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Interesting tidbits from
the latest batch of LLI newsletters.
October, 2007
Discovering Bulgaria was the title of a Lunch and Learn program
held at the Adult Learning Institute at Columbia Greene
Community College in New York this past summer. The speaker, a highly
educated native of Bulgaria described some of the geographical and historical
information about her country, the economy, education system, health
care, public and private transportation system real estate and religion.
Members of the Community Academy for Lifelong Learning
(CALL) in State College, Pennsylvania studied Early
Lumbering and Iron Making this past summer. The instructor provided
true stories, handed down to him from his parents, grandparents and
great grandparents who worked in logging, mills, iron ore mines, and
charcoal hearths.
Members of the ILR program at Old Dominion University
in Virginia recently studied Building the Great Pyramid of the Pharaoh
Khufu. This course provided an overview of the building of the
Great Pyramid in terms of: its place in time related to Ancient Egypt
and the rest of the world; the location, why it is where it is; the
people involved; the progression of pyramid building leading up to the
Great Pyramid; and the enormity and elegance of the project itself.
How could an ancient people with only primitive tools have built such
an immense and complex structure?
This fall, members of the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong
Learning (JILL) in Virginia will be studying Literature
of Assimilation. They will study the literature of assimilation
to discover how others enter America – or other countries –
and become true citizens, not merely residents.
The Learning in Retirement program at Iona College (LIRIC)
in New York is offering a course entitled Digging: Archaeology and
Philosophy. The first class will discuss the search for Rose Hill
Manor, with a historical archaeologist from Fordham. The second will
delve into Existentialism, Atheism and Deism with a presenter from Lehman
College.
The Great Dakota Gathering & Homecoming was the title
of a program held at The Learning Club at Winona State
University in Minnesota. The Dakota Gathering is one of many projects
sponsored by the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance and the City of Winona.
Members listened to a retired Winona Health Pathologist as he talked
about this great partnership between the City and the Dakota Nations.
Lifelong Learners at the Fairfield Senior Center in
cooperation with Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut will
be studying Native Americans in Pre-Revolutionary America.
This course surveys the relations between Native Americans and the European
settlers from the first encounter in 1620 to the pre-Revolutionary era
in 1763. The discussion focuses on the events leading to the Pequot,
King Phillip and French and Indian Wars in the 1600s and the 1700s.
Members of the Lifelong Learning Program at Regis
College in Massachusetts will be studying The Phases of Life this
fall. Through the viewing and discussion of five up-beat films,
this course will examine the many facets of a comic approach to human
life. The films to be studied include Moonstruck, Cinema Paradisio,
Next Stop Wonderland, Say Anything and Nobody’s Fool.
The Lifelong Learning Society at Christopher Newport
University in Virginia is offering a program this fall entitled Bach’s
Organ Music: An Overview. They will explore the music, organs and
historical context of J.S. Bach’s organ music, and will learn
why Bach is one of the greatest composers of all times.
The new LLI at Armstrong Atlantic State University
is off to a great start with some excellent courses. U.S. Healthcare:
Is there Hope for the Future? was one such course. In this course
members examined reasons for the increasing cost of health care and
why US health care costs so much more than that of other industrialized
countries; they also reviewed how drugs and services are billed and
paid for and why the same procedure or drug may cost more for some than
for others; along with that they examined whether US health care quality
is really the best and what all these “ratings” mean; along
with a review of the uninsured and underinsured problem; and options
for reform and barriers to adoption.
The Historic Architecture of Ulster County’s Towns is
the title of a course being given this fall at the Lifetime
Learning Institute at SUNY New Paltz in New York. This course
will survey buildings in the twenty towns of Ulster County from the
Colonial period to 1950. The variety of architecture styles (from Dutch
Colonial to Modern) and building types (from houses and barns to railroad
and gas stations) will be emphasized, as will the connections between
buildings and the society that produced and supported them.
Over last summer members of the Lifetime Learning Institute
at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale studied
Poetry and You. This popular class began its 8th year. Members
learn more about poetry, what it is, who is the poet laureate, what
is prose poetry, and more.
This fall, members of the LIR program at the University
of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, are studying Geography and Geopolitics of
Petroleum Near the End of the Petroleum Age. They are examining
the conditions which led to the formation of petroleum deposits, where
vital oil resources are located, energy use, and geopolitical issues
that have brought us to our current “oil” crisis.
The L.I.F.E. program at Mount Saint Mary College in
Newburgh, New York is offering its members a chance to study Our
Environmental Health. This series will address such topics as global
climate change, Hudson River water quality, and overpopulation.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community
College in Massachusetts is offering members a chance to study
When Crime Paid: Brigands and Builders in the Age of Barons.
The course will focus on five personalities prominent in the age of
the barons: John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Jim Fish, Boss Tweed and
Henry Ford. In their personal lives they had little in common, but they
did have this in common – all were pragmatists. Their rise to
power was accompanied by grotesque violations of the fundamental standards
of civilized society. Yet their activities built industries and empires
and helped launch this country on the path of world supremacy in both
industry and finance.
Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor recently took a course entitled Introduction
to Pablo Neruda. In this class students read one long poem titled
“The Heights of Macchu Pichu” as an introduction to his
poetry. Accompanying the poem, they also read Neruda’s “Memoirs.”
During the summer, members of the OLLI program at Yavapai College
in Arizona took part in a course entitled An Introduction
to Freethought. This course presented an overview of the development
of Freethought, and provided discussion around its role in the modern
age.
The Rose Institute for Lifelong Learning in Beachwood,
Ohio offered some delightful courses this past spring. One of them was
The Israelite Prophets. Who were the prophets? What was prophecy?
Did the prophets foretell the future? Participants learned the
answers to these questions and discussed the ancient prophets.
Members of the Worcester Institute for Senior Educations (WISE)
at Assumption College in Massachusetts will be studying An Introduction
to the American Antiquarian Society. The Society is the national
research library and center of learning for pre-20th century American
history and culture. Participants will learn about the 192-year history
of the institution, its mission and operation, and study in-depth one
aspect of American history and some historic documents associated with
it. The course will be taught by AAS staff.
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