HERE IS THE NEW QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
"If
you were to join other OLLI members on a European travel/learning
experience, which of the following destinations would you prefer?"
Vote here
in this Web poll and instantly see the results of your vote. Check back
anytime during the week to see how the online membership has voted.
A new question will be posted each Friday, for your
voting pleasure. Note: We apologize
if the Question of the Week is not visible, which can sometimes happen
when this free service we are using exceeds its bandwidth, and we ask
you to re-visit
the site later to see if you can vote.
Last
week's question was, "HOW DID YOU LEARN ABOUT OLLI?"
Results: By
far the biggest response
was, "From a spouse or friend," with almost 75 percent of the votes.
The "Other" choice received 11 percent, and the remaining choices each
received less than 10 percent. Think about the implications of these
results on how we could increase our membership! Back
to top.
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Winter and Spring 2006 Courses
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 By Kathryn
Russell, Program Review Committee chair
 OLLI PROGRAM PLANNERS ARE HARD AT WORK finishing up plans
for the Winter Term 2006. We are looking for leads or someone who would
like to teach Spanish. We would love to develop “New Orleans: The City,
The Storm and The Future” but need instructors with some Louisiana
expertise. Please contact me by email
or phone (703 323-0168) if you can help or have suggestions.
Spring is just around the corner. If you would like
to teach, to try your hand at developing a course, or to pass on
good topics and leads that we should be aware of, please contact me
or Dick Chobot, Executive Director (703 503-7866 or email).
A hearty "thank you” to all the OLLI members and to
our instructors and planners who are committed to developing an
excellent program for us in the next few months. Back
to top.
 By
Elizabeth Crawford, OLLI
E-News
staff writer, and Kathryn
Russell, Program Review Committee chair
NO DUMMIES HERE. LOTS OF SMARTIES, many of whom could share their
talents as instructors at OLLI. There is a teacher in all of us.
Perhaps some information on what is involved in teaching at OLLI could
bring out the teacher in you.
- Do instructors need a
Ph.D. from Harvard? No, the only requirement is expertise
in a
subject acquired through
education, experience, or divine intervention. What you have learned
through your former career, volunteer work, reading, travel or hobbies
could be of interest to the members.
- How much planning is
necessary? Instructors need to organize their thoughts to
cover four or eight sessions, but beyond that they decide how
structured or unstructured a class should be. Some instructors provide
a syllabus for students; others do not.
- Who determines the
class
format? Members seem to enjoy classes that balance lecture
and discussion, but an instructor may choose to set up a class entirely
as general discussion or to present somewhat formal lectures followed
by
a question and answer period. Other possibilities include debate or
more
intimate round-table discussion. The instructor also decides whether
certain
classes such as foreign language, book discussion, or writing should be
limited in size.
- Who designates place and time for a class?
The instructor chooses to teach at Tallwood or Reston and discusses
available time slots with the Program Coordinator. Someone who
volunteers
early is more likely to have a choice of times to teach.
- Who writes the course
description and instructor bio that appear in the catalog?
Generally the instructor writes both, but assistance is available to
create a brief but compelling presentation of the course and the
instructor.
- What about technology?
The instructor decides whether to use computer presentations, to show
DVDs, or to provide a website for course materials. OLLI provides for
a reasonable amount of photocopying. Also, for an instructor who wants
to distribute a larger number of pages, GMU can print booklets of
information
for which students are charged in advance. An instructor who needs help
using technology may
 request it from the admin office. However, an instructor
should not feel pressured to use technology. Socrates got along well
enough without it.
- Finally, why teach?
One might start with, "Do unto others...." If OLLI relied solely on
instructors from outside the organization, there would be far fewer
courses. If you have enjoyed courses taught by members, this is your
chance to give back. Beyond that, instructors are no longer faces in
the crowd. You will get
to know increasing numbers of people, especially if you teach for more
than one semester. It is fun to teach, to share your enthusiasm,
especially
with a good group of students. In that area, OLLI members are the best.
They sit up straight, take notes, don't talk to their neighbors during
class,
and don't chew gum or pull the hair of the person sitting in front of
them.
Best of all--there are no papers to grade or tests to give.
If you volunteer as an instructor, you won't make
money, but you will make a difference and a lot of new friends. (Anyone
who
is interested in teaching a course may contact Program Review Committee
chair Kathryn
Russell.) Back to top.
Coming Events
at GMU October 10-17
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By Jan Bohall, OLLI Catalog editor
Master of Fine Arts Concert
GMU Dance Company
October 13, 14, 15 at 8:00
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Admission $7 seniors
Dance Performance Studio
Performing Arts Building
For tickets call 703-218-6500.
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Virginia
Opera presents
Friday, October 14, at 8:00
Sunday, October 16, at 2:00
In Italian with English supertitles
Concert Hall, Center for the Performing Arts
$84, $68, $44
For tickets, call 888-945-2468 or visit the
Box Office Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00-6:00.
This opera performance of La Traviata
is OLLI
Special Event "I" for fall (details in the catalog's special
events pdf pages).
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 By Ceda McGrew, Book
Club Coordinator
THE OLLI BOOK CLUB WILL MEET at
Tallwood at 1:30 on Wednesday, Oct 12. All OLLI members are welcome to
attend.
The book for discussion is The Things They Carried, by Tim
O'Brien, a story about Viet Nam. Tim O'Brien was one of the authors who
lectured during "Fall for the Book" in September (see Kathryn Russell's
article
about this book).
His work will be studied in OLLI Course 402, War
and Literature, with Lesley Smith of New Century College, GMU. This
course begins Thursday, Oct 20; details are in the catalog's literature pdf
pages. Back
to top.
Barbara Achilles: Longtime Leader of the Poetry
Workshop
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By Arleen Richman, OLLI News staff writer
“Most people think a poem is just a piece of paper, but to me it’s a
work of art,” explains Barbara Achilles, leader of The Poetry Workshop
since 1997. Barbara keeps all the poems reviewed – “sometimes students
want to see a particular poem they wrote 7 or 8 years ago, and I have
it,” she says with pride, adding that “the various renditions
of the poem show the progress the poets have made in their craft.”
"Every member
gets a chance to be heard every session", says Barbara.
The Poetry Workshop reviews the form and techniques
of poems and works in progress of new and established poets. Each
member of the Workshop is expected to bring a new or reworked poem to
the weekly workshop so that it can be critiqued. “We cannot challenge
the content but can make suggestions on grammar or treatment or perhaps
suggest subtracting an element,” explains Barbara. “Every member gets a
chance to be heard every session. I set a timer based on the number of
students present; usually 11 to 13 students attend each session.”
Many of the members have been attending the
workshop for seven or eight years and so there definitely is a social
aspect of the course, “but I try to keep them focused on the poetry we
are discussing,” she adds. The Workshop has published three volumes of
poetry and given nine poetry readings. Eight members published 15 poems
in last year’s The Poet’s Domain.
"I started waking
up in the
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middle of the night with ideas."
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"I definitely was
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hooked on poetry."
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Barbara enrolled in LRI in 1991 and joined the
Workshop because she wanted to get an opinion of the first poem she had
written that had been inspired by Desert Storm. Following the advice of
Evelyn Wade, the founder and mentor of the Poetry Workshop at that
time, Barbara submitted the poem to a NOVA professor who was publishing
an anthology
of poetry by poets of the Mid-Atlantic region.
“I was very lucky because my first poem was
published without a great deal of effort on my part, and then I started
waking up in the middle of the night with ideas – I definitely was
hooked on poetry,” recalls Barbara, who served as Class Liaison for
Evelyn Wade and later for Evelyn’s successor until she took over as
mentor/leader
of the Workshop in 1997. She recently completed a compilation of the
212
poems she has written during the period 1991- 2004, 41 of which have
been published.
Barbara’s first love was music; she holds a B.A. in
music from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. In
1986 she retired from the CIA having served for 33 years in the CIA’s
Directorate of Operations. For the first 20 years of her career, she
was
a specialist on the People’s Republic of China; her last CIA assignment
was that of Complaints System Manager for the Office of Equal
Employment Opportunity.
She played the organ for the CIA at Lenten
church services and also founded a four-part choral music group at the
CIA that boasted as many as 55 members. “I was surprised by how well
untrained voices can sing if you give them the right material,” she
comments. Back
to top.
Fall Special Events Openings
|
 By
Ann Hartmann,
OLLI
Financial Assistant
OPENINGS ARE AVAILABLE as follows. Details on each are in the catalog's
special events pdf pages.
Special
Event I: Three tickets are still available for the GMU Center for the
Arts performance of La Traviata on Oct 16 at 2:00. The tickets
cost $60 each. Checks should be made out to OLLI.
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Special
Event J: Wine, Bistro and Song is now open to non-members. Checks
should be made out to OLLI.
|
Special
Event L: Tickets are still available at $7 each for Uncle Vanya
at GMU’s Harris Theatre on Oct 22. Non-member guests are welcome.
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Meet Your Directors: RoseMary, Pat and Eileen
|
 By Elizabeth
Crawford, OLLI
E-News
staff writer
In the photo at the right from the Board of Directors Retreat,
the smiling faces belong to (left to right) RoseMary Gustin, Pat
Cosslett, and Eileen Duggan.
RoseMary Gustin, who joined LRI in 2002, believes
"you get more out of an organization if you put more into it." She also
believes that the program is the "heart" of OLLI-- and "without an
excellent program, OLLI wouldn't exist." Calling upon her background as
an analytical chemist and Quality Assurance Manager for environmental
engineering firms providing technical support to federal agencies such
as the EPA, DOE, and Army Corps of Engineers, RoseMary found herself
the perfect job on the Program Committee. There she recruited science
instructors and chaired the Science, Health, and Technology Resource
Group.
RoseMary was appointed to the Board of Directors in
2003 and to the Program Review Committee when it was formed in 2004.
The Program Review Committee has performed a valuable service in
reinvigorating the Resource Groups, little think tanks that generate
ideas for many of our courses. With the resignation of Carol Ferrara,
the Program Review Committee, comprised of RoseMary, Bob Bohall, and
chair Kathryn Russell, has taken on the responsibility of organizing
courses for the winter 2006 semester
at Tallwood.
Pat Cosslett joined OLLI in 2003 and was appointed
to the Board of Directors in 2004. A man of many talents with an Oxford
education, Pat has been active on the Development Committee, which was
responsible for the proposal that obtained the Osher grant, the Finance
Committee, and the Long Range Planning Committee, which considers the
future of OLLI in conjunction with GMU. He organized the Distinguished
Speaker Series that invited Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors, Gerry Connolly, to speak at OLLI.
Also, Pat coordinated the volunteers who organized
Carol Ferrera's very successful Farewell Luncheon. Finally, he created
and maintains the OLLI class database, which provides course and
attendance statistics for the last several years. This information is
invaluable for the Program Coordinators and Resource Groups as they
consider the
popularity of past topics to plan future courses.
 Eileen
Duggan joined LRI in January 2000 and has
been a member of
the Board of Directors since 2001. Professionally, Eileen held a number
of marketing and management positions in financial corporations and was
Capital Markets Director at AT&T Capital Corporation before
retiring in 1998. Her background prepared her well to become Chair of
OLLI's Development Committee, which sponsors Friends of OLLI Campaigns
among
the members and outside funding sources. Her committee's most important
contribution to OLLI so far has been writing the proposals that led to
the
Osher grant.
"The Board has taken a major leap forward," Eileen
says, "with the hiring of an Executive Director to handle OLLI's
increasing workload." She found the Board of Directors Retreat this
summer valuable because it enabled board members to learn "how to make
a smooth transition from being a managing Board to a policy-making
Board." Eileen says that the Board looks forward to making OLLI "an
even better place than
it is today." Back to top.
 By OLLI's staff expert on OLLI etiquette
Lecture
Protocol
Dear Ms.
Ettakit:
I agree with comments
in the Sep 30 OLLI News that hit-or-miss
questions asked during lectures are intrusive. Some are even stupid
(mine are). So I am in favor of reserving questions for the last 10-15
minutes of an hour-and-a-half lecture and none before. I make exception
for some classes such as Investment Forum, where give-and-take seems
natural.
One other suggestion: Harry Cohn, former Hollywood
mogul, said that when his butt got restless he knew the movie stunk. I
don't go that far with our lectures. However, 1 1/2 hours to just sit
can
seem long. How about a 10-minute recess after 3/4 of an hour, and then
back
to work?
-- Joe Fulton, Annandale
My Dear Modest Mr.
Fulton,
My classroom sources tell me that you often ask
very intelligent questions, as I am
sure is true of all OLLI members most of the time. Unfortunately, some
members occasionally tend to make long-winded statements, frequently
expressing opinions based on their no-doubt extensive personal experience. Sometimes their discourses even
seem to be non sequiturs, which often leads to another problem raised
by readers, namely dozing off in class. It is, however, up to the
instructor to establish the ground rules concerning questions. Perhaps
the class liaison needs
to clarify those rules with the speaker before each class session.
As to your derriere, once again that is a decision
of the instructor, but perhaps the class liaison could be tasked to
suggest a short break mid-way through the class. Even a two-minute
stretch in place might be sufficient to relieve the pain and prevent
our members from thinking along the lines of your Mr. Harry Cohn that
the lecture was odiously odoriferous.
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Cell
Phone
Cacophony
Dear
Ms. Ettakit:
Please suggest a polite way to tell folks to turn off
those
^&*^* cell phones when in class.
-- C.S., Devoted Reader (and frustrated OLLI class member), Springfield
Dear Ms.
Ettakit:
I think you should address the question of cell phones/watches
ringing in class.
-- Anonymous, Springfield
Dear Springfield
Readers,
I am reticent to sound like the proverbial broken
record, but alas this is yet another chore for the already overburdened
Class Liaisons. Surely a casual reminder before each class nestled in
between
admonitions to display name tags and remove coffee cups would suffice
to
eliminate this annoying problem. This, of course, assumes that our
members
are aware that their cell phones and wristwatch alarms are activated.
By
the way, I heartily recommend the use of the “vibrate” setting on cell
phones.
It could be so much fun.
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Nail-Biting Knitters
Dear Ms. Ettakit:
What does Ollie think of students who file their nails or bring
knitting to class? I
for one am horrified by this behavior. Our teachers are all volunteers
who
have devoted much time and effort preparing for their presentations.
Their
only compensation is our undivided attention, and we owe them at least
that.
-- Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I have not personally observed such egregious
behavior and can only hope that it occurs very rarely. Surely our
members do not need the Class Liaison to cajole them into paying rapt
attention to our instructors instead of occupying their hands with
activities that may be distracting
and annoying to their neighbors.
|
Email your OLLI
etiquette questions to Ms. Ollie Ettakit (who is distraught that
she cannot reply personally) via the print-edition OLLI News editor, Gordon
Canyock. Back to top.
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YOU
MAY HAVE NOTICED in your classes that a few members have a LARGE RED
DOT on their name tags, indicating a new member.
OLLI is not only a place to take classes and learn,
but also a place to make new friends. So take a moment when you see a
"red-dot" name tag, introduce yourself, and welcome the new member to
the pleasures and benefits of OLLI.
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Learning About Lifelong Learning Institutes
|
 By Carol Henderson,
OLLI Secretary
THE MID-ATLANTIC LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTES CONFERENCE held September
10-13, 2005, in Asheville, North Carolina, provided an excellent
opportunity for our new executive director, 
our president and five other Board members to learn from other LLIs and
to share our own experiences.
Our delegation got a chance to explore the host
facility, the North Carolina Center for
Creative Retirement at the Reuter Center, University of North
Carolina at Asheville. This is a handsome building on the UNC campus
planned and funded by members and other donors.
At any one time, four or five concurrent workshops
were going on; among us we were able to cover almost every topic
offered. The good advice ranged from help with long-term planning to
day-to-day operating tips.
EVERYONE AGREED:
THE BEST RECRUITMENT TOOL IS WORD OF MOUTH
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In the area of facilities, for instance, one could get
advice on how to mount a years-long building campaign as well as tips
on negotiating for space in churches or retirement communities. Similar
help came from
sessions on program development, planning and achieving sustainability,
membership and recruitment, and research on LLIs and their members and
the
approaching generation of baby boomers.
It was fascinating to realize how different each
LLI is as it arises from and adapts to its local circumstances. The
range
of dues structures is amazing; one area of universal agreement was that
the best recruitment tool is word of mouth [For OLLI-GMU's own confirmation of this,
see
the results of last week's question of the week.
--Editor].
Our catalogs offer more learning opportunities than
most
other LLIs...
As Executive Director Dick Chobot has noted, it’s
clear that OLLI-GMU enjoys a well-deserved reputation among its peer
organizations. Our catalogs offer more learning opportunities than most
other LLIs and
kept disappearing from the handout tables.
This was one of the most useful aspects of the
conference—the ability to pick up and examine samples of other LLI
catalogs, brochures
and recruitment materials. Lots of these have been passed along to
Publications Committee chair Gordon Canyock and will also be used by
Membership Committee chair Debbie Halverson. Another useful and
enjoyable aspect was the hallway chat with many of the 160 attendees
from LLIs throughout the region and
as far away as Florida, Illinois and Canada.
A panel on the LLIs funded by the Osher
Foundation drew a large audience eager to hear OLLI-GMU President
Charles Duggan and others in the OLLI network.
The concluding speaker was the director of the
Elderhostel Institute Network, under whose auspices this regional
conference was scheduled. Nancy Merz Nordstrom discussed the history of
the now global LLI movement and explained the services EIN provides,
most of which can be reached through the EIN
Website.
I was impressed by this well-organized and very
useful conference. What we learned will help the Executive Director and
Board
members to do a more effective job of guiding the Institute and meeting
members’ expectations. Back to top.
THE EDITORIAL
STAFF WILL PUBLISH your
brief letters commenting on OLLI activities and will try to include
follow-up information from the relevant committee or staff member,
usually
the next week.
-- Gordon
Canyock, OLLI News editor
Focus Group
Dear Editor:
I am involved in a study analyzing proposed changes
in civilian personnel policies in the federal government. I would
like to organize a focus group of OLLI members who have worked with
federal personnel systems and have had experience with merit pay and
the traditional GS system. If you are interested, please call me at
703-573-2056 or email me.
-- Jack Underhill, OLLI Member
Garden of Delight
Dear Editor:
I noted with some unease the letter questioning the cost of
the ongoing
OLLI landscaping. I trust the intent of the letter was to note
with awe, gratitude, and appreciation the wonderful work done and being
done by volunteer effort.
The thought and planning involved deserves the
gratitude of all; the actual transformation done literally by the hard
labor of
so many is a testament to conviction that would make Lady Bird Johnson
proud. This beautification is owed and deserves the price of
enlightened
maintenance.
May we never lack for volunteers. May we never
succumb to knowing the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
-- Manuel Pablo, OLLI Member
Changed Your Prescription?
Dear Editor:
I am collecting old eyeglasses and hearing aids
to give to needy people in our area through a local civic organization.
If you have any that you no longer use, but are wearable, please place
them in the specially marked box that is next to the Lost and Found bin
in the Social Room.
-- Bob Helland, OLLI Member
Course Evaluations
Dear Editor:
In the short time I have been in OLLI, I have had
some very good presenters, but there have been a couple who were not
very effective at all and were a waste of my time. I wonder if there
could be some system for instructor/class evaluations? I think they are
needed but should certainly be anonymous. I know that these instructors
are volunteers, but we still want to have good speakers, so it seems to
me that evaluations are in order.
-- Anonymous
Back to top.
Rod
Zumbro
Karen Hamilton
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OLLI E-NEWS
Editor
Proofreader
|
About OLLI E-News. OLLI E-News is emailed to OLLI
members on Fridays when sufficient content is available. Each issue
contains new content (during class terms, the same content will appear
the following week in the printed OLLI
News distributed in classrooms). We encourage OLLI members and
staff employees to submit news items and write articles. Comments,
suggestions or complaints? Please contact the editor or the
Publications Committee chair, Gordon
Canyock.
Note
about HTML graphics. If
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Express. Click Tools; select Options; in the Read tab, uncheck
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