The LCS Foundation has announced a partnership with the Granger Cobb Institute for Senior Living to provide an annual scholarship to add more professionals to the senior living profession.
The institute was announced for Washington State University in 2017 and dedicated in 2019 to focus on building the future senior living workforce through academic programs, industry partnerships and research. It is named for the senior living industry executive who helped build the Washington State University senior living curriculum and taught a course in senior housing administration before he died in 2015. The senior living management program, launched in 2020, offers industry-driven courses, immersive learning, community operations expertise and industry-expert connections before graduation.
In December, the program celebrated its first graduate, who earned the degree through the institute’s global campus. Six students have completed the senior living minor, which began in fall 2021, and 25 students are in the pipeline working on a senior living major or minor, according to GCISL founding director Nancy Swanger, PhD. Since offering an elective class in senior living management in 2010, almost 800 students have taken the course, with many now working in the industry.
“Our program is quite unique in that it is housed in a hospitality school within an accredited college of business. The industry loves the business acumen and relationship-building foci in our curriculum,” Swanger told McKnight’s Senior Living. “The program at Washington State University is relatively new, and having such generous support for our students from LCS lends tremendous validity and credibility to what we are trying to build.”
The LCS Foundation will fund one $5,000 scholarship per academic year. Scholarships are limited to students enrolled in the senior living management major, and recipients must be in good standing and have at least a 3.0 grade point average at Washington State University and the Carson College of Business.
Swanger added that many industry providers have given their “time, talent and treasure to help the program grow,” and that the LCS scholarship is one of three specifically for students studying senior living.
Swanger is on the board of trustees of the Vision Centre, which is supported by several industry associations — including the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living, the American Seniors Housing Association, Argentum, LeadingAge and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care — and working to create university and college programs and facilitate internships to prepare future generations of aging services leaders.
Since 2017, the LCS Foundation has awarded more than $450,000 in scholarships and professional development programs. The foundation also has collegiate partnerships with the University of Northern Iowa, Northwood University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Those partnerships have placed senior living experts on advisory boards, developed curricula and helped provide students with interactions to advance their learning.
Other senior living-focused academic programs include an assisted living/senior housing administration concentration at George Mason University, a Master of Arts degree in senior living hospitality at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, an undergraduate degree in senior living management in University of Central Florida’s Rose College of Hospitality Management, and Boston University’s concentration in senior living in the Masters of Management in Hospitality degree program.
