Expert on Aging Steps Down : For USC Dean and Wife, It’s Not Same Old Thing

After a lifetime spent studying the aging process, James Birren will officially join the geriatric ranks in June when he steps down as dean of USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center.

Then he plans to get busy.

Among the array of projects and interests the 67-year-old scholar and his wife, Betty, have lined up is a long-delayed dream but also a bit of self-indulgence: He wants to write children’s books.

Change of Pace

Admittedly, for a man whose career in gerontology literally spans the modern academic discipline of studying the aging, it is a distinct change of pace.

Yet, a children’s book James Birren envisions is tied to aging in that it is a fable that deals with time.

As he and his wife relaxed in the pleasant living room of their Pacific Palisades home, Birren spoke of one of his stories, “King Later and the Gift of Time.”

“It’s about a king who got tired of being pushed around by Time and gets Time out of his kingdom,” he said. “Such chaos results that he finally begs Chronos to give the country back the gift of time. When Chronos does, King Later decrees a New Year’s celebration and changes his name to King Earlier the Better.”

Prolific Writer

For a man who disliked writing in his youth and who now does it for fun, Birren has done his share professionally. He is the author of numerous books on gerontology and recently wrote an introduction to a Swedish study of people age 70 and older.

His latest venture came as a mid-interview surprise to Betty Birren: “I was invited to do a chapter in a book on developmental psychology,” James Birren said, “and I said, ‘I’ll take adult developmental psychology.’ ” His wife raised her eyebrows: “I didn’t know that until now,” she said.

In addition to writing, Jim Birren has committed himself to a raft of projects: He is a consultant on aging to the Carnegie Foundation, chairman of the review committee for the National Institute of Mental Health, an adviser to the Brookdale Foundation on the selection of fellows, director of the Andrew Norman Institute for Advanced Study in Gerontology and Geriatrics and professor of psychology at USC, where he will continue to work at the Andrus Gerontology Center.

He is now in Japan for a Carnegie Foundation conference involving representatives of the U. S. Congress and the Japanese Diet who are meeting with professionals to look at aging and its implications. Betty Birren, herself a developmental psychologist with expertise in gerontology and a master’s degree from Northwestern, where she and her husband met as graduate students, is an observer.

Headed for South Korea

From Japan the Birrens will go to Seoul, where, in Betty Birren’s words, “Jim will be owned by the Korean psychological and gerontological associations” for about a week. They also will visit with a former fellow at the Andrus Center who has returned to his Korean homeland.

As they spoke, Birren rummaged through a closet “looking for those his-and-her plaques,” which turned out to be commemorations of his tenure in 1956-57 and hers in 1980-81, each as president of the American Psychological Assn.’s Division of Adult Development and Aging.

“We were the first couple to be voting members of the (American) Gerontological Society at the same time,” said Betty Birren, a petite, lively woman. “Yes, I’m a semi -pro. That means I don’t get paid.”

James Emmett Birren, a native of Chicago, received a bachelor of education degree at Chicago State University and master’s and doctor of psychology degrees at Northwestern.

He left the top job at the National Institute of Mental Health’s section on aging to come to USC in 1965 at the behest of Norman Topping, then president of the university, who saw a need to establish a program in gerontology.

Birren built that program, considered by most experts the finest in the nation. With the help of a three-year commitment from USC, a contribution from Ross Cortese, real estate developer of retirement communities (Rossmoor Leisure World) and one employee, Birren quickly established a program that drew major government funding.

By January, 1973, the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center was dedicated, built largely with contributions from members of the National Retired Teachers Assn. and the American Assn. of Retired Persons in honor of their founder.

“Probably more individuals contributed to this (the Andrus Center) than to any building at any university--more than 400,000 from 50 states,” Birren said in an interview in his office at the center.

“It created in me a sense of obligation. There these (older) people were, groping for some outside interest. Physical education departments were training teachers for elementary schools, high schools or colleges. But the biggest need was for exercise and health programs for those over 22.

One Employee in ’65

“Twenty years ago it (gerontology) was a desert. Then in 1964 a university committee was formed (to implement Topping’s plan for a USC program on aging). I came in Labor Day of 1965--with one employee. Now we have about 100, 30 of whom are faculty types.

“I predict that by 2000 every university and every college will have something for the mature adult. Child psychology, biology, embryology--we have studied the early part of life but not the later. When I came to California 20 years ago there was not a single medical school with geriatrics. . . .

“We (at USC) have tried to have programs in the biological part of aging, the psychological, social, demographic and social-policy issues.

“We were the first school of gerontology in the country, the first to grant degrees in gerontology.”

In 1975 the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology was added to the Andrus Center. From its modest beginnings, the center now operates on a budget of $5 million, Birren said.

As the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center grew--in its programs and projects, faculty and students, facilities and prestige--so did Birren’s reputation in the field of aging.

He is the author of numerous books and scholarly papers, past president of the American Gerontological Society, a former officer and/or fellow of several other eminent organizations. He has received the Brookdale Foundation Award for Gerontological Research and the Gerontological Society Award for Meritorious Research.

His reputation is international. He has lectured from Leipzig and Quebec to Stockholm, Oslo and British Columbia. He is a member of the World Health Organization’s Expert Advisory Panel on Health of Elderly Persons and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Goteberg, Sweden.

Reputation and honors aside, Birren remains committed to the subject--and ever-expanding issues--of aging.

He moved from his living room to an adjacent spacious library, an addition built in accordance with optimal retirement planning to accommodate what he hopes will be increased time at home. He returned with two books, both on aging, of course, and both surprisingly elderly themselves.

The first was by Francis Bacon, “The History of Life and Death. With Observations. . . , “ dating to 1637. Birren was intrigued by the book and its quaint spellings.

Not Many Old People

“Not many people were long-lived in those days,” he said. “There were always some old people but not many. Bacon writes, ‘Of 201 and 40 five only attayned to fourscore yeres of age and upward.’

“He does a good job. He says we don’t know much. Even now we have only been studying gerontology 15 or 20 years--and now it is just exploding.”

The second book, published in 1835 and described by Birren as “the first modern book on aging,” was by a French author named Quetelet, who did a remarkably scientific study that included surveys by geography, occupation (monks and nuns lived longer), even the difference in strength of grip between ages 6 and 60.

Birren, a former anatomy professor who endorses integration of biological and social data to provide information on the aging process, said that the image of being old is changing, largely because of the increasing number of older people.

“Numbers are the driving force,” he said. “In 1900 life expectancy was 47 years; in 1985 it was 74 years--79 for women and 72 for men.

“That is a huge change. Cultures really don’t move that fast. Every institution in society now is influenced by the old.”

Those institutions, Birren said, include organized religion, education, law, the work force and life-style issues ranging from diet and exercise to stress and marriage.

The Birrens spoke first of organized religion, she citing the example of an Episcopal minister who studied aging at the Andrus Center; he noting a new journal on religion and the aging.

“Priests, ministers and rabbis are not trained (in aging),” Jim Birren said. “They are upset with their own aging. They tend to respond with formal religion, but older people want something more personal.

‘Loosening of Restrictions’

“In the schools, older people are presenting themselves for degrees after their work life. . . . There is a woman of 77 in St. Louis studying for a Ph.D. in philosophy. We see the beginning of a loosening of restrictions regarding aging. Institutions are considering questions such as, ‘Should 40-year-old women get equal attention when it comes to fellowships?’ ”

Betty Birren recalled the time their son, Jeff, now 35 and an attorney for the Los Angeles Raiders, “dragged us to a professional football game. There was a 42-year-old man out there playing: George Blanda.”

Birren brought up what he calls “an ecological view of aging,” which he defined as how we have evolved as a species and environment.

“For example, diet. What’s good for us as a species, ways of potentiating the human life span,” he said. “If some is good, more is not necessarily better.

Questions Remain

“Exercise is good, but how much becomes an issue. Too much stress is bad but if there is none we are not living. The question is what is an environment that will keep us vital?

“In this second half of the century, what is our biological testing? Our behavioral testing? It is a far different time than in 1900 when the average marriage was dissolved by death before the youngest child left the house.”

“Insurance statistics,” Betty Birren said, “show that if both spouses are 65, one or the other will be alive at 90. What do we do with 25 years?”

While they share many interests, the Birrens also have individual tastes. Betty Birren loves to read, collect recipes and cook. “But,” her husband said, “she won’t join me in the garden.” “No,” she said, “but the garden has kept your sanity.”

Birren’s neatly manicured garden includes a restful fountain and an inviting bench to sit on while admiring orange, lemon and tangerine trees that look like bouquets, azaleas in full bloom and heavily budded orchids.

The couple, very much involved with the future, also recall other times--good and bad but mostly good. They remember that their first child, daughter Barbara, now 39, was born the day after her mother turned in her master’s thesis; in addition to Jeff, they also are parents of Bruce, 29, who has a doctorate in molecular biology from UCLA and is a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and who met his wife in graduate school.

Betty Birren recalled that she and her husband solved the “women’s issues problem before anyone knew it was there.” She said that her husband cared for the children and learned to shop for groceries “when I got an incomplete in a statistics course and then supported us doing statistical work in an advertising agency.”

‘Didn’t Have Time’

She told, still with some wonder despite the intervening years, about the time in 1947 that Jim Birren’s boss offered him a grant.

“Jim didn’t have time to do the work,” she said. “He said why didn’t I explore it. I pointed out that we had a year-old baby to care for. Jim said, ‘Hire somebody.’ I worked on that (the grant) until 1949 when the Public Health Service took it over.

“We didn’t think of being pioneers. We both worked in the home and outside at different times.”

Perhaps Betty Birren summed up the family philosophy best in an anecdote about a high school reunion she attended recently.

“There was not one ‘Do you remember. . . ?’ conversation,” she said, “only ‘What are you doing now? How is your life now?’

“It’s not that we get older. It’s that the year we were born gets further back.”