OLLI - SF State
Fall 2006 Quarterly Newsletter
In this Issue...
Attend First Week of OLLI Courses for Free
You can still register for most courses in the Fall Second Session, except for Islam and the West at the SF-JCC. You can attend the first class of any of the classes below and register that day with the Teaching Assistant. (Click on courses for full course descriptions and access to faculty bios)
Islam and the West: An Alternative to World History - (only at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center)
If you grow up in an Islamic country, world history has a different shape. Here's a chance to look at the last 14 centuries from an Islamo-centric point of view, paying special attention to the interaction between Islam and the West.
Revitalize Your Life through Interior Design
Your environment plays a large role in how well you function. A specific focus will be given to color/light because the impact on health and productivity is so great, and because it is a cost-effective way to make small changes that can result in big improvements including the reorganization of your home to accommodate new interests and second careers. You will learn how to draw floor plans to help you in reorganizing your personal space.
The Writers Circle
The sessions are designed to strengthen your writing practice. We will initiate a common language of how to share your insights with other writers and to contribute to OLLI's emerging writing community. All writers are welcome, especially those who have taken other OLLI writing courses.
Globalization in Our Work and in Our Lives
What really drives this hot-button issue? Learn the role of education, technology, politics and the interface with WTO and the IMF. Explore the historical contexts and how the issues evolved.
Invest Like a Pro: How to Evaluate a Winning Stock
Learn tools that will allow you to take an active interest in your financial life. This common-sense approach will show you how to use information that can easily be found.
Introduction to Screenwriting
If character is destiny, it's also the key to successful personal screenwriting combined with a strong story. You will learn to evaluate the best way to tell your story cinematically, and explore various approaches. The structure comes out of scenes that organically unfold as the characters you create take on a life of their own. The class will look at examples of character-driven films from Woody Allen's Annie Hall to American Beauty to Brokeback Mountain and we read the screenplays. You come away with your own short screenplay and the tools needed to continue.
Global Lens: Art and the Documentary
Developing tools to analyze films enhances the viewing experience enormously. These films use a poetic or an extreme point of view rather than mere facts to get at the “truth.”
Exploring Midlife Issues Using Fairy Tales
Dr. Allan Chinen, a psychiatrist at UCSF, teaches this course. He has been called “a cultural treasure” for his research of international fairy tales. Apparently, among the world's fairy tales, only five percent have an older protagonist. The course will focus on these elder tales that contain the distilled wisdom of generations and vividly illustrate the essential tasks of aging.
Digital Photography Basics (moved from first fall session to second, begins Nov.2)
Learn the basic mechanics of your digital camera. The course will cover downloading your photos, organizing them effectively, emailing them and more.
Create Digital Photos Like the Pros! (an introduction to Picasa)
With Picasa you can manipulate your photo collection; you crop, sharpen, make B&W/Sepia, create slideshows, CDs, movies, e-mails and many other neat effects.
Upcoming Events: Fall-Winter 2006
Call 415.817.4270 for more information; reserve a space by calling 415.817.4251.
November 2 Civil Grand Jury Process with Beate Boultinghouse, 10:45-11:45, DTC, 3rd floor, FREE. Ms. Boultinghouse chaired the committee which investigated and developed the Civil Grand Jury Report entitled Disaster Planning: The Realities of Emergency / Disaster Medical Preparedness in San Francisco. She will share how the Jury investigated the topic and came to its conclusions. What will happen with those recommendations that were made to the City? Will the people of the Bay Area be any safer as a result? What can we as individuals do? The press conference and intense media coverage of the report upon its release were an excellent start. Where do we go from here? Beate Boultinghouse is a retired Levi Strauss & CO Sales and Marketing Executive.
November 6 Exercising Our Brains, intro to Alvaro Fernandez's OLLI course. 6:30-8:00pm, DTC, $15. We recommend that you register in advance. This is a great way to introduce brain fitness to your family and friends.
November 16 Exercising Our Brains, intro to Alvaro's OLLI course, 6:30 -8:00pm, St. James Community Learning Center, 4620 California Street, SF, $15.
November 21 Book Club at the Mechanics' Institute, this month's book is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood at the Mechanics' Institute, 57 Post Street, Fourth Floor Board Room, 3:00-4:30 pm, contact Judy Goddess.
November 28 World Affairs Discussion Group, Topic: Chavez and Venezuela, 2nd Floor, 10:00-Noon. Free, alcrowell@sbcglobal.net.
November 30 How Individuals Can Make a Difference, Dr. Lisinka Ulatowska, author. 10:15-11:45, DTC, 3rd Floor, Free.
December 15 Celebration Event when all OLLI members share their creative work from the session with food and frivolity, 4:00-6:00pm, DTC, 2nd floor. Free
Annual Membership Deadline Extended
We have extended the deadline to December 1 for OLLI members who think they will take 5 or more courses this year. For an annual fee of $500, members can take as many courses over the academic year's three sessions—fall, spring and summer. They are also invited to special events and receive a spiffy OLLI-SFSU tote bag. The spring lineup of courses is listed here in the newsletter to help with your planning. Call Robert to enroll or if you have questions (415.817.4270).
SF State Moves to the Westfield Centre, January 2007
SF State's College of Extended Learning and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will move to the Westfield Centre in January 2007. Our new address will be 835 Market Street. Phone numbers will remain the same for the time being, but be sure to re-set your compass points for Powell and Market. (At the Powell BART station-you won't even have to go outside!)
Member & Faculty Spotlights
This is from 1969-70, my first job in San Francisco. At that time the school was called Sir Francis Drake located in Hunter's Point. Now the school is Malcolm X.
Profile: Margaret Liddell
By Charles Francis
Members who have shared writing classes with Margaret have marveled at her unique ability to tell of her childhood, growing up in Chillicothe, Ohio. She speaks in a voice that is both candid and authentic. Her stories center around her resourceful but struggling mother and an unforgettable neighborhood girl named “Squenchy.”
When Margaret was asked how she came to write her stories, this was her reply: “I started writing because in the back of my mind, I always had the desire to write Squenchy's story but I never did anything about it. After retirement, I finally began searching for my ancestors and trying to get info about the "Kentucky tales" my mom always told us. So with each writing class, different stories emerged. In the future I want to write a little something about my ancestors and the process of researching our family tree.”
Margaret, also mentioned that she and her husband, Hoover, and infant daughter had lived in Africa for a time. This is how she said this happened to be: “I went to Africa with Hoover and our one year old daughter because Hoover had recently returned from a two year stint with the Peace Corps. I met and married him only a few months after he came home from Nigeria. He was eager to go back, so after three years of marriage and endless stories about Africa, I agreed knowing that it was really important to him. I also wanted to see "the motherland" for myself. We decided on East Africa, Kenya, because of the climate.
We had no job waiting for us when we left San Francisco but eventually Hoover got a job teaching math and I taught for a few hours a day at a nearby elementary school.”
We look forward to hearing about her adventures on the dark continent-and more about the indomitable, “Squenchy,” and Margaret's coming of age in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Sheila Cunningham
Interview conducted by Al Crowell
OLLI: Sheila Cunningham, you are teaching the investment and philanthropy courses for OLLI. What background do you bring to this important issue?
Sheila: I love business and finance and have spent my career as a financial journalist and investment analyst, studying how companies work. I've devised a sort of “drill” to finding a great company and stock and pass it along to the students in the Invest Like a Pro classes. I litter the lectures with lots of current anecdotes (my journalist training) to keep it lively, fun and up-to-the-minute.
Armed with an economics degree from Bryn Mawr College, I began as a reporter and writer for Business Week magazine. I established their corporate finance coverage. After 11 years, I had banged up against their glass ceiling, got bored, and decided to move onto Wall Street. Since the mid-80's I've worked in risk (merger) arbitrage, growth stocks, technology stocks, a hedge fund…. But I've always performed the same basic tasks: Interviewing managements, studying the business, parsing company financials all with the goal of picking the best stocks to buy.
OLLI: Because you are also teaching the philanthropy course, I wonder what is your personal interest and perhaps philosophy about this subject?
Sheila: I've held a fantasy since childhood of becoming a great philanthropist myself. My idol being, of course, “The Millionaire” on TV, if you remember that program. Philanthropy also suits my political philosophy which favors small government with private contributors prominently supporting social needs.
What really intrigues me is the business case that underlies philanthropy. How do donors know they're having an impact, or the most impact, with their limited dollars? How do they measure effectiveness and success? What do they model their initiatives and programs on?
Of course, a lot of impact is impossible to measure in hard-currency terms. Certainly, opinion is divided about whether charitable giving should even be held to business-like standards. That's why I want to have this class consist of conversations with philanthropists, to see how they grapple with those attitudes and issues.
OLLI: What makes you a good fit for OLLI?
Sheila: It's not just the M&M's I bring to class to keep students alert. I'm quite enthusiastic about my material and I use lots of stories and antics which are entertaining and also help the material go down easier.
I'm also a perennial student. I'm endlessly curious, love learning and have gone to evening classes ever since college. I got my MBA at night. It's a good idea to keep stretching the brain beyond how it's used in the workaday world. It keeps you fresh and interesting, and enables you to make connections will all sorts of different people.
OLLI: Have you found the financial field to be friendly to women?
Sheila: Finance is a field with metrics, or measurement standards, which allow people to demonstrate their merit in concrete terms. On that basis, women can demonstrate their value and so get ahead.
OLLI: You also own your own business, don't you?
Sheila: I've had my entrepreneurial urges and in the mid-90's started up two little companies in New York. One designs and makes small impulse jewelry items for museum shops, but the one I'm prouder of is a publisher of literary-list books (Literary Laurels). I had been so frustrated that Barnes & Noble booksellers didn't seem to know their books or couldn't make decent recommendations. They didn't have lists of Booker prize winners, or Pulitzers or National Book Critics Circle, etc. So, with a couple of friends, I compiled the lists, wrote the text, penned a few checks and so became a publisher. Literary Laurels are wonderful books, but small-scale publishing is just an appalling money pit! I'd better stick to investing.
Spring 2007 Courses
College catalogs will be available at the beginning of December with registration beginning the first week in January. Here is a peak at what's in store for the two spring sessions. Remember all of the Downtown Center courses will be at our new location in the Westfield Centre, 835 Market Street at Fifth Street.
THE ARTS AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION
The Well-Made Story with Lynne Kaufman
Photographing People with Marcia Lieberman
The Writers Circle with Susan Hoffman
Play Creation Workshop with Ellen Sebastian*
Song and Dance Men of the Silver Screen with Bonnie Weiss*
Wartime: My Time with Judith Ehrlich*
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND CURRENT EVENTS
Islam and the West (for Spanish speakers) with Aida Cervantes*
Why We Fight with Judith Ehrlich*
Citizen's Guide to Climate Change with Glenn Fieldman*
Global Lens with Michael Fox
Diversity and Community: A Survey of Israeli Cinema with Janis Plotkin*
Identity/Memory: The Jewish Image in German Cinema with Janis Plotkin*
THE CITY AND CALIFORNIA
Walking the Neighborhoods with Max Kirkeberg
Jazz: An American Story with Dee Spenser
Socially Engaged Art in the Tenderloin/ SoMa with Susan Hoffman
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Intermediate Internet Exploration with Dave Casuto*
MS Word with Dave Casuto*
WELLNESS
Maintaining Mobility with Penny Sablove
Mind/Body Resilience with Erik Pepper and Richard Harvey*
Beginning Qi Gong for Health with Ann Gilmore*
Shamanic Journeys and the Power of Dreams with Debra Varner*
REDEFINING AGING
Finding Work and Life Renewal with Linda Artel
Wellspring of Age with Amy Schaible*
Reinventing Retirement: Designing Your Second Act Based on Passion and Possibilitywith Julie Cotton*
* connotes courses being offered for the first time at OLLI.
Member News
Rabbi Ed Zerin, one of our OLLI writers, had his book, Jewish San Francisco published by Arcadia Press this month. Ed will be at the many book-signing events around the bay area. Here is a short list of those events: Jewish Community Center-SF's Bookfest, November 5 at 2pm; Book Passage at the Ferry Building, November 16 at 6pm; December 11 at 7:30 at the Black Oak Bookstore in Berkeley. His book was described as “wondrous”, “exhaustive research with loving commentaries”, and “makes history come alive.” Ed says that OLLI was the “inspiration” for his book. We will have a copy of the book in our office soon. Ed will attend the OLLI Celebration event on December 15 at 4pm.
Here's Ed's bio from Arcadia Publishing: Edward Zerin, Ph.D, a retired congregational rabbi, psychotherapist, university professor, and author of The Birth of the Torah, has a long and distinguished record of Jewish history writing and consulting. In Jewish San Francisco, using vintage images from private collectors, as well as the archives of the Western Jewish History Center of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, Zerin portrays a mother lode of Jewish history on the West Coast and taps into a vein of social and cultural riches.
Dancer and choreographer Deborah Slater is featured on KQED's SPARK in a program called The Influence of Memory. The show will be broadcast on Channel 9 on Wednesday, October 25 at 7:30 pm and Friday, October 27 at 11pm. Deborah is teaching Writing and Moving this fall.
|
