The population is rapidly aging and living longer giving rise to gerontology, the study of aging.

According to the 2010 census, there are more people over the age of 65 than ever before. Within ten years, the Census Bureau predicts there will be more people over 65 than under five years old.

The Iowa Board of Regents approved Iowa State’s interdepartmental master’s and doctoral degrees in gerontology last August to meet growing demand.

Students in gerontology are free to pursue a variety of jobs revolving around an older population. Jobs aren’t only directly caring for the elderly, but range from designing products to planning second weddings.

The new gerontology graduate program will be accepting its first cohorts this spring for fall 2015.

“It’s a major need because we’re an older state,” said Jennifer Margrett, director of gerontology. “As an Iowan, we should be concerned that we don’t have enough professionals trained in adult development and aging, so we have a real shortage of health care professionals. It’s also a huge issue not only in Iowa, but in the nation and the world.”

Although gerontology has been offered online for about 12 years, both as a master’s and certificate program, faculty saw a rise in demand for an on campus graduate program.

“It’s kind of a flip that we had an online program and students had been saying they want an on campus [program],” Margrett said. “Usually it’s on campus and people want it online, so it’s a little bit in reverse.”

Margrett said that students in the on campus program will have more research opportunities and more interaction with other students and faculty.

Gerontology is also offered as an undergraduate and graduate minor. The gerontology program is interdisciplinary and allows students to focus on many aspects of aging, from engineering to event management.

Margrett said that students in gerontology could study things ranging from how to design homes that reduce the risk of falls to planning second marriages to healthy nutrition as we age.

“Often times, students don’t think about a career in aging, but they have an experience with aging or working with this population and they realize how diverse of a group it is,” Margrett said.  “If we could dispel all myths that aging is all wrinkles and rocking chairs, we could show that it’s actually very diverse.”

Approving the graduate program took years in the making. Margrett said creating the program’s curriculum and getting it approved took about three years.

Robert Wallace, chairman of academic affairs, presented the possible graduate program to the faculty senate, just one of the many steps in getting the new curriculum approved.

“The gerontology proposal was a particularly well crafted proposal,” Wallace said. “It kind of moved through without much question or concern. It was clearly demonstrated that this program is growing, that the program is a discipline that is growing progressively more in demand. It was kind of a no brainer.”

Margrett believes studying gerontology also increases students’ marketability and opportunities for employment.

“This is a population that isn’t going away and if we learn more and think more about the whole lifespan and products, environments and families that support healthy development that’s going to help us all have better quality of life,” Margrett said.

Students with gerontology degrees can expect to get jobs in a range of fields and help the older population in more ways than just direct care. 

“There’s really a variety of directions you could go,” said Jason Gillette, graduate minor coordinator.

Gillette said options for graduates include working hands on with the elderly, working on policy, and working in health services or meeting with people to work on finances.

One of the programs tag lines “Aging … everybody’s doing it,” highlights the inevitability of growing older.

“We see people living longer and healthy longer,” Gillette said. “To have a healthy older population is very important for our society.”

Both Gillette and Margrett expressed that the program’s interdisciplinary nature is one of the programs selling points. 

“Overall, it’s likely you’re going to work with older adults,” Gillette said. “I think some things that make it special when you start getting people from different fields it opens up new avenues of collaboration… I think that’s when you can come up with your best solution and your most innovative solution.”