Nelson is a retired public school teacher and a faculty member and administrator with St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. She has served as a program director for the Danforth Foundation and president of the St. Louis Library Board. She has a bachelor's degree in social science from LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tenn., and a joint master's degree in religious education from Columbia University Teachers College and Union Theological Seminary. In 1961 Saint Louis University awarded her an honorary doctorate in humanities. In the 1960s she did social work at the Annie Malone Children's Home. She has worked as a teacher elsewhere in this country and in Haiti.

Opening the conference will be John E. Morley, M.D., director of geriatric medicine, who, with Joan Smith, brought the concept of the University of the Third Age to St. Louis. The conference will offer about 20 workshops on topics from physical conditioning to home safety; from World War II to how to be a Renaissance woman or man; and from tai chi to discovering your potential and mapping your journey into the new millennium.

Workshops include:

• "Broadcasting: The Way It Used to Be and How it Could Have Been" by Ollie Raymand, formerly of KMOV-TV Channel 4.
• "The Internet: Take A Ride on the Super Highway" by Jeff Urbanczyk.
• "Intimacy With God" by Estella Brown.

The closing event in the conference will be a report by Patricia Rice and Rabbi Robert P. Jacobs on Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis. Rice, religion writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, covered the visit intensively. Jacobs, who is 90 years old and has been a leader in Hillel and interfaith work, read from the book of Isaiah at the papal prayer service in the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica.

The registration fee for the symposium is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Parking is free. Directions and workshop assignments will be mailed upon registration receipt. For more information or to register, call 577-8462 and ask for Operator U3A.

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