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OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE

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Thursday Courses   

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  • Advanced Beginners Pickleball – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25REC304A
    Dates: 3/10/2025 - 3/14/2025
    Times: 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
    Days: Daily
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  20
    Building: Lithia Park Pickleball Courts
    Room: Winburn Way, Ashland
    Instructor: Cori Frank
    This course is full. Please click the "Add to Waitlist" button. Please note: You must be signed in and be a current member (or have a membership in your cart) to access the "Add to Waitlist" button. 

    This course is designed for students who have taken the Absolute Beginners Pickleball class or who have a rudimentary knowledge of the game. It will be taught by seasoned instructors who are experienced players and have taught before. Expect to build on the basic game to include advanced strategy in play. We will meet for 1½ hours at Lithia Park courts for five consecutive days. There will be an emphasis on sportsmanship and safety. This skills-building course will focus on different types of serves, lobs, third-shot drops or drop shots, drives, partner communication, stacking, and different types of scoring. We will introduce Nasty Nelson, Bert, and Erne. The last day will be a FUN Round-Robin whereby players will rotate play with all players. The instructors will be from Ashland Oregon Pickleball Club.

    NOTE: If you have mobility issues, this course may not be for you. A waiver must be signed prior to the first class. Students are expected to have their own paddle, know the basic game, have court shoes, and a hat or visor. Safety glasses are recommended. Bring a hydrating drink and snack. If inclement weather occurs, class will be canceled.

 

  • Living a Guided Life: From Theory to Practice – Online(Hybrid)
  • Item Number: W25PERS311
    Dates: 2/20/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  21
    Seats Available:  6
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Dan Altman
    People who consistently thrive have stumbled across the ability to tap into a deeper level of the mind — the living intelligence behind life itself. This happens for some people when taking walks in nature, playing with their pets, or sipping coffee in a cafe. These people have realized that the important questions in life are answered from beyond the intellect. This deeper intelligence is available to everyone. In class we will watch short, engaging videos from contemporary 3 Principles teachers, including Michael Neill, Dicken Bettinger, and the founder of this work, Sydney Banks. During the third week of the class, students will receive a daily brief video designed to spark the actual experience of living a guided life. There will be an optional open meeting that week for questions and discussions. In the final week, we will explore “Riding the Magic Carpet,” letting life carry us with guidance, grace, and magic. The guiding principles presented here have transformed the understanding and experience of life for many.
 

  • Living a Guided Life: From Theory to Practice – In-Person(Hybrid)
  • Item Number: W25PERS311A
    Dates: 2/20/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  21
    Seats Available:  2
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room A
    Instructor: Dan Altman
    People who consistently thrive have stumbled across the ability to tap into a deeper level of the mind — the living intelligence behind life itself. This happens for some people when taking walks in nature, playing with their pets, or sipping coffee in a cafe. These people have realized that the important questions in life are answered from beyond the intellect. This deeper intelligence is available to everyone. In class we will watch short, engaging videos from contemporary 3 Principles teachers, including Michael Neill, Dicken Bettinger, and the founder of this work, Sydney Banks. During the third week of the class, students will receive a daily brief video designed to spark the actual experience of living a guided life. There will be an optional open meeting that week for questions and discussions. In the final week, we will explore “Riding the Magic Carpet,” letting life carry us with guidance, grace, and magic. The guiding principles presented here have transformed the understanding and experience of life for many.
 

  • The Music of J. S. Bach: The Cantatas – Online
  • Item Number: W25ARTS329
    Dates: 2/13/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  299
    Seats Available:  221
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Peggy Evans
    This is the second in a series of courses on the music of J.S. Bach, this time focusing on the nearly 200 extant cantatas, usually sacred works for choir, soloist or soloists, plus orchestra. The course will examine Bach’s life and background, and characteristics of the Baroque period. The role which the cantatas played in church services will be looked at. No previous experience is necessary. PowerPoint with YouTube examples will be used.
 

  • The Pig War – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25HIST304A
    Dates: 2/27/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 3
    Maximum Enrollment:  32
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room D
    Instructor: James Cannon
    This course is full. Please click the "Add to Waitlist" button. Please note: You must be signed in and be a current member (or have a membership in your cart) to access the "Add to Waitlist" button. 
    Would you believe a pig almost changed the course of American history? When a potato-loving British pig was shot by an American settler in 1859, the resulting dispute set loose simmering passions that very nearly led to war between the United States and Great Britain, just as America was on the eve of the Civil War. This course will examine competing territorial claims to the Pacific Northwest and how imprecise language in the Oregon Treaty of 1846 resulted in disputed ownership of the San Juan Islands. Besides covering the conflicting claims to the San Juan Islands, the course will examine: the mutually provocative actions of the U.S. Army and the Hudson’s Bay Co.; and how the disputes (including the pig shooting) were eventually settled; the controversial actions and motives of two Southern-born American Army officers, George Picket and William Selby Harney, who seemed hellbent on provoking war with Great Britain in 1859.
 

  • Conversaciones – Online
  • Item Number: W25LANG161
    Dates: 1/30/2025 - 2/27/2025
    Times: 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  18
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Ginny Blankinship
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    This course is designed to provide an opportunity to speak and listen to Spanish in a comfortable nonjudgmental atmosphere. It is meant for those who already speak Spanish with some fluency but who don’t have all the opportunities to converse that they would like. Each week, students will be provided with materials to stimulate conversation on a particular theme, including poems, readings, song lyrics, and discussion questions. During each class, we’ll talk in a whole group and in breakout rooms. Themes include holidays, being bilingual, photography and more, but it will be all right to stray from the theme. Grammar and vocabulary questions that arise will be answered, but the class is about enjoying conversation in Spanish. Any learning that occurs arises from that. It will enhance our conversation if students spend some time with the materials posted on LearnerNotes before each class. Translations are provided for readings and song lyrics. 
     
    NOTE: This is not a Spanish course per se, and it won’t work for beginners. Rather it is a chance for those who already comprehend and speak Spanish with some fluency to listen to others, converse freely, and encounter readings and songs that reflect Hispanic culture. Those who have been in previous Conversaciones courses will find new themes, readings, and music.
 

  • Cut-up Poetry – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25ARTS112A
    Dates: 2/6/2025 - 3/6/2025
    Times: 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  20
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room C
    Instructor: Sallie Ehrman
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    Would you rather play Scrabble than Monopoly because you love the surprise of creating words from the letter tiles you choose? Magnify that joy and you’ll have the experience of cut-up poetry. All participants receive an assortment of pages from a variety of books that range from poetry to recipes to nonfiction texts on sewing or driving. Instead of choosing letter tiles, students pick words and phrases that speak to them from a page of text. Prompts and guidelines give students enough time to amass enough scraps to create a piece of writing. The juxtaposition available due to the different texts lends a certain nuance of magic to the creativity of the cut-up poem. Students may share their work with the class, but it’s not required.
 

  • Fungi: The Mysterious Kingdom – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25NAT304A
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 3/6/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 7
    Maximum Enrollment:  78
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room E
    Instructor: John Kloetzel
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    Our general encounters with fungi can be positive, as in foods (mushrooms or yeast in cooking/brewing) or negative, as in diseases (athlete’s foot; leaf molds and other plant pests). Yet the importance of this major kingdom of life is so much more than this. Recent popular explorations of fungi (Merlin Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life,” “Finding the Mother Tree,” the Louie Schwartzberg documentary “Fantastic Fungi”) have stimulated a growing public interest in fungi. This course, primarily lectures with directed discussion, will serve as an introduction to these organisms. Topics will include: What is a fungus? How many kinds are there? Where are they found? What are their lifestyles? How do they reproduce? What roles do fungi play in the environment? How do fungi interact with living plants and animals (from symbioses to diseases)? New terms need to be understood (hyphae, mycelia, mycorrhizae) as we venture into this mysterious kingdom living mostly beneath our feet.
 

  • Indigenous Genocide and US Military Imperialism – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25HIST307A
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 3/6/2025
    Times: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 7
    Maximum Enrollment:  16
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room B
    Instructor: Daniel Guy
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    Learn a more truthful version of American history with open primary historical sources, including settler violence against indigenous people in the 1637 Pequot genocide; Wounded Knee in 1890; militarist imperialism and the killing of brown skinned Morro (Muslim) women and children on the Island of Jolo in the Philippines in 1906; and My Lai, Vietnam, in 1968. Art; first-person testimony; prose and poetry by Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and Daniel Ellsberg; as well as vintage photography reveal the dark side of our glorious national story. A small class size will allow for thoughtful discussion.

    NOTE: This course covers sensitive material that some may find disturbing.

 

  • Introduction to Design: From Pencil to Print – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25ARTS326A
    Dates: 2/13/2025 - 3/6/2025
    Times: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  6
    Building: Talent Maker City
    Room: 109 Talent Avenue, Talent
    Instructor: Lisa Shinohara
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    Students will learn foundational design basics, create their own designs, and then make designs come to life in the studio. This may include screen printing, laser engraving, and sticker decals. Participants will start with the design process and move to digital graphics applications as they advance their skills. This course covers all the basics, from design process to printing. Students will get hands-on experience with producing their own custom designs using different techniques, guided by Talent Maker City instructors. This is a safe and supportive environment for individuals to learn and advance their creative skills. The goal is to build relationships and collaborate, experiment, value unexpected challenges, and problem-solve. Most important, the goal is to keep learning, growing, improving, and celebrating success.

    NOTE: There is a fee of $20 materials cost per student.

 

  • “James” vs. “Huckleberry Finn”: Everett vs. Twain – Online
  • Item Number: W25LIT308
    Dates: 2/6/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 6
    Maximum Enrollment:  30
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Dorothy Ormes
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    “James” is by 2020 Pulitzer finalist, Percival Everett. In “James” he inverts Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’) story of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” making the slave, Jim, the protagonist. During the class, students will read the two books side-by-side, gathering impressions of the old classic and this new interpretation. The class will examine the use of language in both books, references to the river and to superstitions and folklore, and study the motivations of both authors for bringing this story to the page. “James” has been longlisted for the Booker Prize and is being developed as a feature film by Steven Spielberg. “Huckleberry Finn” is a book that most of us remember from childhood and many have not read in adulthood. It has faced several book bans for various reasons since 1885. One of the most recent publications has removed all use of the N-word, citing racism. This course will bring the two authors face to face and examine in depth their implied conversation.

    NOTE: Students are encouraged to read at least the first half of each novel before the course begins. The instructor will be using the Cambridge University Press edition of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” 1995, easily available as a used book from online sources.

 

  • “Julius Caesar”: Can We Make Rome Great Again? – Online
  • Item Number: W25LIT303
    Dates: 1/23/2025 - 2/20/2025
    Times: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 5
    Maximum Enrollment:  299
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Susan Stitham
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    Shakespeare’s characters, conflicts, and themes are as relevant to America today as they were to 17th-century England. Far from the boring slog so many of us recall from 10th grade, this play brilliantly poses deep moral questions of contemporary import — about leadership, power, idealism, pragmatism, egotism, and honor. It crackles with brilliant rhetoric used to shape public opinion in a bitterly divided country. The author examines the fine lines between facts and assumptions, duty and ambition, and confidence and arrogance. The personal tragedies of the main characters mirror the dilemma of their society in the moment of transformation from the remnants of a republic to an oligarchy. At the end of the play, we are left to decide whether the end justifies the means, whether political violence can ever make Rome — or anywhere else — great again. Through lecture and discussion, the class will examine these questions in a study of the text and a variety of productions.

    NOTE: No previous knowledge of Shakespeare is required, but students should have access to a copy of the play. Two separate sections of this course are offered: one is held at the Campbell Center on Wednesdays; the other is held online on Thursdays.

 

  • Mexico, Anglo-America, and the Places In-Between – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25SOC307A
    Dates: 2/6/2025 - 3/6/2025
    Times: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 4
    Maximum Enrollment:  75
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room E
    Instructor: William Hering
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    In 1845, the northern boundary of Mexico lay just a dozen miles from today’s SOU campus. In the Mexican-American War, the United States conquered roughly half of Mexico, moving the border more than 600 miles to the south. Ever since then, both countries have lived with a muddled memory of this experience. The border has moved over people, and people have moved across the border. In fact, the two countries’ populations, economies, and political histories are so closely interrelated that we may meaningfully ask, “Where does one country end and the other begin?” This course is a lecture series (with extended time for discussion) presented by SOU faculty who have explored this historical and cultural middle ground from a wide range of academic perspectives. It brings together Chicano literature, Spanish literature, history, and anthropology professors to examine the complex relationships between the U.S. and Mexico and among the people and places that belong to both worlds.

    NOTE: The faculty presenters are: Alma Rosa Álvarez, “The History and Politics of Chicano Identity”; Enrique Chacón, “Ambiguous Border: The Representations of the U.S.-Mexico in Film”; Sean McEnroe, “The Imagined Communities of the Mexican-American War”; Mark Axel Tveskov, “The Archaeology of the Battle of Buena, 1847: La Angostura and the Construction of Manifest Destiny.”

 

  • On the Road: How Buddhism Came to China – Online
  • Item Number: W25SOC311
    Dates: 1/9/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 10
    Maximum Enrollment:  76
    Building: Online
    Room: (Zoom)
    Instructor: Ean Roby
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    One of the most remarkable events in ancient Chinese history is the way in which Buddhism, an early Indian spiritual tradition, made its way to China in 1st century CE. By all rights, Buddhism ought not to have done well in China, a culture distinctly different in language and temperament from India. For instance, Buddhism encouraged celibate monasticism, quite the opposite of the Chinese emphasis on family and filial piety. Despite these sorts of problems, Buddhism did not just survive in ancient China, it flourished. By the 9th century, Buddhism was a major force in Chinese religion, culture, and politics. This lecture and discussion course on Zoom will examine how and why this remarkably effective transplant of Buddhist thought and practice into Chinese society occurred and why Chinese society was able to embrace Buddhism as dramatically as it did. Students need have no background in the subject. Detailed lecture notes will be furnished.
 

  • The 47th President and 119th Congress – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25SOC305A
    Dates: 1/9/2025 - 3/13/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 10
    Maximum Enrollment:  45
    Building: Campbell Center
    Room: Room D
    Instructor: David Runkel
    Registration for this course is closed. 

    The 47th president will be inaugurated on January 20, and two weeks earlier the 119th Congress will have been sworn in. The country could have a president and Congress of one political party, a president and a Congress of different parties, or a Congress with divided party majorities in the House and Senate. We will have lots to talk about, beginning with the results of the November election, the new president’s formation of a government leadership team, and the makeup and leaders of the House and Senate. Articles I and II of the Constitution will be reviewed, along with how those provisions have evolved over the past two centuries. Current issues will also be discussed. Students should have opinions to be shared and a respect for the views of others.

    NOTE: There are two sections of this course offered: one is at the Campbell Center in Ashland; the other is at the Higher Education Center in Medford.

 

  • Vegetable Gardening in the Rogue Valley – In-Person
  • Item Number: W25REC112M
    Dates: 1/9/2025 - 2/27/2025
    Times: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
    Days: Th
    Sessions: 8
    Maximum Enrollment:  34
    Building: Medford Higher Education Center
    Room: Room 118
    Instructor: Susan Koenig
    Registration for this course is closed. 
    This course will teach beginning gardeners and those new to the Rogue Valley to grow vegetables year-round from seed selection to harvesting. The emphasis is on science-based information and “how to” techniques to enable students to grow a successful garden the first year. More experienced gardeners may learn more advanced techniques to improve their vegetable gardening skills. Students will be asked to read assigned pages from the text: “Garden Guide for the Rogue Valley: Vegetables, Berries and Melons” by Jackson County Master Gardeners (OSU Extension), 2017. Class topics include: seed starting, soil, growing cool- and warm-weather crops, cane fruit (berries), controlling pests and diseases, fertilizing, irrigation, composting, harvesting and much more. Classes include slides, lectures, demonstrations, equipment exhibits, class discussion and Q&A. 
     
    NOTE:  “Garden Guide for the Rogue Valley: Vegetables, Berries and Melons” by Jackson County Master Gardener Association (OSU Extension), 2017 is available from local retailers for about $20 or can be from the Jackson County Library. This text is not required but is highly recommended.
 

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