The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke will offer 136 courses during the fall semester beginning on Sept. 12, including a classes linked to 2016 presidential politics and the popular Scientific Excursions and Diversions Symposia featuring several Duke faculty speakers. Registration opens on Aug. 9.
OLLI at Duke's fall offerings range from “Great Films, Great Directors,” to “Indigo at Duke Campus Farm,” from “Eight Keys to Thriving as You Age” to “OLLI at the Nasher.” For the full list of September-December courses, click here.
OLLI at Duke is part of a national network of more than 119 campus-based chapters. Volunteer instructors share their expertise in courses spanning all disciplines. There are no tests, papers or grades. The classroom environment is casual and relaxed.
To keep up with the growing demand for its classes, OLLI at Duke is expanding its classroom space with the help of a local congregation, Westminster Presbyterian Church at 3639 Old Chapel Hill Rd.
“We have nearly exhausted our supply of classrooms at The Bishop’s House and JRC (Judea Reform Congregation),” says OLLI director Garry Crites. “This fall we are expanding into new space at Westminster as a test, by offering four courses there, one during each class period on Mondays.”
Durham Mayor Bill Bell will speak at this year’s OLLI Opening Convocation at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, at Judea Reform Congregation. A reception will follow the mayor’s remarks.
Retired AP reporter and executive Walter Mears, who won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, is sharing his insider’s view of presidential and congressional politics through the election season. A new session of “Campaign & Election 2016: A Reporter’s Perspective” begins on Sept. 12 and runs on consecutive Mondays through Nov. 28.
Two new classes explore current health news and healthy eating. Edwin Cox, who practiced hematology and medical oncology in Durham for 30 years, will teach “What to Eat & Why: An Evidence-Based Guide to Healthy Nutrition.” Each participant will receive a spreadsheet to use in evaluating the nutrient value of their own diet and calculate the results of changes in their diet. Cox, along with Bob Gutin, an emeritus professor at both Columbia University and the Medical College of Georgia, will lead “Current Health Topics,” a discussion of the latest health findings and controversies. At Columbia, Gutin founded the multidisciplinary Center for Health Promotion.
“The Amazing Beauty of Numbers,” a new course that received a tryout at the prospective instructor workshop in April, is being offered by retired research chemist and systems analyst Frank Brown on Tuesday mornings this fall. OLLI curriculum committee member Phil Carl said he thought a course on Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler’s elegant equation (eiπ+1=0) might scare people away, but he later learned that 22 members expressed an interest on Test Drive, a service for posting a short course description on the OLLI website and gauging prospective student interest in the topic. Only a knowledge of basic high school mathematics will be assumed for this new class.
OLLI members who take one of Carolyn Cole’s new theater classes will build their improv skills. Cole, who performs long-form improv as a “Lunartic” at Moonlight Stage Company in Raleigh, believes that improv wisdom can make a positive difference in a person’s everyday life.
Duke alumna Barbara Williams Ellertson, who produced and designed hundreds of books over four decades of work in publishing, will lead a cultural history course, “Exploring European Book Cultures: Changing Forms of the Book, from Ancient Greece to Gutenberg.” Now an independent researcher, Ellertson in 2013 co-founded the BASIRA Project: Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art. One class will be devoted to the St. John’s Bible project. In another, participants will visit the Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Former broadcaster and Duke communicator Cabell Smith will dial into the enduring appeal of classic radio shows by again offering his “Golden Age of Radio” course this fall.
Duke sports history will be the focus of a course on Mondays led by Lewis Bowling, the author of “Wallace Wade: Championship Years at Alabama and Duke,” and “Duke Basketball: A Pictorial History.” Concentration will be on Duke basketball and football, but there also will be discussion of other Duke sports, including baseball, track and field, and soccer, plus what is going on currently on the Duke sports scene.
David Stein who for the last 17 years, has been creating programs between Duke and the eight Duke Partnership Schools, will teach a class that brings together technology, books and working with children. “Bring a Book to Life: Digital Media and Service Learning” will pair OLLI members with second-graders at E. K. Powe Elementary School, who will choose a book together and use computer tools to create a digital media piece to entice others to read the book. “You will find the elementary school students very helpful in making the most of the technology,” Stein says.
In addition to the classes, OLLI sponsors social events, guest speakers, short trips and a host of interest groups, ranging from two book clubs and a photography group to the New Horizons Band and Chorus. OLLI, a Duke continuing studies program, serves more than 2,100 members in the Triangle.
For more information about OLLI at Duke course offerings, click here.