A SAGE Approach to Retirement : Education: It’s never too late for the members of a group who learn together without the prod of pop quizzes, exams or grades.

Retired six years, Art Frumkin of Van Nuys hadn’t had time to watch much television or play shuffleboard.

Frumkin, 67, a former trucking company sales manager, was busy studying for his reports on the lives of conductor Arturo Toscanini and cellist Pablo Casals. A later one was scheduled to be about the religious cults of Melanesia.

“To let my brain atrophy and watch the grass grow just isn’t for me,” he said. “I want to continue to learn. And I’m having a hell of a lot of fun doing so.”

One of the reasons that Frumkin is enjoying himself is the SAGE Society, a Northridge-based organization that describes itself as “a learning community for incorrigibly curious adults of retirement age who desire intellectual stimulation in an informal environment.”

The group--SAGE is an acronym for Study, Activity, Growth, Enrichment--is a small but academically vigorous organization that regularly meets to discuss wide-ranging topics: the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the history of art, the Golden Age of Greece, American cinema. Attendance is strictly voluntary, and members can take as many or as few courses as they wish.

“We don’t want to hear a lecture,” said SAGE founder Morrie Cutler. “We want to be able to take classes that we always wanted to but never could. We want to hear information for about 20 or 30 minutes that will stimulate a good round-table discussion.” But don’t worry about a pop quiz, final exams or grades, he said, because there are none.

“Nobody teaches,” said Frumkin, who is also the society’s president. “But everybody who enrolls in a course must take a subtopic, go to the library, do their reading and on a given day make a report. Nobody just sits and audits.”

If all this sounds strikingly similar to the structure of a college course, perhaps it is, because the SAGE Society is administratively aligned with Cal State Northridge. The group meets across from CSUN on the second floor of the school’s credit union offices on Reseda Boulevard.

Said CSUN liaison Sonja Marchand: “It’s a wonderful, symbiotic relationship between these people who have spent their lives working but still have an intellectual curiosity and the younger students who are going through a collegiate experience.” She said SAGE members can take advantage of the various university facilities, including the library.

The SAGE Society began in 1986 when a handful of San Fernando Valley members of the Plato Society, a similar group aligned with UCLA in West Los Angeles, broke away after deciding that they just couldn’t make yet another trip over Sepulveda Pass. There are 77 SAGE members now, with a 60-40 split in favor of women. Dues are $200 a year, necessary to keep the society self-sustaining, members say. For those who cannot afford the fee, dues can be negotiated.

“I wanted to do something intellectually stimulating,” said Gene Friedman, 69, a former English teacher and one of the original SAGE members. “Teaching was intellectually stimulating for me, and I wanted to continue doing that after I retired.”

Other members express similar reasons for belonging to SAGE.

“These are all the things I always wanted to do but was never able to after school,” said Jesse Simon, 62, a retired optometrist who gave a report on religion in Japan. “When you’re working, your interests are in furthering your profession and taking care of your family.”

Then there is the story of the engineer who admitted that he had never read poetry before joining the society. “He was enjoying the works of e.e. cummings,” recalled Friedman, “and it was fun to watch him get excited about it.”

Myrtle Loehr, a retired CSUN home economics professor, said she felt that she needed some kind of challenge, and Julian Cleitman, 76, a retired pharmaceutical sales manager, said he finds that the experience fulfills his desire to study various liberal arts topics after a career in a more scientific field.

There are about 100 organizations similar to the SAGE Society in the United States. Sixteen of them, such as the Plato Society and the Renaissance Society at Sacramento State, are in California, said Francis A. Meyers, president of the umbrella group ALIROW, the Assn. of Learning in Retirement Organizations in the Western Region.

The year’s schedule includes four 10-week courses and a seven-week summer session. Members suggest topics, which are approved by a vote of society members. The eight most popular courses are slated for discussion groups meeting for two hours a week. Each group has a coordinator who assigns subtopics and due dates.

“I’ve done a little research into what happens to people in retirement,” SAGE member and former elementary school principal Ed Menacker, 67, said. “People who remain active, have hobbies, or anything where they have to use their mind, tend to have longer life spans.”

The society considers itself an academic club--only two subjects, grandchildren and what ails you, are banned. But there are also informal social events, including house parties, bridge games and a colloquium at which CSUN teachers are invited to speak.

Members would like to see the SAGE Society expand to serve more people. A study done by CSUN about three years ago found that there are roughly 350,000 people age 55 and older living in the Valley.

“Keeping your mind occupied, going to the library and reading about a lot of things is wonderful,” Frumkin said. “During your working years, you’re too busy. Some of the subject matter I’m taking is just marvelous. I’m learning about ancient societies I never knew about other than their names. I’m pushing my horizons back.”

Which is exactly the purpose of the SAGE Society, Marchand said. “These people typify what a university ought to be about,” she said, “the pure joy of learning something because you want to learn it.”