Duke's Osher Winter Courses Embrace Campaign 2016

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke will offer more than 131 courses during the winter semester beginning on Jan. 11, including two classes linked to 2016 presidential politics and the popular Scientific Excursions and Diversions Symposia featuring several Duke faculty speakers. Registration opens on Dec. 8.

OLLI at Duke's other fall offerings include a poetry workshop, tax-smart investments and using the web-hosting service Weebly.  For the full list of January-March courses, click here. 

With more than 119 campus-based chapters, OLLI programs provide a relaxed learning environment on diverse topics. There are no tests, papers or grades, but lots of class discussion.

Walter Mears, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former Associated Press political reporter, will teach a class on the election season in his course “Campaign 2016: A Reporter’s Perspective,” offered on 10 successive Monday mornings. Mears joined the AP in 1956 and went on to report on presidential elections from 1960 to 2000 and national conventions until 2008. “Our main source for reading and discussions will be the daily news coverage of campaign events and candidates, which will enable us to deal with developments as they happen,” he says.

Talk of the presidential hopefuls will also propel another course, “Presidential Candidates 2016: Primary Elections and Party Platform Articulation,” offered by longtime OLLI instructors Tom Hauck and Doug Longman, who will analyze candidates’ policy positions. 

 “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: Three Words that Changed the Course of History,” will be taught by John Canzanella, who retired from teaching history, English, philosophy, math and economics at private and public schools in New York and North Carolina. He will lead OLLI members in exploring 19th-century European history from the French Revolution to the period just before the Russian Revolution. 

Betsy Alden will again lead an exploration of different generations' perspectives on ethical issues relevant in the world today. Duke undergrads will partner with OLLI "overgrads" to share perspectives on current issues. Alden has led this course for 15 years, along with two student instructors from the Duke Honor Council. 

The emphasis of the course is on "Who am I becoming?" rather than on "What's the right thing to do?" says Alden, founding coordinator for service learning at Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics and now adjunct faculty in the Program in Education.

Linda Carl, a former UNC-Chapel Hill assistant provost, is facilitating a series of talks and museum tours examining the diverse ways African and African-American artists address spiritual, religious, personal and political issues. “Traveling Into New Worlds Via Art: The Art of Africa and the African-American Diaspora” is part of a multi-year series and is inspired by the popular BBC radio program on the British Museum, “A History of the World in 100 Objects.” 

Former Duke administrator Melissa Mills teaches a seminar on “A New Way of Seeing Everything: Designing and Creating the World Together” beginning Jan. 15 probing contemporary theories on consciousness and the mind.

The Conscious Aging Series, a free lunchtime lecture series with knowledgeable speakers addressing relevant issues and topics, returns on Jan. 20 with WRAL’s Nate Johnson presenting “60 Percent Chance of Something: North Carolina’s Changing Weather.” The series continues on Wednesdays through March 23. 

In addition to the classes, OLLI sponsors social events, guest speakers, short trips and a host of special interest groups, ranging from two book clubs and a photography group to the New Horizons Band and Chorus. OLLI at Duke serves more than 1,900 members in the Triangle.

For more information about OLLI at Duke course offerings, go to http://www.learnmore.duke.edu/olli/