Burt Knauft enjoys lively discussions in Columbia, whether he finds them in the Great Decisions group where he is one of the volunteer leaders at Vantage House retirement community, or on the Town Center Village Board, of which he was a member for six years.

Lively is the operative word, as members of both groups “like to express their opinions,” said Knauft, who at 87 is one of the elder statesmen.

He retired from the village board in April 2008, saying he enjoyed it immensely during his three two-year terms. The retired industrial psychologist said he had known and admired James Rouse, founder of Columbia, long before moving to Maryland in 2001 with his wife, Ruth. Rouse had at one time served as a consultant to Aetna Insurance, Knauft’s long-time employer in Hartford, Connecticut.

Knauft was the village board’s chairman of the architectural committee, which enforces association covenants on residents’ properties.

As for the Great Decisions group, meetings are held twice a month from mid-February through mid-June and are still going strong. The group’s material comes from a briefing published annually by the Foreign Policy Association. Each year the association selects eight foreign relations topics for analysis and discussion. Included are 25-minute videos for each topic that are shown at the start of each session.

“This is not light reading – some of it is pretty heady stuff,” points out Knauft, who joined the group to learn more about foreign policy. “You put yourself in the shoes of a policymaker from the United States, such as someone from the state department or even the President.”

Recent topics that he led for the group, which usually draws up to 60 Vantage House participants, have included, “Iraq – strategies for dealing with uncertainty” and “Latin America – the next United States President’s agenda.”

“Ruth and I are fortunate to both be blessed with relatively good health for our ages,” Knauft said, noting they will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary in November. He said he and his wife chose Vantage House after doing much research.

“But this apartment was the drawing card with a lovely view of Wilde Lake and the surrounding Town Center area,” he said, referring to their cozy home on the 12th floor of the 222-apartment building.

Another pull was the socializing at Vantage House. “When we stopped by the dining room on our tour, we noticed the level of talking and how people were relating to one another,” he said. “That was a good signal for us.”