Member Spotlight

Q&A with Harry (Rick) Moody, PhD from Boulder, CO.

Q: Why did you become a member and how does GSA assist with your professional development?
A: I became a member more than 35 years ago.  GSA is the most important organization I'm part of -- it's the main organization for connecting with people who are thinking about ideas about aging.

Q: How did you get interested in the field of aging?
A: I started teaching older people in 1971 when I was in the Ph.D. program in philosophy at Columbia.  I figured elders would be the best "customers" for the study of philosophy and the search for meaning in life.  I wasn't wrong then or now.

Q: What are your key responsibilities at your job?
A: I'm Vice President and Director of Academic Affairs at AARP.  I am responsible for anything related to colleges and universities: our student internship program, collaborative research, promotion of education in gerontology and engagement of the best thinking that can help AARP in its mission.

Q: What has been your most memorable experience in gerontology and aging research?
A: My most memorable experience was my work with Elderhostel (now Road Scholar), where I taught in the program for many years, served on the Board and eventually became Chairman of the Board.  I believe in late life learning (and try to practice it now that I'm 67 years old myself)!

Q: How do you feel GSA serves the field of gerontology and aging research?
A: GSA does a great job.  I'm especially enthusiastic about the Humanities and the Arts Committee, which I once chaired and I'm also excited about recent work by GSA on business and aging and later life entrepreneurship.  GSA is always looking "over the horizon" and I appreciate that.

Q: Do you have any tips for emerging gerontologists?
A: Gerontologists need to think beyond the academic world: for example, through connections with the business world and social innovation, as represented, for instance, by the Purpose Prize of Civic Ventures.  Gerontology also needs to "speak truth to power" and to promote research on unfashionable topics, whether in politics or in human development.  Just as later life remains marginal in the wider society, so we should never be afraid of marginality.  In his old age, Matisse once said, it's bothered me all my life that I don't paint like other people.  Remaining faithful to one's individual vision, even if marginal, is what I would recommend to every gerontologist.

Q: Tell us a little about your most recent activities/accomplishments?
A: I'm working on a book on dreams and aging (DREAMS FOR THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE) and, with Andy Achenbaum, on another one (LEAVING A LEGACY: Our Aging Society and Future Generations).  The latter book reflects my current engagement with environmental issues and enlisting elders as "gatekeepers for the future."  I'm also working with a group of gerontologists to capture the first-person experiences of older gerontologists in an archive, VOICES OF AGE, which will eventually be shared with GSA.  We need to listen to our older members more than we often do.

Q: Have you had an important mentor in your career? If so, how did it make a difference? 
A: Rose Dobrof, founder of the Brookdale Center on Aging, first educated me in this field and mentored me, and later Robert Butler, my boss at the International Longevity Center, were the greatest mentors I could ever have imagined.  I am profoundly grateful to both of them.