AUSTIN, Texas—Walter Bortz, a distinguished physician, researcher and author of the best-selling book We Live Too Short and Die Too Long, will speak at the official opening of UT’s new Institute of Gerontology on Saturday (Oct 16). The Institute was established by the University last spring to promote research and education in gerontology and to respond to the needs of an aging society.
“Redefining Human Aging” is the topic of Dr. Bortz’s keynote address, which will be the highlight of the opening. UT Austin President Larry R. Faulkner also will speak briefly, and local and regional representatives from agencies that serve seniors will participate in panel discussions focusing on the aging of the Baby Boomer generation in Texas.
The event, which will take place from 9 a.m. to noon in the Thompson Conference Center on the UT Austin campus, is free and open to the public.
The Institute of Gerontology brings together faculty from eight UT schools and colleges who are engaged in interdisciplinary research and in training of professionals to work in the field of aging. Professors and researchers from such fields as nursing, health education, public policy, pharmacy, social work and communications work together through the Institute to offer graduate courses in gerontology, to study factors that lead to dynamic aging, and ultimately to improve the quality of life for older adults. Seed funding for the new Institute was provided by the RGK Foundation, the St. David’s Foundation, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and the UT Office of the Provost.
Bortz is the past president of the American Geriatrics Society and the co-chairman of the American Medical Association’s Task Force on Aging. A specialist in internal medicine at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic in California, he is also a clinical associate professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
He has published more than 100 scholarly papers in academic and medical journals, many of them on the subject of aging. His two books, We Live Too Short and Die Too Long and Dare To Be 100, have been published in the United States, Japan, Italy and the Netherlands.
The 69-year-old Bortz is a dedicated long-distance runner who has completed over 20 marathons in cities including Boston, Honolulu, San Francisco, London and Athens. He stresses physical and mental activity as the key to longevity and uses his vast clinical experience to support his theories and research on aging.
Parking for the Oct. 16th event is available in the lot east of the Thompson Conference Center, which is located at 26th and Red River streets. For more information, call the Institute at 232-3921.
