There are so many firsts to celebrate at this time of year – the time of year to resume school. First-year students meet each other for the first time, and friendships or even romances begin to form. And the ideas for change are first planted in the minds of future world leaders.
My first year of undergraduate studies at DePauw University was 2009, and my first year of graduate studies at the IUPUI Robert H. McKinney School of Law was 2014. Needless to say, it has been a long time since my first year of any college, and my first days of college were a blur of information from orientation and the names of fellow students that took me a long time to remember. Until recently, I had thought those days were long past me.
However, once I began to write this introduction, I realized that innovation occurs in every day of my life. I am always learning something new, whether that is information I purposely seek out or facts I glean from the media. Another innovation is my position as the editor-in-chief of the bOLDer Bulletin, a role I would have not seen myself as playing but have been pleased with being cast as. Even if we do not expect some innovation, it is a constant in everybody’s life.
Another major innovation is the newsletter you are currently reading: the bOLDer Bulletin. Originally a monthly newsletter focused on USI’s MINKA house, we at the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program have morphed it into a quarterly newsletter about the GWEP in its entirety.
These are not the only innovations readers will find in this newsletter. The contributions in this newsletter discuss innovations in programs in the GWEP and in healthy aging in general. These innovations include ones found in telehealth and others found in USI’s gerontology classes. They can be innovations that are generalizable to an entire population, or they are innovations that are specific to one person. But, no matter what kind of information it is that you discover in this newsletter, we hope that you will be inspired to begin your own "bOLD" innovations.
I am very excited to continue the journey of the bOLDer Bulletin, and I hope you are as excited as I am. If you have any ideas, recommendations, questions, concerns or just want to talk, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email at hlfowler@eagles.usi.edu. I’d love to hear from you.
