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• S4. Five Major American Art Museums

  • Start
    05/28/2024
  •  
  • End
    06/13/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    5 sessions
  • Location
    Zoom only

  Register

  This course meets 5 times.
  

  We’ll explore the history and highlights of five major American art museums from across the country. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the MFA, Boston, both founded in 1870, to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, founded in 1997, we will discover what makes these museums American treasures.  The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is also one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. We’ll also examine Andrew Mellon’s contribution in creating the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, modeled after the London National Gallery, which Mellon admired while America’s ambassador to England.

  

  Martha Chiarchiaro has brought art history to life for more than 30 years. She received her master’s degree in the history of art from Williams College and has taught a variety of classes at the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester State University, WISE, and other cultural organizations. 

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• S5. Fourteen Days, A Collaborative Novel

  • Start
    05/28/2024
  •  
  • End
    06/25/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    5 sessions
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    56

  Register

  This course meets 5 times.

  Fourteen Days is the creative effort of 36 authors who have collaborated on producing a Covid novel which occurs primarily on the rooftop of an apartment building whose tenants were unable to flee the City for their nonexistent summer homes unlike many more affluent New Yorkers who could and did.

  Typical of NYC apartment buildings, most of the tenants did not know each other, and only when they were trapped by Covid restrictions did they come together for connection in a similar way that Chaucer’s Pilgrims only meet because of their individual desire to travel to Canterbury and do so at the same time.

  
  

  Required Reading:

  Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel. Eds..Atwood and Preston (978-0-35-816638-2)

  
  

  Optional Reading:

  The Canterbury Tales Penguin Classics by Geoffrey Chaucer (978-0-140-42438-6)

  

  Marcia Tannenbaum is a longtime WISE Instructor who has been teaching Literature in various venues since she was a student teacher while at Simmons (College) University where she earned a Bachelors Degree in the School of Education and a Masters Degree in English Language and Literature.

  Marcia’s roots are in New York City, the location of the apartment building which is where the novel takes place. She lived in the Bronx as a young child and in the West Village after her graduation from Simmons in 1967/1969. For her, NYC is “the City.”

  The idea of a Collaborative novel is very appealing to this instructor as she has been trained as a Collaborative Lawyer and sat for many years on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council. In addition, Marcia is a fan of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. [See course description below.] 

  Most recently, she taught a course entitled We Read Banned Books at Wise in the fall, 2023.

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• S8. Honeybees and Beekeeping

  • Start
    05/29/2024
  •  
  • End
    06/19/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    4 sessions
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    56

  Register

  This course meets 4 times.

  Most people are aware of and concerned about the future survival of honeybees and other pollinators.

  This course will focus on honeybees and begin with the history of honey hunting/beekeeping.  We’ll look at current beekeeping practices by comparing the different types of hives currently in use.

  We’ll take a deeper dive into the hive to learn about who lives there and honeybee social structure, life cycles and communication.  We’ll examine some of the theories of why honeybees are in danger and look at some ways that all of us can help honeybees and other pollinators survive.

  (this is not a course on how to be a beekeeper, but rather about honeybees and beekeeping)

  

  Anne Lenault has been interested in honeybees since she was a young adult, which inspired her to acquire her first hive when she was 23. This first journey lasted about 10 years.  She returned to Beekeeping 11 years ago and in that time, her interest has grown from simply keeping hives to studying current scientific research and attending national bee conferences.

  She has most recently served as the Vice President for Worcester County Beekeepers Association, the largest and oldest county beekeeping club in the country. She is currently the Director of their beekeeping school, which serves 250-300 students each year in an 8-week beekeeping class. She continues learning and enrolled in a Master Beekeeper program at the University of Montana earning her Master Beekeeper Certification in 2022

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• S16. Conservation in the American West

  • Start
    05/31/2024
  •  
  • End
    06/28/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    5 sessions
  • Location
    Zoom only

  Register

  This course meets 5 times.
  

  This overview course of conservation in the American West will use case studies to explore the social, political, and ecological problems that accompany wildlife and wildland management in and around some of the country’s most iconic landscapes. The course will consider the history of American conservation, the roles of science, values, and profit in decision-making, and the way that controversies and conflicts over wildlife and public lands in the 1990s and early 2000s presaged and predicted the rise of militia movements and right-wing politics. The class will look ahead to the future of conservation work in an era of climate change and governance challenges.

  We will look closely at three species whose conservation trajectories highlight major themes, triumphs, and challenges in conservation – wolves, sage grouse, and wolverines. We will also consider evolving social and scientific technologies for better understanding and managing the environment, including AI, remote sensing and DNA, Indigenous Science, and other old and new approaches to the complex question of human/nature relationships.

  Optional readings:

  1.  True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America by Betsy Gaines Quammen (Torrey House Press, 2023)

  2.     American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West by Betsy Gaines Quammen (Torrey House Press, 2020)

  3.  Yellowstone Wolves by Doug Smith, Daniel Stahler, and Daniel  McNulty, editors, (University of Chicago Press, 2020)

  

  Rebecca Watters is a wildlife researcher who has worked on wolves, wolverines, and social perceptions of wildlife in Mongolia and the Western US for the past two decades. She lives in Bozeman, Montana.

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• S2-Session 1. Fascinating History: Women Inventors

  • When
    06/03/2024
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    50

  Register

  This topic of this course meets 1 time. 

  Women Inventors covers several centuries of very clever women, starting with the first computer programmer in the 1830s, the inventor of car heaters, and windshield wipers, the inventor of the modern hypodermic needle, and the creator of user-friendly computer coding language, women have invented many very surprising things which have changed all our lives.

  

  Sari Bitticks has served as president of the Auburn Historical Society and Museum for the past 12 years. She has researched and presented over 70 talks on various subjects for the Society and for area schools, senior centers, and other organizations.

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• S9. The Dramatic Monologues of Tennyson and Browning

  • Start
    06/05/2024
  •  
  • End
    06/26/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    3 sessions
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    58

  Register

  This course meets 3 times.

  In no other literary era has the dramatic monologue flourished as it did during the Victorian period. Two Victorian poets, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, were (and still are, most would agree) the masters of the form. We’ll read and discuss a pair of dramatic monologues from each of these two poets: Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and “Tithonus,” and Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and “Fra Lippo Lippi.” If time permits, we may get to “the Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s” and/or “Andrea del Sarto,” both by Browning.

  
  

  Required Reading:

  No book required.  The poems are all accessible via the internet.  Hard-copy handouts will be available at the first class.

  

  Jim Foley is a Professor Emeritus from Worcester State University. Pre-pandemic, he frequently offered courses in WISE, dealing with poetry, short stories, modern drama, and Shakespeare.

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• S11. Jackie Robinson, Boston and the Integration of Baseball

  • Start
    06/06/2024
  •  
  • End
    07/11/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    5 sessions
  • Location
    Zoom only

  Register

  This course meets 5 times.
  

  In 1947, Jackie Robinson, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was the first player to break the “color line” in Major League Baseball. This historic event could have taken place in Boston, but the Red Sox lost that chance. In fact, they were the last team to have a black player when they brought up Pumpsie Green in 1959. Ever since then, there have been lingering questions about the racial policies of the team and its owner, Thomas A. Yawkey. These questions have been raised by baseball fans and by professional ball players who have expressed a reluctance to play in Boston. In February 2018, the Red Sox petitioned Boston to change the name of Yawkey Way back to its original name of Jersey Street. This course examines the events surrounding Robinson's Boston tryout and examines racial attitudes of the team and its owner, Thomas Yawkey.

  Optional readings:

  • 1.     Pumpsie and Progress: The Red Sox, Race, and Redemption, by Bill Nowlin (Rounder Books May 25, 2010) 978-1579401757

    
    2.     Red Sox Century: One Hundred Years of Red Sox Baseball  by Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt January 1, 2000) ‎ 978-0395884171

  

  David Nevard attended UMass Amherst and spent 35 years in information technology for a large corporation. From 1985 through 2002, he was editor of a baseball newsletter called A Red Sox Journal, published by the Buffalo Head Society. The newsletter is now in the collection of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  This course combines his interests in baseball and history. 

  Since retirement, David has been an instructor at WISE and other area lifelong learning programs. David previously led the course called “Europe’s Lost and Found: Displaced Persons after World War II.”  Other History courses he has done for WISE include "Suburbia", "Berlin Wall", "Worcester Tornado", "Operation Paperclip", and "Nuremberg War Crimes Trial".  

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• S2-Session 2. Fascinating History: Mary Roberts Reinhart, America’s Agatha Christie

  • When
    06/10/2024
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    52

  Register

  This topic of this course meets 1 time. 

  Mary Roberts Reinhart, America’s Agatha Christie,  was the only female World War I correspondent and continues to inspire authors today.  She was the most popular author from 1900 to the 1950s; a writer of popular movies; a fighter for indigenous peoples’ rights; a source of inspiration for many incredible cultural icons and the innovator of popular fiction genres.

  

  Sari Bitticks has served as president of the Auburn Historical Society and Museum for the past 12 years. She has researched and presented over 70 talks on various subjects for the Society and for area schools, senior centers, and other organizations.

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• S2-Session 3. Fascinating History: The Great Molasses Flood

  • When
    06/17/2024
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    51

  Register

  This topic of this course meets 1 time. 

  The Great Molasses Flood crippled the city of Boston in 1919.  Imagine a wall of molasses, 25 feet high, coming at you at 35 mph, no escape.  Picture what that would do to any living thing or buildings in its path. Then try to picture the aftermath.

  

  Sari Bitticks has served as president of the Auburn Historical Society and Museum for the past 12 years. She has researched and presented over 70 talks on various subjects for the Society and for area schools, senior centers, and other organizations.

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• S12. The Creeping Professionalism of Major College Sports

  • Start
    06/20/2024
  •  
  • End
    07/11/2024
  •  
  • Schedule
    3 sessions
  • Location
    Zoom only

  Register

  This course meets 3 times.

  For many years, avid college sports fans have lamented the evolving shape of big-time football and basketball, driven by the insatiable quest for billions of dollars of television revenue. But over the past few years, several major changes threaten to convert big-time college sports into a near professional model and in the process destroy many of its unique traditions. Waves of athletic conference realignment and consolidation (driven by dollars) have eliminated traditional regional rivalries, and virtually eliminated the PAC-12 Conference. The college football playoff is expanding. NIL (name, image, likeness) payments are funneled legally to players through booster networks --some can earn more in college than they will in the pros. Liberal transfer rules now allow players to freely move among colleges and cut favorable NIL deals. The notion of a “student-athlete” remaining at a college for four years has become archaic. Unionization of college sports is on the horizon. And the NCAA has failed as a regulatory body. This course will examine these issues and ask the question: will the overseers of big-time college sports ultimately kill the goose that laid the golden egg? 

  

  John S. Ross, III (Jack) holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Virginia School of Law, and practiced law for 20 years in Washington, D.C. He served as Adjunct Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, and has taught numerous courses on constitutional law and other topics in the WISE program. Jack also facilitates the WISE Supreme Court Special Interest Group.

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• S2-Session 4. Fascinating History: The Healey Brothers

  • When
    06/24/2024
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    55

  Register

  This topic of this course meets 1 time. 

  The Healey Brothers and two sisters. A remarkable family, a bishop, a priest who headed a major university, a Mother Superior who came up with innovations for her convent, and much, much more. All from a single family with an enormous secret, and that is only the tip of the iceberg.

  
  

  

  Sari Bitticks has served as president of the Auburn Historical Society and Museum for the past 12 years. She has researched and presented over 70 talks on various subjects for the Society and for area schools, senior centers, and other organizations.

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• S2-Session 5. Fascinating History: The History of Toys

  • When
    07/01/2024
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  • Location
    In Person - Kennedy 119 at Assumption University
  • Spaces left
    55

  Register

  This topic of this course meets 1 time. 

  The History of Toys  From Ancient Egypt to modern animatronics, the history of toys is a wonderful insight into how we choose to entertain and instruct not just our children, but ourselves. From the wire helix wave demonstrator to caltrops to the European garotte, toys have a fabulous history. Come hear the awe inspiring story of the burden on the family and the useless nephew.   This comes with over 60 vintage toys and covers three thousand years of creative play.

  

  Sari Bitticks has served as president of the Auburn Historical Society and Museum for the past 12 years. She has researched and presented over 70 talks on various subjects for the Society and for area schools, senior centers, and other organizations.

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• S13. The Long War for Women’s Basketball

  • When
    07/11/2024
  •  
    10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
  • Location
    Zoom only

  Register

  This course meets 1 time. 

  Women have been playing basketball just as long as men. In the early years of the sport before WWI, women's basketball was often more popular than men's. But the women's game was hobbled by a series of rules to prevent the "weaker sex" from over-exerting themselves. No running. No defense. No competitive tournaments. Interest waned. 

  As women began to assert their rights leading up to suffrage in 1920, women's hoops suffered a new line of attack: that the players were unattractive and "unladylike"; that they were uppity women's suffrage types; and finally, that they were "muscle molls" - dykes. That last campaign was led by Pres. Hoover's first lady, Lou Henry Hoover. It was effective: girls basketball disappeared from high schools across the country. Women's college hoops followed suit. 

  And the situation didn't begin to turn around until Title IX was passed, in 1972. Even then, the resistance continued. This year - 50 years after Title IX – the Women's NCAA championships drew more viewers than the Men's, and the biggest name in basketball is Caitlin Clark. The WNBA is poised to become the first financially successful women’s professional team sport. More than half the League has come out as proudly lesbian. 

  This is the story behind that century long battle for freedom and respect. It tracks the social history of women and the ongoing construction of gender in the 20 th  century.

  

  Rick Hendra is a long-time bball player, coach, and rec league exec (now retired). He has previously taught "Basketball: A Social History", a Spotlight Special on "Singing Sisters: The Rise of the Female Vocal Groups", and other blues and gospel related courses, always with a social justice slant. He edits the WISE Guide & Bulletin, and in previous lives taught at UMass, managed the co-and extra-curricula at Quinsig CC, and DJ’d at Community Radio WCUW.

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