[Durham INC] A Lifelong Learning opportunity for the retirees in your community

[Anthony Waraksa]

Please let the seniors in your community know about this.

Lifelong Learning at The Forest at Duke


Thereis a tradition among some OLLI at Duke course facilitators in cooperation withThe Forest at Duke Retirement Community to offer summer school for retirees,with all proceeds going to a local charity.  Inthe past we’ve been privileged to support Habitat for Humanity and TROSA, andthis year every penny of enrollment fees is going to Urban Ministries ofDurham.
Thereare two programs for you to consider.


The World Today 


isa classroom discussion of current events, and it’s moderated by a rotatinggroup of very experienced hosts.  Youwill hear the thoughts of your classmates as each topic is introduced andyou’ll have an opportunity to have your own voice heard if you choose to speakout.  You’ll be in the company of at leasta couple dozen of interested and interesting retirees,  among whom you’ll probably find some bestfriends you just have not yet met.

TheWorld Today meets at 11 AM each Wednesday from June 14th to August16th  excluding July 5that The Forest at Duke Retirement Community, 2701 Pickett Road in Durham.


Symposia


isa six lecture invited speakers series. Each lecture is on a different topic, soif your  summertime plans means you’llmiss a lecture or two, you will not have lost class continuity.


Beaware invited speaker programs are subject to change, but at this time we’redelighted to offer this program.


June13:  There are days at Rex Hospital whenyou’ll hear the sounds of percussion and a voice singing softly, bringing hopeand peace to fearful patients.   “Bewell, my friend” Eugene Taylor often sings, “be well, a healing power in youdwells.”  Eugene has agreed to bring hismessage of hope, along with his voice and drums,  perhaps to calm some of the fears lurkinginside us.


June20: Who can forget House Bill 2 and how it raised the question of genderidentity?  In many ways we,  the older, or should I say the more seasonedgeneration are not really as up to date as we might be.    Let’sfix that. Dr Ken Haslam is going to brief us on what’s going on out there:  he’ll offer pictures of some transgender folks, demography of the TG population, genetics of how we become boys or girls orsomething in between,   a smattering of embryology of thegenitalia,  Intersex,  the "Genderbread Person" as a guidefor a) biological sex, b)  gender identity, c) gender expression, d)sexual orientation, followed by a few remarks on cross-dressing.  

  
June 27:  How did the world of technology,  get to the state it's in? Gordon Pitz, Professor of Psychology at UNC is exploring the idea  that we can understand today's issues a bit better by looking backhalf a million years or so.  While Gordon  was connecting theevolutionary approach to technology, he found the ideas are broader than that. He's going to take us a a journey from the first sense of consciousnessthrough the evolution of abstract thinking and the use of numbers, and howtechnology feeds on itself, grows on itself, from hot air balloons tospace stations in the blink of a geological eye, from William Schottyinventing the transistor in 1947 to the smart phones we have with us. Remembertaking trips with your kids and hearing this question from the back seat: “Arewe there yet?”  In this world the answeris really easy: “Nope”.


 
July 11 There are many labels for it: PSI,  extra sensory perception, precognitive dreams or successful intuitive hunches, instincts. . We’ve all had thoseexperiences, Is there anything more than randomness and chance to all of that?.Sally Feather and SusanFreeman, both associate with the Rhine ResearchCenter will be telling us of that center’s work on that subject, covering itfrom both a scientific  and antidotalviewpoint.  IF that has your interest andyou have something to say about the topic, it gets better. The Rhine Researchcenter  is  starting a contest for writers who just wantto write fiction that incorporates such elements. Now you know how you’re goingto spend part of August! 


July 18 The US Declaration of Independence declares that we havethe right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.  Oh yeah? Then how come Donald Campbell, one of the first psychologists to studypleasure, summed up his research this way: “The direct pursuit of happiness isthe recipe for an unhappy life”.  TonyWaraksa will be talking  about hisresearch into the pursuit of happiness, drawing on the works of  Darwin to Pinker, with some interesting stopsalong the way. That’s the academic approach. There’s a practical approach too. He note that when their dog comes tohe and his wife the  co-host of thisprogram, wagging its tail with a ball in its mouth he is happy – and he forcesthem to be, too.


July 25:  We always savethe last lecture for the charity we’re working with. Today we’ll be hearing fromsome of the staff at Urban Ministries, we’ll learn about some of the ministriessuccesses and failures, where they are and where they expect to go. This is theonly lecture in the series where we invite our classmates to invite theirfriends to come with them.


Symposia will be held in the auditorium at The Forest at DukeRetirement Community at 2 PM, and we promise our speakers and our classmates that we’ll take the lastquestion from the floor no later than 3:15.  


 
The fee for attending either The World Today or Symposia is $50,if you want to come to both the fee is $85. If you would like to attend send a note to
tfadsummersessions at gmail.com


so that we can tell you about some of the logistics, and plan onbringing a check to the first class meeting.


 
By the way…

The OLLI at Duke organization mentioned above has over 2,000retirees as members, and offers more than 100 different courses each term rangingfrom poetry writing and dance to using 3D printers on your computer.  It’s as much a social organization as it isan educational one.  If you’d like moreinformation or an on line copy of the courses offered in the Fall 2017 term send  a note to the email address above and we’llsee that you get the URL when it’s available.


 

 
Thanks


 
Anthony Waraksa

Grove Park, Durham


 

 
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