age of 5 and became a church organist at 14. His teachers have included B.L. Spencer, Daniel Pedtke, Arthur Lawrence, Philip Gehring, and Robert Plimpton. He studied music theory and composition with Marilyn M. Green, Katherine Aller, and Richard Wienhorst.

He has served Lutheran churches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was Minister of Music at St. Michael's Lutheran Church in (Germantown) Philadelphia from 1983 to 1991. From 1991 to 2015 he served as Director of Music Ministries at Kenwood United Methodist Church, Milwaukee. He is currently Artist-In-Residence at Plymouth Church UCC on Milwaukee’s East Side and is also a freelance musician, playing in a variety of local churches and venues. His compositions have been published by Augsburg Press and Celebrations Unlimited. He is Past-Dean of the American Guild of Organists—Milwaukee Chapter, having served as Dean for 6 years and is past chair of the AGO Regional Convention held in Milwaukee in 2019.

NO ONE STANDS ALONE

Music has the power to communicate messages and emotions that words cannot capture. Three of Milwaukee's most admired organists bring music conveying the brilliance and vocal clarity of the exceptional organ in the Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist.