LLI News July 2008

Interesting tidbits from the latest batch of LLI newsletters.

Members of the Adult Learning Institute at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, New York recently learned about the Panda Breeding Center and Lhasa, Tibet through armchair travel with a guest speaker who has traveled extensively around the world.

Last fall, members of the Harvard ILR in Cambridge, MA studied the Greco-Persian Wars and the Birth of Periclean Democracy. Participants examined the clash of two entirely different cultures: one with great wealth and power, and the other small, poor and decentralized. The Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th Century BC pitted the vast Persian Empire against a coalition of small and quarrelsome Greek states that saw their freedom in danger with the “barbarian” invasion of European Greece. Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis are iconic names in ancient Greek history. Indeed, Salamis, the site of the decisive naval battle, was the last hope of not only Hellenic civilization, but as it turns out, of the preservation of Western heritage. They also studied the rise of the Athenian Empire and the half-century of the golden age of Pericles. The birth of democracy, and its eventual demise due to imperialism and hubris was the ultimate focus of the class.

Members of the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College in Georgia studied Religion: Reality and Imagination last month. They looked at questions such as: Is religion all in your head? Is God a figment of our imagination? How about the God-spot in our brains? Religion and science, are they opposed or can one lead to a deeper appreciation of the other?

Members of the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Cedar Crest Village in New Jersey took a spring course entitled The Bend in the Stairs. This course was about the story of civilian life in Great Britain during World War II and its aftermath, along with the story of relatives overseas.

Logic and the Scientific Method was the title of a spring program at the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Bergen Community College in New Jersey. Participants examined the relationship between logical reasoning and the theory and practice of science. Subjects included the relationship between the experimental method and inductive reasoning, the role of a priori presumptions’ in scientific work, the falsifiability criterion as a way to differentiate between science and non-science, and whether observation in science is objective or “theory-laden.”

This summer members of the Learning in Retirement Association at the University of Massachusetts Lowell are reading and discussing Doris Lessing’s, The Golden Notebook.

This spring members of the Learning in Retirement program at Sacred Heart University in Stamford, Connecticut studied Beyond the Extremes of Secularism and Fundamentalism. Religion is back. It did not disappear. However, it is back, not as a unifying force but as a cause of conflict and division. Secularism and fundamentalism are opposite ways of looking at the role of religion in the modern world, reinforced by our understanding of the separation of church and state. What if this paradigm were not taken as the norm? Could religion once again be a source of unity and inspiration? Participants will study these weighty questions with a pastor from a local Lutheran Church.

Three Women Philosophers was the title of a spring course given at the L.I.F.E. program at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY. Participants read and learned from three women philosophers – Gargi of India (700 BCE), Dhouda of Gascony (800CE), and Mechtild of Magdeburgh (1207-1282).

Escaping Detection: Women in the Civil War was the title of a program given last month at the Lifelong Learning Institute at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. Attendees heard tales of women spies and women soldiers. It was a totally unexpected occurrence that women from all walks of life would use their femininity and ingenuity to pass on vital information about the enemy. The lesser known story was that of women who donned uniforms and posed as men to fight the war. During the Civil war, approximately 400 women successfully hid their gender and were true soldiers in every sense of the word.

Manner, Marriage and Mystery was the title of a course members of the Lifelong Learning Society at Christopher Newport University, studied this summer. They reviewed selected short fiction of Henry James and Edith Wharton, two American masters of psychological realism.

Members of the McGill Institute for Learning in Retirement recently took a program entitled Russian Artistic Life in France After the Revolution. Following the 1917 Revolution, there was a large migration of Russians into France. Many were of the artistic elite. They were well received and had a creative life. Artists discussed included: painters Chagall, and Kandinski, the sculptor Ossip Zadkine, the writer Ivan Bunin (1933 Nobel Prize), dancers Diaghilev and Les Ballets Russes, and musicians Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov. Participants made presentations in one or more the following topics: painting, sculpture, music, literature and ballet dancing.

Ethanol Industry was the title of a program given at the Minnesota State University for Seniors (MSU) program. What it is and isn’t, where it’s going, and the impact it has on rural communities, food and gain prices, and our dependence on foreign oil, were all topics for discussion.

Black Gold: The Story of Oil, was the title of a program taken recently by members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Participants traveled the historic road of oil exploration. The discovered the colorful lives of scientists, businessmen, and adventures who struggled to bring oil and gas to the surface. They also learned abut depositional geology and the geophysical tools that help identify potential deposits of hydrocarbons.

Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks recently took a course entitled Introduction to Zen Buddhism. This was a discussion group, with only brief introductory lectures on Zen Buddhism for beginners. The discussion focused on key counter-intuitive perspectives of Zen on issues such as Time, Permanence, Self and Reality. There was also an introduction to the Zen practice of Zazen (sitting Zen.).

China: From B.C. to Yesterday to Tomorrow was the title of a course given this past spring at the OLLI program in New Hampshire. Participants explored China from the beginning, through revolution and civil war to some thoughts about “after 2008.” The history and the present status of China’s politics, education, energy and religion were also discussed.

The African Experience: From “Lucy” to Mandela-Part 1 is the title of a course given this past spring at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Yavapai College in Arizona. The course provided a general introduction to Africa and its history. Additionally, the objective was to provide a fuller and more balanced view, a greater appreciation and an understanding of the complexity of the African experience. The focus was on sub-Saharan Africa.

Members of the Rose Institute for Life Long Learning at the Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Ohio recently studied The Ten Most Important Issues in the Presidential Campaign. This class considered the ten public policy issues that will dominate the 2008 presidential campaign. Each week, two new issues were discussed.