Greenfield Community College

Senior Symposia

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The Senior Symposia program at Greenfield Community College is a collaborative effort between Greenfield Community College's Office of Community Education and area senior citizens to provide a way for area seniors to continue their education in a format that best suits their unique needs, interests, and resources.

We offer intellectually stimulating topics in single or multi-session formats, held during the daytime hours and in a convenient, accessible location (GCC Downtown Center, 270 Main Street).

Fall 2009 Senior Symposia classes

Moving Julia Child

Presenter: Rayna Green
Wednesday, September 23, 2-4 p.m.
When Julia Child moved from her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home in 2001, she gave her kitchen to the Smithsonian Institution. Many of us have already “visited” that kitchen when it was the setting for three enormously popular TV series in which Julia Child taught the nation to cook. Co-curator of the project Rayna Green will talk about the adventure of moving Child’s kitchen to Washington and about developing the accompanying exhibition “Bon Appetit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian.” She will discuss the collection and exhibition process, and the ways the museum has brought Child to the public through video, two websites, and public programs, including the culinary opera “Bon Appetit.” She may also share with us some lesser-known “Julia stories.”

A curator at the Smithsonian for 25 years, Rayna Green is widely known in her books, essays, lectures, film and audio productions as an authority on American Indian history and culture. Her most recent article on American foodways is “Mother Corn Meets Dixie Pig: Native Food in the Native South.”

The Social Impact of Technological Change

Presenters: Lisa McLoughlin and Michelle Barthelemy
Wednesday, September 30, 2-4 p.m.
Throughout history, technological advances have changed the way we live. The advent of the computer age and, more recently, the worldwide web, have brought changes that rival those of previous ages, affecting every aspect of our lives including attention span and how we learn, the acquisition of information and entertainment, how we relate to one another, and even how we think. Addressing both the positive and negative implications of these new technologies, the presenters will focus on topics such as social networking, explaining what Facebook, My Space, LinkedIn and Twitter are and how they operate, their widespread appeal as well as potential for abuse.

Michelle Barthelemy is Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Greenfield Community College and holds an M.Ed. in Educational Technology and an M.B.A., both from University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lisa McLoughlin, co-chair of the Engineering Program at Greenfield Community College, holds an M.Ed. in Math, Science, and Instructional Technology from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Changing New England Forests: Windows on the World

Instructor: Brian Adams
Wednesday, October 7, 2-4 p.m.
From climate change to invasive species, the one constant in our eastern deciduous forests is change. The kinds of changes we see in our region’s forests are also evident in forests worldwide. Learning to understand and interpret transformations in our local forests, Brian Adams believes, can give us insight into what is happening to forests on a global scale. With the aid of visuals, Adams will take us on a virtual walk in the New England woods to examine the myriad forest disturbances and significant events impacting these local natural communities and what they can tell us about forests elsewhere in the world. Among the issues discussed will be clearcutting and other unsustainable forestry practices, climate change and acid rain, and invasive plant and insect species, such as the recently discovered and potentially devastating infestation of the Asian Longhorned Beetle in Central Massachusetts.

Brian Adams is Professor of Environmental Studies/Natural Resources at Greenfield Community College. He holds a B.S. in Human Ecology from Cornell and an M.S. in Environmental Biology from Antioch University.

Mexico’s Historical Odyssey: In Search of Democracy and Development

Presenter: Rick López
Tuesday, October 13, 2-4 p.m.
The U.S. media report regularly on the Mexican drug wars, illegal migration, and political corruption. Yet they provide little, if any, context to help us make sense of this seeming chaos. Choosing shock appeal over factual analysis, US news sources tend to ignore back-stories, historical struggles, and national aspirations that we need to know about if we hope to understand the roots of Mexico’s current problems. Beginning with a review of transformative moments in Mexican history, from the wars of independence to recent movements for political reform, López will explain how these events continue to inform Mexico’s politics today and will furnish us with surprising insights into today’s problems and why they seem so intractable.

Rick López is Associate Professor of Latin American History and Environmental Studies at Amherst College. He is the author of Crafters of Nationhood: How Intellectuals, Artisans, and the State Created and Ethnicized Mexican National Identity (forthcoming 2009). He is currently at work on a book entitled Science, Nationalism, and Aesthetics in the Shaping of Mexico’s Environmental Imagination.

Comets and Asteroids: Friends or Foes?

Presenter: Hughes Pack
Thursday, October 22, 2-4 p.m.
Might a comet or an asteroid cause the demise of the human race? Many scientists now believe that Earth could be seriously threatened by the impact of an errant asteroid or comet— maybe 100 million years from now, and maybe next week. Using computer images and video tapes, physicist and astronomer Hughes Pack will introduce us to some of the mysteries of the Universe, concentrating on the solar system, how it was formed, and how the billions of objects orbiting the Sun move about in it, both predictably and unpredictably. Hughes and his students at Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH) have been participating in the International Asteroid Search Collaboration Project, whose goal is to find and track Near Earth Objects and possibly help save the world from future destruction by an asteroid or comet impact.

Hughes Pack has been a teacher at NMH for 30 years and has helped to design physics and astronomy curricula for schools. He has presented astronomy talks and workshops throughout the United States, and in Japan, Sweden and Germany.

Islam Around the World: Culture, Faith and the Future

Presenter: Lorrie Byrom
Wednesday, October 28, 2-4 p.m.
Islam is often perceived by many non-Muslims as a monolithic faith with a majority of conservative/fundamentalist believers. This presentation by a longtime student of the Middle East will explore the stereotypes and realities of Islam as it exists around the world. Giving special emphasis to Islamic cultures in the Middle East and South East Asia, where the majority of the world’s Muslims reside, Byrom will consider the public voices of Islam as well as the more private sides of the religion as practiced by both men and women. She will conclude her remarks with some forecasts about the future of Islam.

As a member of the faculty at Northfield Mount Hermon School for over thirty years, Lorrie Byrom has served as Chair of the History/Social Science Department, Director of Studies, and Dean of Faculty. She has led seven study-abroad trips to Egypt, Turkey and South Africa, and her many sabbatical travels have also taken her to Lebanon, Jordan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore seeking a deeper understanding of the world of Islam.

We Need a NEW New Deal

Presenter: Michael Meeropol
Friday, November 6, 2-4 p.m.
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, enhanced and sustained by Johnson’s Great Society, lasted well into the 1970s, when it was challenged and ultimately overthrown by the Reagan Revolution. In this lecture Meeropol argues that our current economic crisis has its roots in the success of the Reagan Revolution, which touted the virtues of small government and deregulation. The political-economic model that resulted, he contends, is broken and unfixable. What’s needed now, even as a short-term “fix,” is a totally different way of organizing the economy, a NEW New Deal as sweeping and as radical as the original. How does the Obama administration’s agenda for change measure up to the task of creating a NEW New Deal?

Michael Meeropol is an economic historian with degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin and Cambridge, England. His most recent publication is Surrender: How The Clinton Administration Completed The Reagan Revolution. Recently retired as Professor of Economics at Western New England College, Meeropol is a regular commentator on economic issues with WAMC radio.

Once Upon a Time: The History of Literature for Children

Presenter: Jeannine Atkins
Thursday, November 12, 2-4 p.m.
Accompanied by witches, wizards, wolves and the personified moon, Atkins will lead us through the fascinating history of storytelling for children, revisiting some beloved classics and introducing us to some of today’s most successful writers for children. From the Dark Forests of the Brothers Grimm to the Yellow Brick Road of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, her talk will explore how writers for children balance pleasure and education as they satisfy a child’s (and our own) mixed longings for safety and adventure. Learn how Alice in Wonderland, using the playfulness and wonder of earlier nursery rhymes, revolutionized the Victorian morality tale for children. Find out where Winnie-the-Pooh and Peter Pan really came from and how Dr. Seuss and new picture books elbowed out poor old Dick and Jane.

Jeannine Atkins ( www.JeannineAtkins.com) has published eleven books for young readers and has taught Children’s Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at Mount Holyoke College.