Respecting, and liking, their elders

When USC graduate student Shaun Rushforth wants his gerontology studies to come to life, all he has to do is open the door to his East Hollywood apartment and walk down the hallway. The very quiet hallway.

That’s because Rushforth and two other USC students are the youngest residents (by at least four decades) at Kingsley Manor Care Center, a facility that otherwise houses 260 senior citizens in various stages of independence and nursing care. The young people live there under an unusual arrangement that complements their academic research about the elderly and offers a terrific deal in Los Angeles’ expensive rental market.

“It’s like living in the dorms without all the parties, and everyone is over 65. It’s great,� said Rushforth, 27, who is considering a career in geriatric medicine.

In exchange for 16 hours a week of duties, such as teaching tai chi or running a bingo game, the students from USC’s Davis School of Gerontology get a free room or apartment about a half-hour from campus and all the dining hall meals they can fit into their schedule. But more important, they say, they learn crucial lessons for careers -- and about their own lives and mortality.

Off-duty, they may help a disoriented senior find her way back to the right room. Sometimes they coach an eager septuagenarian on the mysteries of e-mail and the Internet. Often they spend time just listening to someone review the ups and downs of a long life.

“They’re learning ahead of time what it’s like to be old,� retired middle school teacher Roger Goulet, 90, said of the students.

“There’s a big spectrum of old age here, and they can learn what mistakes to avoid in life.�

For USC graduate student Julie Thomas, the best part of her two years at Kingsley Manor has been several dinners a week with elderly neighbors and sharing in the conversations.

“It feels like you are making a difference in more than one person’s life,� said Thomas, 23, a Bakersfield native who plans to be a geriatric social worker. “Just to be there to greet them at the end of the day and talk with someone who maybe didn’t talk to a friend or family person that day.�

Thomas, Rushforth and their colleague Jeanine Yonashiro all concede that they like the quiet and don’t miss the party-hearty atmosphere of dormitories. All close to their own grandparents in childhood, they say they feel at ease among an army of foster grandparents whose noisiest acts are blasting the volume on TV shows to accommodate hearing loss. It’s fine to spot walkers and wheelchairs in the halls instead of bicycles and skateboards.

But not even free rent on sunny two-room suites can erase a sobering aspect: seeing some neighbors decline and die. For example, just within a week, a small table in the wood-paneled lobby was topped in succession by photos, flowers and memorial announcements about the recent deaths of two female residents.

Yonashiro, 23, who hopes to become a doctor or gerontology researcher, said she nervously eyes the memorial table.

“You hope there is no one there in general and no one you know,� she said. Now in her second year at Kingsley Manor, she said she enjoys her time there, especially the crafts class she leads. With most of her family in Hawaii, the center “feels kind of like home.�

She and Thomas were at dinner the other day, and, over a choice of veal or chicken, helped lead discussions about such topics as flu shots, an upcoming film screening (the 1949 noir classic “East Side, West Side�) and the state of public schools in Los Angeles.

Yonashiro asked the three women at her table -- two retired social workers and a former high school principal -- about a subject closer to home: the recent switch from permanent seating assignments to both open and reserved seating in the newly redecorated dining room. Their reactions were mixed.

Kingsley Manor was founded in 1912 by German Methodists in what was then a bucolic part of Hollywood. Its multi-story brick structures, added in the ‘30s around pleasant gardens, contain rooms and apartments for those who can live independently or require assistance and nursing. The four-acre facility now belongs to the nondenominational, nonprofit Front Porch chain of senior communities.

The informal program with USC began in 1984, when Kingsley Manor administrators hit upon the idea, in part, as a way to fill a few second-floor rooms without elevator access. Though students no longer use those rooms, from three to five of them live on the premises and can stay until they finish their degrees.

“What we are trying to do is make this the best community it can be in meeting the residents’ needs. And we find that one of their needs is sociability with people of all ages, not just other elderly people,� said Kingsley Manor executive director Jeffrey S. Kirschner, adding that the age of new residents is about 82.

He and Gerald Davison, the dean of USC’s gerontology school, are scheduled to meet next month to discuss Kirschner’s desire that USC more formally oversee the program, which recruits mainly by word of mouth. Davison described the program as valuable training and said he wanted it to continue.

Such a live-and-study arrangement is rare nationwide, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Assn. for Gerontology in Higher Education.

In 2003, Purdue University in Indiana started placing one or two graduate students a year at a nearby retirement center that invited them in as residents. And over the last two years, the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine has had four students live for two-week stretches at a Maine nursing home and simulate old age by, for example, lugging around walkers and oxygen tanks.

At Kingsley Manor, seniors praise their young neighbors.

“Having the students around keeps us going, keeps us entertained and keeps our minds going,� said Evelyn Hill, 77. “They do add something and help us feel a little younger and help us remember our younger days.�

A retired nurse’s aide, Hill described the current three as “all very nice kids, not stuck up or snooty,� and said she became particularly close to Thomas through the dance and computer classes the younger woman led and by studying the Bible with her.

Ruth Smith, who is 90 (“which is not too unusual here�), has lived at Kingsley Manor for 12 years and gotten to know many of the students.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,� she said, “because it provides relationships with a different age. . . and I think they provide a listening ear and a source of information that can’t be provided by the staff.�

On a recent Friday, Smith, Goulet and 15 other residents attended the weekly current events hour Rushforth moderates. Citing newspaper articles, Rushforth asked for opinions about the legal troubles of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the controversy over CIA interrogation policies, the arrests of homeless people in downtown Los Angeles, and the increasing number of senior citizens in prisons.

Some denounced Craig for not resigning, and one man criticized what he thought was a sex sting: “With all the other crime, I wonder why police are spending time trapping guys in bathrooms.�

Clearly, many relished the chance to voice their views in a classroom-like setting. And a few, while keeping quiet, seemed to enjoy the company.

Rushforth is in his second year at Kingsley Manor, interrupted by a year of pre-med courses in his home state of Texas. His other duties at the center include manning the reception desk and teaching a Spanish class. He said he has developed warm friendships with residents and faced some crankiness. One woman, he recalled, told him that he looked too young to be a doctor and that patients would never like or trust him.

“Some people who get into this field have this romanticized view of working with older adults,� he said. “I’ve had overwhelmingly positive experiences here. But having the negative experience is good training as well.�

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