Fall 2018 Course Catalog & Registration

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Shared Learning Members and Visitors:

The Fall 2018 Shared Learning catalog is available to all current and former members and to visitors to our site.  Remember, your academic year membership of $60 entitles you to enrollment in more than 20 courses during this Fall as well as all courses offered during Spring 2019. To get started, jump to our Course Description page or get an overview of courses on the Course Schedule page. To register for courses, download and print the Registration Form or the Entire Catalog.  The Fall Calendar and Inclement Weather policy is available here.

Update: Note that two courses are full (Plays and Unfamiliar Languages) and one course has only a few spots remaining (Controversies). All other courses are open as of now.

Shared Learning Summer Catalog and Schedule

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Shared Learning presents 6 courses for our Summer Semester that operates in May and June (with Views on the News continuing all summer). Registration is free for ALL–not just current members, but also former members and visitors simply wanting to try out our courses and setting.

You may register in one of two ways: Complete the On-line Summer Registration Form or download and print the Summer Catalog and mail in the Registration Form.

We hope you will join us!

February Public Lecture: The Storied South, Prof. Wm. Ferris

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On Friday, February 23rd, at 11 a.m., Shared Learning was proud to host Professor William Ferris, Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC Chapel Hill, who gave our February Gray Lindgren Public Lecture at our Association’s meeting location, Expand Church, 114 Weaver Dairy Rd., Chapel Hill.

Professor Ferris’ lecture was based on his book, The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists, a fascinating set of interviews with 26 of the most luminous artists and thinkers in American culture — from Eudora Welty, Pete Seeger, and Alice Walker to William Eggleston, Bobby Rush, and C. Vann Woodward.

Dr. Ferris described to us how he chose subjects and conducted one-on-one interviews, over the past forty years, with such outstanding cultural representatives of the American South; how storytelling is viscerally tied to southern identity; and how the work of southern and southern-inspired creators has shaped the way Americans think and talk about the South.

Like all of our Lindgren Public Lectures, Dr. Ferris’ talk was free and open to the Chapel Hill area community. We invite you to taste the intellectually invigorating and socially inviting climate that has characterized our organization since its founding by retired UNC faculty members nearly 40 years ago.

Spring 2018 Course Catalog Published

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Information about Shared Learning’s Spring 2018 semester–the course schedule, course descriptions, and registration forms–have been posted on the new Shared Learning website: http://sharedlearning.us. Newly joining members and those returning from previous years can complete the Registration Page of the Spring 2018 Course Catalog and mail it in.  Current members who have already paid their 2017-2018 registration fee may submit their selected courses by email or using an on-line form.  Look at the items under the menu choice “SPRING 2018 Courses” for more information.

Classes begin Jan 8th and end April 20th.  Spring break is March 12-16.

Lindgren Lecture: Islam and Democracy: Can They Co-Exist?

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On Friday, October 27th, at 11 a.m., retired U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, W. Robert Pearson, discussed the probability that Islam and democracy could co-exist in the Middle East. Ambassador Pearson, currently a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, also described the current political situations in both Turkey and Syria and answered questions about those issues and about current policies and operation of the U.S. State Department.

Ambassador Pearson served as Ambassador to Turkey from 2000 to 2003 and was Director General of the Foreign Service from 2003 to 2006, winning two national awards for revitalizing American diplomacy. From 2008 to 2014 he was president of IREX, an international development NGO, basic in D.C., that focused on education, civil society development and independent media, spearheading its expansion to more than 125 countries.

Our Lindgren Lectures are free and open to the public and are held at our meeting location, Expand Church, 114 Weaver Dairy Rd., Chapel Hill 27514.

Free Public Lecture: “The Center is Not Holding:…Our Political Divide”

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Friday, Sept. 22nd, at 11 a.m., our first Lindgren Lecture of the 2017-2018 year was presented by Jonathan D. Weiler, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Curriculum in Global Studies, UNC Chapel Hill. Dr. Weiler’s talk was titled The Center Is not Holding – Nature and Origins of our Political Divide. This is a return visit to Shared Learning for Dr. Weiler who talked to us several years ago from his book Authoritarianism and Polarization–a fascinating look at how child-rearing values are related to political ideology and are increasingly associated with political party preference. He continues to work in the area of Americans’ political beliefs and it will be exciting to hear about his new research.