Meet Ruth Finkelstein: Championing Hunter as an Age-Friendly College

For nearly 40 years, the Brookdale Center has been a leader in promoting the health and wellbeing of older Americans. With the country’s rapidly aging population, that work is more critical than ever, and Dr. Finkelstein is determined to meet the challenge with improved  practitioner training, more active policy engagement, expanded access to cultural programming and a deepened commitment to applied research. That work starts close to home by ensuring that Hunter itself embodies the values and practices advocated by Brookdale. In fact, one of the first things Dr. Finkelstein did after joining Hunter was to work with Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab to make it the first public college in the United States to join the Global Network of Age-Friendly Universities.

“Ruth has completely reimagined Brookdale’s potential to foster healthy aging,” says President Raab. “I’m so inspired by the way she has brought together experts from the entire Hunter community—in health, nursing and social work, as well as the arts and sciences—to ensure that older New Yorkers enjoy rich, vibrant lives.”

One program being designed by Dr. Finkelstein and her colleagues at the Silberman School of Social Work would connect students from that school with older adults who live near campus and have a spare bedroom. As “roommates,” both would benefit, with students paying a reasonable rent and the seniors reducing their own housing expenses. The program, called SOAR: Student-Older Adult Roommates, would be a win-win for the budding social workers (who’d gain valuable exposure to a population they’ll likely work with in their careers) and the seniors (who’d enjoy having a young person around the house again!)

In addition to that collaboration, Dr. Finkelstein is also partnering with two faculty members from Hunter’s School of Nursing—Dr. Elizabeth Cohn, the Rudin Professor of Nursing, and Dr. Elizabeth Capezuti, the Hearst Foundation Chair in Gerontology—to improve medical research involving elderly  participants. Together, they aim to identify strategies to better recruit older adults of color and from other diverse identities to participate in medical studies, ensuring that lessons learned through that vital research benefit all.

Another persistent challenge faced by older Americans is age discrimination, and Dr. Finkelstein recognizes that we need to shine a spotlight on those discriminatory practices in order to end them. With generous funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Dr. Finkelstein created a new role for an inaugural Senior Fellow at Brookdale, recruiting award-winning investigative journalist Peter Gosselin to fill that role. At Brookdale, he’ll bring much-needed attention to ageism and other challenges faced by elderly New Yorkers, while also highlighting the research-based solutions Brookdale has identified to solve them.

“As people age, their needs change,” Dr. Finkelstein says. “I feel so fortunate to be able to take advantage of the incredible resources and expertise available at Hunter and ensure that we’re doing all we can to improve the health and well-being of older people in our community.”