Perennial College
Highlights Joy of Learning

Jul 11 2025, Max Hunt

NMH’s new Perennial College summer program launched this past June, bringing adults together on campus for 10 days of immersive learning and community.

Inspired by the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning, which provides academic opportunities to older adults interested in the continuing pursuit of knowledge, Perennial College was conceived by Boise State University English professor and former NMH teacher Samantha Harvey P’24.

Harvey partnered with friend and colleague Susan Ware, a senior lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to turn the Osher model into a full-campus experience. The result: a program where adult learners explore academic interests in an intentional, residential setting.

“I thought, how cool would it be if we were living together for a week or two, in dorms, at the dining hall, like we're back in college full time?” said Harvey, who teaches continuing education classes at Boise State’s Osher Institute.

This year’s Perennial College offered two seminar-style courses. “Writers of Western Massachusetts,” taught by Harvey, focused on the lives and work of Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton. Ware led “Pivot Points: Knowledge That Changed Everything,” which explored key moments in Western thought, from antiquity to the modern era.

“I envisioned a program where we could invite people back over multiple years,” Harvey said. “I think what's really exciting for lifelong learners is having a sense of place — to study something and then visit where it happened.”

The inaugural group of 25 students included retired educators, chemists, administrators, marketers, and others from across the country. What united them was a love of learning — and the opportunity to share that love with a like-minded community.

“People who seek out this program genuinely love learning,” Ware said. “They’re not doing it for a degree or job. They bring life experience and freely connect it to what we’re discussing.”

“I love teaching lifelong learners,” Harvey added. “They’re intellectually curious, eager, and fun. If you’re an educator, that’s your dream.”

Beyond the classroom, students took part in activities that deepened their engagement with NMH and the region. Field trips included the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst and The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, Massachusetts. Closer to home, they toured the NMH farm with farm manager Nancy Hanson and attended a “Murder and Martinis” presentation by archivist Peter Weis ’78 on the unsolved 1934 assassination of then-Headmaster Elliott Speer.

“There’s just something about the total campus experience, you know?” said student Patty Nakaoki, a Boise, Idaho, resident who worked in information technology for most of her professional career. “Sitting in lecture halls, going to a central place to get your meals, even sleeping on a funky dorm mattress — there’s something special about that.”

“I didn't know what to expect, but I'm so happy I came,” added John Howell, a retiree who holds a doctoral degree in inorganic chemistry from Drexel University and studied community and organization development at Loyola University. “Northfield Mount Hermon is a beautiful campus, the people are fantastic, and our course leaders are amazing. I’ve learned so much I don't even know where to begin. When we do this again, I'm going to be here.

Ruth Stevens ’68, a longtime NMH supporter whose contributions support the Alumni Fellow Initiative, a program that brings alumni to campus for two days of interdisciplinary engagement with students and faculty across campus, joined Perennial College to see the school from a new angle.

“For me, the big whoop is being on this campus,” said Stevens, a graduate of Northfield prior to its merger with Mount Hermon. “Our familiarity with the Hermon campus was limited, so I don’t think of this as a ‘Northfield’ experience — it’s kind of a new perspective.”

She hopes to encourage fellow alumni to participate in the future.

“I am over the moon,” Stevens said. “The content and creativity of the program have been outstanding. It’s the ‘head, heart, and hand’ for the young at heart.”

Harvey and Ware see this year’s program as just the beginning. They hope to grow it in the coming years, with more faculty, more courses, and more participants from the NMH alumni network and beyond.

“What to do in retirement is a big question right now,” said Ware. “To be part of a living, learning community — this is exactly what I want to be doing.”

“I really think this could become a new model for intergenerational education,” Harvey said. “We have this extraordinary school with a mission rooted in building community. It’s exciting to extend that to another group of students.”