The Institute for Learning in Retirement held its end of the year luncheon nearly a month after spring classes ended.

ILR students gathered in the dining room at the Thompkins Center on the Cedar Crest College campus where the cafeteria was turned into a banquet hall.

President of the college, Dr. Elizabeth Meade, greeted guests with her remarks.

“Learning is not confined to a particular age,” she said. “Thank you for being a part of this remarkable community. Lifelong learning is at the heart of our college mission.”

Mary Ellen Dickey from the Allentown Art Museum spoke about the museum’s impending move to a new building.

Dickey said that the actual building has been “cobbled together, with leaky roofs and subpar storage.”

The new building will ameliorate the issues that the museum has been dealing with at its current location.

She highlighted some of the museum’s most important works.

“We have 220,000 pieces of art,” she said. “Our Rembrandt, Portrait of a Young Girl, is one of our most precious pieces.”

Given the quality of the art museum’s holding, the move is a welcome decision.

Dickey extolled the health benefits of art.

“The Franz Kline painting of Lehighton is a huge piece that was actually given to us,” she said. “Studies have shown that pieces like this promotes memory and reduces anxiety.”

The Institute for Learning in Retirement offers from 25 to 40 classes in the fall and spring for a nominal fee.

The classes range from astronomy to opera, mindfulness to classic film, Qigong to Chat GPT.

Most of the classes are held on the Cedar Crest College campus.

Staffed by volunteers, the classes are non-credited and not graded.

ILR welcomes retirees to join the learning community.

ILR classes are on hiatus for the summer and will resume in October.

For more information about the program, go to cedarcrest.edu/institute-for-learning-in-retirement.