Clubs, Groups & SIGs

Fiction Book Club

The WISE Fiction Book Club is currently compiling our reading list for the coming year.

If you are interested in joining the WISE Fiction Book Club email Dianne Stoler.

This year's schedule will be announced soon and posted here.

Non-Fiction Book Club Schedule 2025-2026

Club meetings are held from 1:30 pm to 3 pm and meet on the Assumption campus, Testa Science Building, Room 155, weather permitting.

The WISE Non-Fiction Book Club meets to discuss a wide selection of non-fiction books voted on by club members. We meet five times a year for lively conversations about works ranging from the sciences to history to biography to the humanities. We welcome all who might wish to join us.

See our current book selections and schedule below.

If you are interested in joining the WISE Non-Fiction Book Club email Ellen More.

Movie Club

The WISE Movie Club is a fun social club open to all WISE members, friends, and their guests. We present a free movie on the Assumption campus once a month, typically on a Saturday afternoon. Movies are usually followed by a short discussion for those interested. Plus, there is always free popcorn and candy! Come join us at our next movie and bring a friend.

For more information, email Bobbi Corn, Movie Club Coordinator

When: Saturday, August 9, at 1 pm
Where: On the Assumption campus, Fuller Auditorium in the Testa Science Building

In 1964 a military dictatorship, with the aid of the U.S., came into power in Brazil. During the two decades that they ruled the country, thousands of its citizens just disappeared and hundreds were murdered by the government.

The 2025 movie, I'm Still Here is based on a true story of an ordinary family, a mother and father and their young children, caught up in the bureaucracy of a dictatorship. It is an amazing story that will grab you and stay with you even after the film has ended.

Fernanda Torres, who won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, gives a moving and compelling performance as a wife and mother whose life is turned upside down and who must fight for the survival of those she loves. All of the actors in this film are just incredible and the masterful directing by Water Salles brings us inside this family's life in a such a way that you cannot help but relate to them.

There will be an optional discussion after the film.



Artificial Intelligence (AI) SIG

The WISE Artificial Intelligence (AI) Special Interest Group invites all who are curious about the what is happening with this crazy, new technology. Led by resident tech wizard, Karl Hakkarainen, you are sure to learn something fascinating.

Next AI SIG Meeting: Thursday, August 21 at 10 am on Zoom

The summer has been anything but quiet. AI is the bull that charges through Wall Street, turns, and heads for the neighborhood China shop, leaving behind excitement, fear, and prodigious amounts of biological waste products.

• Adding to our concerns about the immense capacity of AI firms to consume electricity and water, their fundraising appears to be depleting venture capital reserves.
• The President has signed an executive order with Winning the Race: America’s Action Plan that outlines new federal AI policies and goals.
• OpenAI plans to release its next generation GPT-5 in August. Google, Meta, Anthropic, and others are cranking out releases like sausages at a polka festival.
• Alpha School, an Austin private school, is expanding its “2 Hour Learning” learning program to other schools around the country.

All this and more will be covered at our next AI SIG meeting.

Looking ahead, students from the Assumption Education Club Program will join our SIG meetings, giving WISE members a chance to ask and answer questions about AI, education, and the strange, new world that is theirs.

--Karl Hakkarainen

Supreme Court SIG

The WISE Supreme Court Special Interest Group meets regularly to follow the oral arguments, decisions, and other topics of interest related to the Court. This group is led by the very capable Jack Ross (A.B., Yale University; J.D., University of Virginia; Former lawyer and Adjunct Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University; Court Coordinator, Family Services of Central Massachusetts Mediation.)

The discussions of this group are informed and lively! No legal background is necessary -- all are welcome to attend. Meetings are typically held over Zoom. Reading materials and Zoom links will be made available to prior to each meeting date.