Linda Riopelle

“I started attending ELLA in 2014.  I was still working downtown at the Art Gallery and would work in the morning then take the LRT to the University and take a few classes and go back to work. My boss was very flexible and let me work on weekends and evenings to make up the time. I did this for two years and then retired.

Soon after, I started volunteering with ELLA in the office in Enterprise Square. Since my early 20s I have always enjoyed volunteer work, especially in organizations of which I am a member. 

Volunteering gives me a purpose, an opportunity to learn new skills; it gives my life meaning and feels very rewarding. Organizations value their volunteers and the contributions that they make.

After a couple of years, Joyce Madsen asked me to be Chair of the Administration Committee, and I served on the Board for three years. During this time, we began to hear the first rumbling of change with the University and our partnership. There was talk of charging room rental for the use of classrooms, the gym and art space.

In 2020 we were all ready for registration day in early March. We had completed all the training for the volunteers, everything was set up and organized to process many manual registrations for classes, to answer emails and phone calls for members doing online registration, all from our office downtown. Over 600 registrations for Spring Session were completed in about a week when the pandemic happened. We couldn’t be on campus for in-person learning, all classes had to be cancelled and refunds issued.

Subsequent to the cancellation of Spring Session, the Board made the decision to offer many of the classes online and Zoom opened up a whole new world. Walter Archer was a big part of the transition to online learning. He wanted to make the classes accessible for our members when we couldn’t provide them in person. It was incredible how quickly everybody came together as we pivoted to online courses. Some members now only take online courses, some only in-person courses and many do both.

At the end of June 2020 my time on the Board came to an end, but I continued to volunteer on the Administration Committee, and served on a committee to design a new website. We needed a better registration and membership system and one that would accommodate changes such as bundling courses and supporting online courses.

In the fall of 2020, the Administration Committee and the IT Committee merged into one, as we had a lot of overlapping responsibilities. I remained on the new Operations Committee for a couple of years then took a break. I continued to take online courses and love the fact that now some are recorded and can be accessed for two weeks after the class takes place. This was a benefit to me last winter as my husband had major surgery and was in the hospital for several days. I was able to watch the recording when it was convenient for me as I had missed several classes.

I went back to the in-person classes in the Spring of 2025. It was so great to reconnect with people that I had gotten to know over the years. There’s a great sense of community at ELLA. I keep coming back because I love learning and have loved learning my whole life. I went back to university in my 40s to finish my degree and was inspired to not only take business courses but also history, religion, English literature and art history courses, sparking a huge interest in new and different topics. ELLA continues to fill that gap with so many amazing courses and continues to open up my understanding of the world.

Brent Bennett is an amazing instructor. I have taken two of his courses, one on the Hapsburg Empire and one on the Cold War which was phenomenal. I love art history and the course about art fraud and forgery was fascinating. I have taken a variety of science, humanities and fitness courses.

The ELLA courses have all opened my eyes to a variety of topics and they give context and understanding to the world we live in. I have taken courses elsewhere but they were not as dynamic, or challenged my way of thinking. They felt stilted, had no interaction, just a one-way flow of information where ELLA instructors are open to questions and explanations and attendees often share their knowledge as well.

I am back volunteering with ELLA and am on the Operations and Program Implementation Committees. We have changed a lot in 25 years and continue to offer high quality courses thanks to a team of hardworking, dedicated and committed volunteers. We have learned to do new and different things in a changing environment. Volunteers are willing to do so much because they are committed and dedicated and you don’t get that often. I just love ELLA.  The fantastic selection of courses and instructors, the sense of community and the opportunity to volunteer, where the people you get to know become friends, are the reasons why I keep coming back.”

[ Interviewed by Patricia Waisman ]