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Table Choices for Saturday's Program

For Saturday's "Embrace Change and Challenges" world café program, please pick your top tables to visit in numerical order from 1 (top choice) to 3 (last choice) or "NONE OF THE ABOVE" if it is not one of your top 3
1.TABLE 1 – Parenting Our Parents

Table Captains: Dani Giannone Huntley and Lee Crawford

A) Navigating assisted living, nursing homes, homecare for our parents
B) Handling our parents’ estates
C) Managing grieving and loss
D) How to handle emotional baggage
E) Communication strategies – helping while not babying them
F) Giving the parent agency
G) Facing the transition of this loved one from “young old” to “old old”

Has your role as child now shifted into being a parent to your parents? Are you mired in major decisions with your parents about their housing, medical care, finances, and end-of-life decisions? Are you overwhelmed by it all and simply need a place to talk? Dani Giannone Huntley (Surgical Physician Assistant) and Lee Crawford (Episcopal priest) have both walked with their aging parents through their final years. This table will provide a place to share resources, hard-learned lessons and simply a place to commiserate and encourage. Whether you are on the other side of parenting your parents, in the midst of parenting them or anticipating parenting them, you are welcome to join the conversation.(Required.)
2.Table 2 -Decision Making: Life’s details in our 60s

Table Captains: Betsy Armour and Deborah Hart Seward

A) When to retire?
B) Medicare/Social Security Decisions
C) Financial Concerns and Strategies
D) Moving/downsizing/decluttering

Is retirement on the horizon for you? Are you wondering if you can swing it both financially and emotionally? Are you flummoxed by Medicare decision making? Will you stay put or rethink and streamline your living situation? Or have you retired already and still have questions about any of the above? Join us for a supportive and safe space to discuss these and related topics connected to managing life’s myriad details in our 60s.(Required.)
3.Table 3 – Exploring our many personal identities and life paths

Table Captains: Gisele Litalien and Elaine Eatroff McConnell

A) LBGTQ
B) Child-free
C) Not partnered
D) unencumbered - in our heads
E) Widowed
F) Divorced


Where has your life taken you since you were at Smith? Bring your thoughts and experiences related to your personal identities and life paths; surprises, disappointments, and major pivots related to topics such as being LGBTQ, childfree, widowed, divorced, not partnered, solo parenting, living with a disability, being a caretaker, how your racial identity has shaped your career and life path, and any other identities or experiences that may not always be visible or centered.(Required.)
4.Table 4 – What’s next for me in this next phase of life?

Table Captains: Cindy Harris and Lynn Borkon

A) Volunteering
B) Mentoring
C) Travel
D) New creative endeavors
E) Continuing to work - whether one has to or wants to
F) Sustaining/nurturing friendships, making new friends
G) Managing changes in the well-being of my partner or others

How has your life experience since Smith played into your plans for the next 20+ years? Did you change careers? If so, how did it change your retirement plans? How do you envision the years ahead? Please join us to share your plans and priorities for your future!(Required.)
5.Table 5 – Climate Change/environmental issues

Table Captains: Prof. Andrew Berke and Connie Philips Walker

A) Sustainable living best practices
B) Recycling, reusing, composting
C) Responsible home improvement changes
D) Hybrid vs electric cars
E) Backyard farming
F) Smith’s geothermal project
G) Light pollution, Dark Skies Awareness Project


Plastics was considered the next best invention since sliced bread. Only after it was on the market did we discover its impact on our environment. Think of what we could have avoided had we done preventative assessments before plastics were allowed to market. That mindset applies to many environmental concerns, including that of light pollution. Come discuss what you know and network to find out more.(Required.)
6.Table 6 – Keeping Centered in Today’s Changing World

Table Captains: Molly Schubert Bernard and Betsy Turrell Farrar

A) Technology/AI
B) Political polarization
C) Social upheaval - hate crimes, intolerance, discrimination
D) Decline in engagement- social, religious, cultural, civic

How do each of us find and maintain balance, peace, strength, comfort, clarity, breathing room, new insights and inspiration, while sustaining the energy and engendering the self-respect that allow us to take actions we can continue to believe in? Let’s discuss how we stay centered in today’s changing world.(Required.)