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Seniors’ Education Program Has New Leader, Diverse Schedule

By Daniel Dullum
Spectrum staff writer

Bringing with him a wealth of experience in the business community, Don Woodside of Fair Oaks has taken the reins as the new president of the Renaissance Society, California State University Sacramento’s learning-in-retirement program.

Woodside, the society’s vice president the past two years, moved along with his wife, Ginny, and their family to Sacramento in 1975, when he was named executive director of the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization, or SACTO. After his retirement in 1999, he joined the Renaissance Society.

“This is a wonderful learning experience,” Woodside said. “When I came back from the service and was going to Montana State College, I thought I was going to be an electrical engineer. The person who gave me an aptitude test said I should be teaching and majoring in history. It turned out that I was not equipped to go into electrical engineering and wound up in business administration. But now after all these years, I’m back in history and it’s been wonderful.”

A native of Montana, Woodside served in the U.S. Army as a sergeant with the 83rd Infantry Division in World War II, landing in Normandy a month after D-Day in July 1944. After graduating from college, he worked for the Butte, Mont., Chamber of Commerce and relocated to California in 1959 to become manager of the Chico Chamber of Commerce.

In 1968, Woodside was named manager of economic development for the San Jose Chamber of Commerce while Norman Minetta, the current U.S. secretary of transportation, was mayor of San Jose.

Along with his SACTO duties, Woodside was named senior consultant to the California Legislature’s joint committee on the state’s economy in 1977, where two of the bills introduced by this body expedited the approval process for energy plants and set a requirement that gasoline station prices be more visible.
Woodside retired from the committee in 1991 and worked part-time as a consultant to Sen. Ralph Dills until both men retired in 1998.

Woodside’s first seminar presentation for the society was “Early Islam,” and he presented “The Origins of Monotheism” last spring. Ironically, neither subject had been a lifelong topic of study for Woodside.

“When I first joined the Renaissance Society, the first class I enrolled in was ‘The Age of the Renaissance.’ At that time, one of the things they did was go back to Islam to get the original Greek — Plato and Aristotle and so forth. They were able to translate it into Arabic. As a result, we did a seminar on early Islam,” he explained. “I’ve been involved in several seminars as a co-coordinator. It takes a lot of effort, but it’s a great learning experience. You have to do quite a bit of research — it’s a challenge, but it’s really worth it.”

One of Woodside’s immediate goals is to recruit more seminar leaders. The society has a membership of nearly 700, including 65 new members for the fall semester.

“That’s the biggest sign-up we’ve ever had in the fall,” Woodside said.

“We are a participatory organization and we expect the members to participate in the seminars, make presentations, select the topic and do the necessary research,” he said. “We expect members to step up and be coordinators to select a seminar topic, organize it and lead it. We don’t rely on faculty at Sac State. We rely on ourselves.”

Woodside and fellow society member Mildred Alexander represented the Renaissance Society in April at the Association for Learning in Retirement Organizations of the West’s biennial conference in Las Vegas, Nev.

“I thought [the Renaissance Society] was good, but I feel that after talking with some of the others, we really have one of the best learning-in-retirement programs,” Woodside said.

Woodside points out that classroom availability at CSUS helps the Renaissance Society considerably. At other universities, he said, limited classroom space is an ongoing dilemma.

Renaissance Society classes are scheduled for 3 p.m. Fridays at various sites on the CSUS campus, with some off-campus seminars scheduled throughout the week.

“There’s a lot of good seminars lined up,” Woodside said. “We get mailings from the other organizations, I look at what we’re offering, and we’re more diverse than any of the others I can think of.”

For further information about the Renaissance Society, call (916) 278-7834 or check the Web site www.csus.edu/ORG/RENSOC/.