ORICL: Celebrating 25 years with 75 fall courses

The Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning is celebrating 25 years of “enriching lives through lifelong learning” with 75 courses for the fall term, ranging from history, music and art to finance, religion, literature, language, science and health.

Most of the courses are in person and are mostly held at Roane State Community College’s Oak Ridge Branch Campus, 701 Briarcliff Ave.; a few are online via Zoom, and two are hybrid classes (in person and Zoom). There will also be trips (for an additional fee) to a museum, two playhouses and the Alex Haley Farm in Clinton, now owned by the Children’s Defense Fund.

The fall catalog is posted on ORICL’s www.roanestate.edu/oricl website. The registration form and calendar are also posted there. Online registration opens Aug. 9.

The fall term runs from Monday, Sept. 12, through Dec. 2. The registration fee for three terms (fall, winter-spring, and summer) is $150; by paying it online or by a check included with the mailed paper form, you will become an ORICL member for a year, and you will be allowed to take as many courses as you wish, a bargain compared with most other continued learning programs in the nation.

Mail your form and check to ORICL, RSCC, 701 Briarcliff Ave., Oak Ridge, TN  37830. For more information, contact the ORICL office at (865) 481-8222 or at oricl@roanestate.edu.

ORICL offers numerous history courses, including world history, famous Americans “you should know better,” biographies of important Native Americans (hybrid class), Scotland’s ancient history, the U.S. and the Holocaust, as well as the history of the Ukraine-Russia relationship.

Courses on regional and local history focus on gold mining, the Civil War, the Oak Ridge–University of Tennessee partnership, Secret City stories, the history of cross-cultural encounters in two atomic cities (Oak Ridge and Los Alamos), unsung scientific heroes in 20th century Oak Ridge history and the Alvin Weinberg Archive Project.

In addition, there’s a course on the history of the Tennessee River Valley from the Indigenous people’s perspective, including the Yuchi Indians who built the temple mounds at nearby John Knox Center (destination of the class field trip for registrants only). Also, a class will hear about and discuss Heather McGhee’s bestselling book “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.”

Music classes will focus on the Christmas concert of the Oak Ridge Chorus and Roane Choral Society; bluegrass innovators, presented by the folk music duo Elza Gate; and the lives and accomplishments of classical musicians Robert and Clara Schumann.

Art classes (for a fee) at the Oak Ridge Art Center will include jewelry making, watching films on artists, visual journaling and learning from a pottery master on how to make platters for entertaining and gnomes as Christmas ornaments. Art classes held on the Roane State campus will include a workshop on watercolors and Zentangle, a relaxing method of drawing beautiful images with structured patterns.

Courses on finance will teach you about stock investing, new tax laws, cryptocurrency, inflation and fraud, including how to protect yourself from the latest scams.

The recent decline of U.S. religion and the related role of politics will be addressed in a series of five classes (in person and online).

If you enjoy reading and discussing books, ORICL has book groups devoted to fiction, science fiction and fantasy, nonfiction, classic literature, mystery novels and nonfiction. Other literature classes will focus on poetry, reading Shakespeare and Greek plays, memoir writing and stories of Jewish tradition.

Language courses will include an introduction to linguistics and lessons in reading and speaking Latin, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.

Want to know more about how to make Oak Ridge a better place to live? Consider taking courses on the fundamentals of Oak Ridge city government and on the Oak Ridge Fund for Achieving Community Excellence.

For those of you interested in science and technology, one class examines how flowers communicate with their pollinators, mainly birds and bees. The technical book club will focus on the book “The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do” by Erik Larson. The Friday Lecture Series class features talks by area researchers.

To improve body and mind, you can take courses on aging, Body Mender fitness exercises, critical thinking, problem solving, using fortune-telling cards and doing cryptic varietal crossword puzzles. Many students report feelings of good will from taking the regularly offered “Lovingkindness and Unbounded Friendliness” class based on Buddhist’s teachings.

Other enjoyable ORICL activities will include walking around the city to learn Oak Ridge history and joining a knitting-and-crocheting conversation circle.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: ORICL: Celebrating 25 years with 75 fall courses