David Bianco (July 25, 1939 – January 11, 2016) was the co-founder of Elderhostel, a

not-for-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization established in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in 1975, which offers adults lifelong learning opportunities across North America and throughout the world. A former dean of

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

and

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original c ...

and director of residential life at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

, Bianco co-founded Elderhostel, Inc. in 1975 with Martin Knowlton.

Elderhostel

In 1975, Bianco was responsible for the management of the dormitory and dining programs at the University of New Hampshire. Bianco hired Knowlton to run the youth hostel on campus. As Knowlton was a self-described aging

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

with a white beard, the idea was born to have instead of a "Youth Hostel", an "Elder Hostel". The two devised a program in which people over age 60 could take summer courses while staying on campus in student dormitories. The program started in 1975 with 220 students ages 60 and up on five college campuses in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, with the support of

Eugene S. Mills Eugene Sumner Mills (September 13, 1924 – August 18, 2020) was an American academic. He was the thirteenth President of the University of New Hampshire from 1974 to 1979. Mills attended Earlham College and Claremont Graduate University T ...

, president of the University of New Hampshire and a grant of $7,500 from the Spaulding Potter Charitable Trust. Within five years it had grown to 20,000 students. The program was expanded internationally, to

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Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and

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in 1981. By 2010 more than 4 million adults had taken Elderhostel programs, and in 2010 the organization changed the name of its programs to Road Scholar.

After Elderhostel

After leaving Elderhostel, Bianco joined Knowlton to manage a new organization Knowlton had created, first called Gatekeepers to the Future. It was restructured and renamed the Center for the Study of the Future in the early 1990s. Bianco resided in

Ventura, California Ventura, officially named San Buenaventura ( Spanish for " Saint Bonaventure"), is a city on the Southern Coast of California and the county seat of Ventura County. The population was 110,763 at the 2020 census. Ventura is a popular tourist d ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bianco, David 1939 births Adult education leaders Brandeis University faculty Boston University faculty 2016 deaths