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Winston Churchill’s Life and Times is the title
of a new program being given this fall at the Academy for Lifelong
Learning of Cape Cod, Inc. in Massachusetts. In looking at Churchill’s
long, eventful life, they will focus especially on Britain’s imperial
age, World War I and II, as well as the revulsion with war that took place
after World War I.
Members of the Brevard Elderlearning Program at Brevard
Community College in Cocoa, Florida recently studied India: History/Culture/Music
& More. The program included presentations about Mahatma Gandhi,
Mother Theresa, Christianity in India, History & Culture of India
and Music & Musical Instruments.
This fall members of the Center for Lifelong Learning, Inc.
in Fort Walton Beach, Florida will be studying Life in a Medieval
City. This class will use the paperback book, “Life in a
Medieval City,” by Joseph and Frances Gies. The city is Tryes,
France, in the 13th century. This class will focus on such topics as
the home, housewives, children, school, theater and food.
Members of the Collegium program at Westchester Community
College in New York are studying Current Struggles in Public Education.
Some of the questions that will be explored are - Will the current push
for accountability improve our schools? What is the place of religion
in the schools? Does more funding mean better schools? Is privatization
a better route for our youth? How can we keep good teachers in the system?
Members of the Community Academy for Lifelong Learning
in State College, Pennsylvania will be studying the Native People
of the United States: Past and Present. This is the second course
offered in Native American History and Culture and focuses on the tribes
in the Middle West, Southwest and Plains, and the Northwest. It will
include the demography of Native Peoples and current issues associated
with treaty rights, termination policies, sovereignty, education and
societal needs.
The Encore program at North Carolina State University
in Raleigh will be offering members a new course entitled The Clones
are Coming. During this course they will explore the biology and
development role of stem cells, evaluate their use in medical therapies
and discuss the ethical implications of their use. Other topics include
how cloning is achieved in both animals and plants, why clones are not
completely identical and the good and bad points of clones within the
context of their use.
The Institute for Mature Learners at Drury University
in Missouri studied Peru in depth this fall with two different courses.
The first, Mystical Tourism in Peru and Its Effects on Both Tourists
and the Indigenous Population, was led by a professor of Global
Studies whose research in Peru into the lesser known aspects of globalization
have shown that class conflicts have emerged as spiritual tourism and
New Age culture have proliferated in Peru under contemporary conditions.
. The second course, The Cultural Politics of Peruvian Postcard
Images, led by the same professor, explored the role of postcards
and visual culture in Peru’s tourist industry and examined marginalization
and survival strategies in the context of Peru’s globalizing economy.
This fall members of the Institute for Continuing Learning
at Young Harris College in Georgia are taking a course entitled U.S-Mexican
War: 1846-1848. One of the most controversial and least understood
conflicts in U.S. history prior to Vietnam, it created a bitter split
in the American electorate and shaped the nation’s southern border.
Many students of history view it as the “Prelude” to an
irrepressible conflict, the Civil War.
Members of the ILR at Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut
have taken on a weighty topic with the course Regulating Love, Sex
and Marriage. This course, taught by a professor of law, looks
at the Constitution and same sex marriage. The central focus of the
course will be whether or not courts should recognize a constitutional
right for same-sex couples to marry.
Folk Tales from Around the World is the title of a new course
being given this fall at the ILR at Bergen Community College
in New Jersey. Members will explore folk tales from many perspectives
– psychological, cultural, and as part of oral and written traditions.
Members of the Lifeong Learning at Coastal Carolina
University program are looking at the Middle East in depth. They studied
An Introduction to Arabic Culture with middle eastern native
Basem Hilal who focused on the position of women in Arabic culture.
The Globalist Club talked about Modern and Old Insurgencies: The
Human Impact of the Civil Wars in Iraq, Afganistan and Columbia
by world renowned Columbian scholar Jorge Restrepo.
Members of the Lifelong Learning of Hilton Head Island
program studied Introduction to the Literature of the Vietnam War.
They examined the war in Vietnam and its impact on individuals and society,
as seen through some of the fiction, poetry, memoirs, journalism, music
and film that came out of it. While major emphasis was on the body of
literary work produced by Americans, the class also sampled literature
written by Vietnamese about the “American War.”
This past summer, the Lifetime Learning Institute
of Northern Virginia in Annandale held a Forum entitled Dangerous
Doctors, Murderous Medicine. A Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
at Georgetown University Medical School talked about the complicity
of Nazi doctors and pharmaceutical companies in murderous experiments
related to epidemic typhus to further genocide. All participants of
the Forum always bring a food donation for the programs Community Outreach
program.
Members of the Furman University Learning in Retirement
program in South Carolina are studying China: Historical, Economic,
and Personal Perspectives this fall. The first four sessions will
be an overview of China’s modern historical experience in the
context of its traditional culture. After nearly two millennia as the
center of an East Asian universe, China was beset by “barbarians”
in the 19th and 20th centuries. There followed a half century of revolution
than another half century under a progressive but totalitarian regime.
This led to China as a leading and still rising economic and political
world power. The last six sessions will cover China’s importance
as a leading player in the current and future world economy and as a
major U.S. trading partner. In addition, the experiences in establishing
and operating an American company in China, and living conditions for
expatriates, will be discussed.
Memory, Its Tricks and Their Controls: Suggestibility, Misattribution,
Bias was the title of a course given at the Learning In
Retirement program in Washington, Georgia. Dealing with the
memory “sins” of commission, this course dealt largely with
the creating of memory from the imagination, suggestion and other sources.
It was a continuation of the study of the book Seven Sins of Memory,
by Daniel L. Schacter.
Problems of Food Production in the Developing World is the
title of a new course being given at the Learning in Retirement
program in Athens, Georgia. This course will look at the current state
of food production in developing countries. For example, Africa lags
far behind other developing nations in almost all parameters considered,
due largely to government corruption, civil strife, poor infrastructure,
lack of inputs and markets and the unavailability of production loans.
The U.N. Millennium Project will be presented as a framework for a possible
solution to these problems.
Comic Strips as Political Literature is the title of a course
being offered at the L.I.F.E. program at Mount Saint
Mary College in New York. Participants will study controversial strips
from Doonesbury back to the 19th century beginnings of visual punditry
in daily newspapers. This course highlights major comic artists and
explores the ideologies behind their use of language and pictures for
cultural critique.
This fall members of the Lyceum at Binghamton University
in New York will be studying Gilgamesh: Ancient Epic of Mesopotamia.
Preserved on clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia, the Epic of Gilgamesh
was popular for 2,000 years. The issues faced by this king of Uruk –
heroism, friendship, the meaning of life, and his desperate efforts
to avoid death – are dealt with in ways moderns can understand.
Colonialism: How Colonization Grew Into Colonialism, is the
title of a fall course being given at the Osher Lifelong Learning
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. From
ancient Greeks to reluctant New Zealanders – how colonization
grew into colonialism. A study of both phenomena, with commentary on
their big brother, imperialism, and excursions to Mussolini’s
dream of empire, the island of Tobago, of course the thirteen colonies,
most of Africa and places that only stamp collectors could love.
Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at
Duke University in North Carolina will be taking a course entitled How
Come More is Not Enough? A New Perspective for an Old Question.
The director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at Duke discusses this
question in a novel manner. He will orchestrate an intriguing synthesis,
incorporating the 18th-century economist Adam Smith, the newest observations
in neurobiology, contemporary genetics, and the psychological characteristics
of immigrants and hypomania.
The OLLI program at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks
is offering members a chance to study Volcanoes of the World.
The class will introduce the three different kinds of volcanism and
members will visit the sites of these different forms through slides
and other photos. With the aid of scientists from the Alaska Volcano
Observatory they will feature some of the numerous volcanoes along the
Aleutian trench.
Story Gold: Grandparents Tell Stories is the title of a new
course being given at the OLLI program at the University
of California, Davis. Children need to hear the stories of our lives.
This is a guided practicum in an old-new way to communicate with children,
shape their outlook on the future and express your love and experience
in the most palatable form. This participatory seminar will work with
exercises in find the story and prepare for the performance. It is designed
to use imagination and play to create a memorable experience.
Members of the PLATO program at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison studied Seduction in the Classics. Hester, Anna,
Tess, the women who paid. In settings from puritan New England,
high Russian aristocracy, and declining Old English families, these
tragedies unfold in the masterpieces of Hawthorne, Tolstoy and Hardy.
The QUEST program in New York City is offering a new
course entitled Midrash Stories. Based on events and people
in the Old Testament, the Midrash stories were written as commentary
by Biblical scholars to illustrate the lessons to be learned from them.
The class will discuss these imaginative texts, which range from sociology
to science, history, ethics and theology.
Members of the Rose Institute for Lifelong Learning
in Beachwood, Ohio recently studied The Acts of Patriots: Famous
and Unknown. This course considered the actions of individuals,
past and present, famous and unknown, who displayed remarkable political
courage at critical moments in this nation’s history.
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July 20, 2008
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