This fall the Baylor Institute for Learning in Retirement in Texas is offering a new course entitled Reconstruction After the Civil War. This course will cover the bitter, often violent, and still controversial era of Reconstruction, from its genesis during the /Civil War to its final demise in the mid-1870s.

This fall members of the Center for Lifelong Learning, Inc. in Fort Walton Beach, Florida will be working on Becoming All You Can Be. In this class, they will discover a whole new world through the wonder and the power of their inner selves as they ask the questions and seek the answers on their personal spiritual journeys.

Members of the Community Academy for Lifelong Learning in State College, Pennsylvania will be Biking Country Roads this fall. These 20-30 mile rides will take several hours over low volume traffic roads.

This fall, members of the Center for Learning in Retirement at Rock Valley College in Illinois will be studying If It Takes All Summer: The Petersburg Campaign: June 1864-April 1865. General Grant hoped to move stealthily from Cold Harbor and quickly take Petersburg, VA. No such luck. His Union generals were just too slow and it became a siege. The class will look at the politics, the anti-war movement, and the 10-month effort to take Petersburg. Members will come away with an appreciation of the struggle of the troops and the civilians during the campaign, as well as increased appreciation for the impact of the Civil War on our nation’s history.

The Encore program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh is offering members a chance to study Humanitarian Intervention: No More Rwandas? This course explores the considerable distance that national governments have traveled in rhetoric, in law, and in concrete action away from the jealous preservation and respect for each others sovereignty toward recognition of a “responsibility to protect” the lives of minorities from assault by their own governments.

Members of the Explorers Lifelong Learning Institute at Salem State College in Massachusetts recently studied Writing Opinion Columns for Newspapers (and Getting Published). This course helped the attendees reach their aspiration, dream or fantasy about having their ideas and opinions appear in newspapers and even get paid for it. They dealt with what op-ed articles are, how to decide on topics, how to research, write and be published.

Members of the Furman University Learning in Retirement program in South Carolina studied Media, Culture and Self. This class examined the inevitable link between culture and self and the enormous influence that mass media culture now has on every other kind of culture that affect us. It also presented a strategy for “reading” media messages with the heightened objectivity and understanding that is built on insights and theories from the fields of Anthropology, Psychology, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Communications Studies and Cultural Studies.

Members of the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College in Georgia recently took part in an Organ Crawl. They “crawled” round the huge instruments in four local majestic churches, and luxuriated in the musical magic of such greats as Cezar Franck, Johann Bach and others.

Invitation to Sociology is the title of a new course at the ILR at Bergen Community College in New Jersey this fall. The insights sociology brings to our understanding of the human experience, along with sociological perspectives and the major “movers and shakers” in the field will be discussed.

West Point: Adjusting to a Changing World was the title of a new program at the Learning in Retirement program in Stamford, Connecticut. A retired Colonel who graduated from West Point talked about his own experiences there and then discussed the changes that have occurred in the fifty years since.

The Changing Face of India is the title of a spring program being given at the Learning in Retirement program in Washington, GA. This course is an introduction to the history of India – from the Mogul and British periods to India’s independence in 1947. It will cover the various religious practices and the arts and architecture of India as well as changes in social, political, educational, industrial and economic institutions. Developments in various institutions during India’ post-independence until 2003 will also be discussed in addition to those in travel and culture.

Chocolate Science is the title of a new course being given at the Learning in Retirement program in Athens, Georgia. Although most people don’t generally make a connection between chocolate products and science, developers of chocolate products must understand chemistry, physics and psychology to deliver those tempting chocolate treats. This course will include discussion of the safety, nutrition, history and quality of chocolate.

This fall, the Learning in Retirement program at Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin is offering members a chance to study Labor History: 1880’s to 1930s. They will look at the development of the labor movement during and after the industrial revolution with emphases on the roles of the barons of industry.

This fall the Lifelong Learning Institute at Indian River Community College in Florida is offering members a chance to study Today’s Environmental Issues. Participants will gain insight into current environmental issues in this three week workshop. They will learn the tools to increase awareness and participation in their own “backyard” and the world around them.

The Historical Jesus was the title of a program given this fall at the Lifelong Learning Institute in Manassas, Virginia. Participants examined Jesus Christ as drawn from the presenter’s recently released book Jesus: What He Was & What He Wasn’t. They explored the life and times of Christ from the perspective of a retired minister.

Members of the Lifetime Learning Institute at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale viewing art videos from the National Gallery of Art. This fall they will view three different ones – National Gallery of Art: A Treasury of Masterpieces – Leonardo: to Know How to See, and Ginevra’s Story.

Einstein, Quantum Physics & Schrodinger’s Cat was the title of an intriguing course given this fall at the Lifelong Learning Society at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. A non-mathematical examination of how modern physics has contributed to our understanding of the world, such as the properties of light and the micro-world of quantum physics. Participants also considered the new questions about the nature of the world being asked by cosmologists and philosophers.

Troubled, Traumatic, Tortuous: Relationships in the Tragedies of William Shakespeare 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 investigate and discuss the relationships of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Lear ad his daughters, Hamlet and Ophelia and Othello and Desdemona.

This fall members of the Lyceum at Binghamton University in New York will be studying King Arthur: The History of a Legend. Beginning with the actual history of Arthur, they will then examine the legends that have arisen about him. These include Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail and the treatment of these in Malory’s LeMorte D’Arthur.

Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University in North Carolina will be taking a course entitled U.S. History through Folk Songs, Ballads and Stories. Historians tell us what happened. The ordinary men and women who settled the land tell us how it felt to be part of what happened through oral tradition. Participants will take a look at how it felt to struggle in the wilderness, fight for independence, journey down the Great Wagon Road, fight brother against brother, lace the country with steel rails, and other great events. Scores of songs will be sung to autoharp and dulcimer accompaniment.

The World of Our Grandparents: The Immigrant Experience, is the title of a fall course being given at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Using reading, discussion, and the viewing of several films, the course will examine the period between 1880 and 1920, when two million Jewish immigrants came from Eastern Europe to New York’s lower east side.

This fall, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine in Portland is offering members a chance to take a course entitled A Survey of Modern Biology for Non-Scientists. This course explores modern biology, from important biologic molecules and processes, to the physical basis in the brain for thinking. Topics surveyed include the structure and function of DNA and RNA, reproductive biology, genetic engineering, stem cell biology and the biology of the brain including the physical basis for thinking.

Veni, Vidi, Vici – Latin One is being offered at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This is the class you wish you’d taken in high school. Although members won’t master Latin in four weeks, they will “come, see and conquer” a small part of it.

This past summer the PLATO program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison held a series of Forums and one of the topics was Improving the Electoral Process. This Forum, open to the public for free dealt with subjects at the core of American democracy. Participants examined the procedural aspects of election administration, including new voting technology, the Help America Vote Act, preventing fraud, and substantive changes in the process, such as how media coverage can be improved, reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, how the redistricting process is used to discourage competition, and the regulation of speech activities during campaigns.

The QUEST program in New York City is offering a new course entitled The Gothic Experience. This course will examine how the medieval community produced such tremendous feats of physical and create effort such as the Gothic cathedral – the social and economic context, the religious meaning and the power conflicts between lords and bishops.

Members of the Rose Institute for Life Long Learning at the Menorah Park Center in Beachwood, Ohio recently took a course entitled Look It Up in the Dictionary. In this course participants sampled the benchmark dictionaries of Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary. They examined word and phrase origins as well as American regional and ethnic dialects.

Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University in Virginia recently studied Morals and Ethics of Intelligent Machines: Will They Be Like Us? This program discussed current and emerging intelligent machines and their present and future impact on society. The need for moral and ethical values for intelligent machines and the problems of selecting these values were also addressed.

The Romance of Colored Gems is the title of a new program being offered this fall at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University in Virginia. They will start with a review of antique and estate jewelry from pre-Victorian to modern times. Specific sessions will focus on selecting colored gems. Finally, there will be in-class identification and evaluation of their own gems as they are displayed on screen so all class members can follow the process.

Members of the WISE program at Assumption College in Massachusetts are taking a course this fall entitled Biology of Viruses. Emphasis will be on Paramyxoviruses which include such human viral pathogens as measles virus, mumps virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and parainfluenza virus (croupe). Some time will be spent discussing current molecular research that attempts to identify the molecular mechanisms by which viruses infect cells and the significance and dangers of emergent viruses such as Bird Flu.