Seniors' Programs:

OLLI :: Course Information & Schedules :: Summer 2008 :: Green Valley

Summer 2008 Session in Green Valley (June 2 - June 26, 2008)

Green Valley Forms:



M O N D A Y S

THE CRUSADES

Stephen Stillwell, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/2, 6/9, 6/16 & 6/23
Mondays: 1:30-3:00 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: This study group will look at a critical period in the history of both Europe and the larger world. The causes, course and results, both short- and long-term, of The Crusades will be reviewed. We also will look at some of the individuals involved.

About the Study Group Leader: Stephen Stillwell has a doctorate in history and currently teaches at the University of Arizona. His studies since the late 1960s have concentrated on the interactions between Europe and the Middle East from the time of The Crusades to WWII.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NIGHT SKY

John Harvey, Study Group Leader
Two of Four Sessions: 6/2 & 6/9
Mondays: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: This study group will meet on both Mondays and Wednesdays to introduce participants to the Night Sky as it appears from Green Valley. The group leader will familiarize participants with the basic concept of stargazing in a series of four lectures: (1) Movement of the Night Sky; (2) Solstices, Equinoxes, Arctic and Antarctic Circles and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn; (3) Earth’s Moon and Its Phases; (4) Scaling the Solar System and Its Neighbors from Green Valley. On evenings following the study groups, the leader will take participants to an appropriate dark area in Green Valley to illustrate the lecture subject. A good pair of binoculars is all that is needed to enjoy stargazing. See Wednesday study group schedule.

Additional Course Cost: $3 for handouts.

About the Study Group Leader: John Harvey spent his career in information systems. However, he has been fascinated with the night sky since childhood and has made it a true avocation.

WALL STREET AND YOU

Rick Ernst, Study Group Leader
Two Weeks: 6/16 & 6/23
Mondays: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: What is happening on Wall Street and how does it effect our investments? During the first week the study group will look at the credit markets, including sub-prime mortgages, municipal bonds and the credit crunch. The second week the group will focus on equities and what has happened to stock portfolios as a result of the recession and credit crunch.

About the Study Group Leader: Rick retired from Wall Street in 2002 where he helped over 300 clients invest their retirement and personal savings. Since then he has maintained an interest in the investment markets.

T U E S D A Y S

CLASSICAL JAZZ

Mildred (Millie) Goldberg, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/3, 6/10, 6/17 & 6/24
Tuesdays: 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: This study group will give members in-depth history, background and music of Classic Jazz from the early 20th century (1920-1950). The leader will share information about the jazz musicians of this era; and she will use discs, tapes, records, films and documentaries to present their memorable stories and music.

Additional Course Cost: $3 for handouts.

About the Study Group Leader: Millie is retired from a career of pubic school teaching. She has been teaching jazz workshops for 20 years and continues to do extensive research on the musicians, their music and their era.

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL – GREEN VALLEY STYLE

Pam Duchaine, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/3, 6/10, 6/17 & 6/24
Tuesdays: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: What, you didn’t make it to the Sundance Festival in the past few years? No worries, come and view four (4) prize winners. The group will watch Quinceanera (2005) on June 3, Live-in Maid (2004) on June 10, Born into Brothels (2004) on June 17 and The Road Home (2000) on June 24. The films will take up the entire study group period, so no formal discussion is scheduled.

About the Study Group Leader: Pam Duchaine loves movies and chose these four for you.

W E D N E S D A Y S

NEWS & VIEWS – How the Media Have Changed

Rick Ernst, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/4, 6/11, 6/18 & 6/25
Wednesdays: 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 30

Study Group Description: Remember when NBC, CBS and ABC dominated TV news? Remember when several local newspapers provided local, state and international news? Those days are gone. Cable TV news and the Internet have changed the way you and I view the world. Internet access is a must and high-speed Internet access is preferable.

Each week participants will be asked to research and report on changes in the news media. The group also will be reading UnSpun, Finding Facts in the World of Disinformation by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The study group leader will loan out 15 copies of the book, and it’s also available through amazon.com.

About the Study Group Leader: Rick retired from Wall Street in 2002. Since then he has developed a fervent interest in current affairs and politics. He is fascinated with the mass media and its influence on American culture.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NIGHT SKY

John Harvey, Study Group Leader
Two of Four Sessions: 6/4 & 6/11
Wednesdays: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: This study group will meet on both Mondays and Wednesdays to introduce participants to the Night Sky as it appears from Green Valley. The group leader will familiarize participants with the basic concept of stargazing in a series of four lectures: (1) Movement of the Night Sky; (2) Solstices, Equinoxes, Arctic and Antarctic Circles and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn; (3) Earth’s Moon and Its Phases; (4) Scaling the Solar System and Its Neighbors from Green Valley. On evenings following the study groups, the leader will take participants to an appropriate dark area in Green Valley to illustrate the lecture subject. A good pair of binoculars is all that is needed to enjoy stargazing. See Monday study group schedule.

Additional Course Cost: $3 for handouts.

About the Study Group Leader: John Harvey spent his career in information systems. However, he has been fascinated with the night sky since childhood and has made it a true avocation.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SANTA RITA EXPERIMENTAL RANGE

Mark Heitlinger, Study Group Leader
6/18, Wednesday: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: The Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER) is State Trust Land that is used and administered by The University of Arizona. It comprises 82 square miles of semi-desert, east of Green Valley and on the western slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains.

Mark Heitlinger, the Range Manager for the University, will give a short talk lasting for about one hour, during which he will outline the history of the Range, going back to 1902, and define the role of the University. He will describe the natural resources of the Range and give examples of field research. The talk will be accompanied by projected images including historic and modern photographs showing the beauty of the Range and some of the uses to which it has been put to over the years.

HAUNTS AND HUNTS

Katherine Watson, Study Group Leader
6/25, Wednesday: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 60

Study Group Description: This will be a one-day participatory study group presentation about lives lived in Arizona ghost towns. In addition, the study group leader will offer recommendations for summer travel visits to cool country museums.

Additional Course Cost: $1 for maps to locate Arizona explorations.

About the Study Group Leader: As a native Arizonan, Katherine Watson has spent 75 years studying, exploring and/or living in three state universities, a community college, mining camps, Phoenix, Tucson, Sedona, University of Arizona and now Green Valley.

T H U R S D A Y S

THE CHALLENGE OF INTOLERANCE IN AMERICA

Ronald Brill, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/5, 6/12, 6/19 & 6/26
Thursdays: 1:30 – 3:00 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 20

Study Group Description: We live in troubling times with growing evidence in many spheres of public discourse that the common bonds of what it means to be an American are being fractured into single-issue factions. These appear to define themselves more by what they are against – or even hate – than what they want for the general populace. In virtually all sectors of America – religious, political, social and economic – growing chasms of irreconcilable beliefs focus on what separates us rather than what unites us. This trend appears on course to create a new “age of justifiable intolerance and violence.” The conflicting beliefs held by polarized special interests can only lead to great uncivil discourse. Even the news media thrive on a “feeding frenzy” portraying actions and rhetoric that focus on distinctions among us. The result is growing anger, social and inter-personal conflict and outright hostility. Has our unifying, common humanity been lost in this process? Social-trend analyst and educator Ronald Brill examines the growing use of dualistic, either/or thinking and primitive, instinctive brain mindsets that threaten the fundamental ideal of American tolerance. This former university administrator and instructor believes we can learn to recognize “we vs. them” and “good vs. evil” as false forced choices. The group leader brings to this discussion evidence from neuroscience research that suggests we can learn to rein in the reign of intolerance and aggression that threatens our freedom and safety. Intolerance will be examined as a brain impulse that often leads to punishing those who are different from us. This primitive urge arises from our powerful but often ignored survival brain function. Brill has demonstrated that children as young as 9 years old can learn to use higher human brain functions to control these primal, self-protective impulses. There is hope that through education we can avoid punishing “the others” whom we see as not only different from us, but who appear to be a danger to our very survival.

Additional Course Cost: There will be a suggested resources and reading list along with the course outline. The cost of the suggested text, course outline and resource packets will run about $30 or approximately $15 without text.

About the Study Group Leader: Ronald Brill is an educator, writer, public speaker and social trend analyst who has taught graduate students in several San Francisco Bay area universities and served as a senior administrator for the University of San Francisco. In 2000, he concluded four years of research examining the preventable causes of violence. His analysis was published in national articles and became the basis for his book, which will be used as a main reference for this study group. He has also launched a world-wide campaign to promote brain-based coping skills education for pre-teens. He developed and directed a five-year innovative, emotional health education project that involved over 700 fourth through sixth grade students in over 40 California and Arizona classrooms. Students completing his 3-hour classroom project report significant increases in brain function awareness, emotional resilience and self-acceptance. In March 2008 he, together with an advisory board of educators, medical and public health professionals, school psychologist and counseling professionals, created a unique and free Internet resource for pre-teens, their parents and teachers around the world. The website www.copingskills4kids.net (launched March 10, 2008), will be a valuable resource for those participating in this study group. Both education projects explore brain functions that help to understand the causes and prevention of intolerance and violence.

NON-FICTION ADDICTION

Joan Ernst, Study Group Leader
Four Weeks: 6/5, 6/12, 6/19 & 6/26
Thursdays: 3:15 – 4:45 pm
Location: Casa de Esperanza
Enrollment Limited to 25

Study Group Description: This study group will discuss Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Relin. This book is about the 1993 mountaineer, Greg Mortenson, who drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. This book is a story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but 55 schools, especially for girls, in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. The work the author is still doing, providing the poorest students of Pakistan and Afghanistan with a balanced education, is making it much more difficult for the extremist madrassas to recruit. This is a critically important topic and book at this time in history.

Course Text: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin; available at the GV Library (mention OLLI); available used -$10 at The Book Shop in the GV Mall; or online at www.threecupsoftea.com or amazon.com.

About the Study Group Leader: Joan is a lapsed member of two fiction book clubs, finding herself drawn to the non-fiction new book section at every opportunity. Degrees from Purdue University and Butler University have taught her very little about time management as she spends countless late-night hours and valuable flute practice time indulging in that irresistible urge to read non-fiction.