At 93, Australia’s oldest university student is a force to be reckoned with. With no desire to retire, she’s so busy advocating for the elderly that she has to study part-time.
Val Fell was born in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 14, 1929. A great-grandmother of three, today she lives in Wollongong, New South Wales, and is studying for a Bachelor of Dementia Care at the University of Tasmania.
She told The Epoch Times: “I’m not literally on the grounds of the university ... I do the lectures online, but we do meet and they accept me as an individual, regardless of the fact that I’m old enough to be their great-grandmother!”
Val’s husband, Ian, was diagnosed with dementia in 2006 at the age of 77. Val looked after Ian at home until 2010 when he was transferred to residential care and passed away in 2013.
She likes to “keep up-to-date with what is happening in the field.” She did a few courses online on dementia research and care, along with some short courses on dementia advocacy before enrolling for a bachelor’s degree in dementia care part-time.
She is an ambassador for the National Older Person’s Reference Group and the Council on the Ageing Australia. Additionally, she is on the Aged Care Council of Elders, a 14-member government body appointed in 2022 to help improve aged care.
“Probably one of the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing is because of what happened; social isolation, and the things that I experienced during the time my husband had dementia and shortly afterward,” Val told The Epoch Times. “In the last 10 years, I have run a big conference of about 400 people where we raise awareness of dementia and ... ageism.”
Through her efforts, Val said she had been trying to reduce the stigma attached to being old or having dementia.
“[T]hese days, many people seem to think that once you reach a certain age, you don’t have any part to play in life,” Val said. “It’s quite a different thing, really ... I think that as you get older, you should concentrate on what you can do and forget about what you can’t do.”
Val believes that once a person reaches a certain age that doesn’t mean that life has stopped.
She has also experienced ageism first-hand. She recalled an experience with a waiter at a group farewell dinner.
“We went through the whole rigmarole; red wine, white wine, still, sparkling. Then he came to me, looked at me for a minute or two, and said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I said, ‘No, thank you. I’d like a glass of red wine,'” Val said. “Somebody else recently asked me if I could still read. People keep asking me if I made arrangements to go into a nursing home.”
She wants to remind those who are younger that “sometime in the future, you too are going to age.”
“You do not know what that’s going to be like, so don’t turn away from older people’s approach and talk to them as normal people, because that’s what they are,” Val said. “Older people are just normal people who have lived a few more years than you.”
To that end, Val is a champion for intergenerational education at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, and has learned, since introducing elderly folk to school-aged children, that kids do not discriminate.
“One morning a week, I go to school on Zoom. I’m connected to a classroom and I’m also connected at the same time to the activities room in an aged care nursing home,” Val said. “We have a lesson together, we talk about a particular topic in the curriculum, and the children put forward their ideas, the elderly people in the nursing home put forward their ideas, [and] it’s wonderful to see the empathy that develops.”
Val grew up as the eighth of 11 children, seven girls and four boys, and was the first in her family to attend university. She went to Sydney University in 1946 for a degree in mathematics.
She married Ian in 1955 and after a couple of years teaching math and a few years working as a statistician for various companies, she raised four children and returned to education. She is one of three surviving siblings whose mother lived to the age of 100.
Val, who lives by herself, said the biggest change she has noticed in her lifetime is how technology has developed.
She saw her first computer in 1954 in London, and it was in a room that took up the entire floor of the building. However, now computers can fit into a handbag.
Despite her age, Val has adapted to the changes in technology rather well. She said she attends online classes and the only challenges she faces are the occasional issue with her laptop or in preparing a PowerPoint presentation. Otherwise she “manages well.”
The nonagenarian believes that studying both feeds independence and fosters community. “It’s good for the body, it’s good for the mind, and it’s good for physical activities. I always tell people that they should keep on learning,” she told The Epoch Times.
All five of Val’s grandchildren have degrees, a fact that she is proud of. Time with her beloved family is one thing among many that keep Val healthy and happy.
She advised others: “Keep doing things within your community or within your home ... there’s nothing wrong with having a glass of wine with your dinner at night, but don’t drink in excess. Don’t eat in excess, watch your diet. Be active and healthy; a healthy mind brings a healthy body, a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, and vice versa.”
Val hopes for a future without ageism or dementia. The latter will take years, she said, explaining: “That won’t happen in my lifetime, but it might happen in yours ... therefore we need to look after the people who have dementia, and walk with them through their journey.”
