Winter Catalog Coming Soon

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Shared Learning’s Winter Semester courses (Jan. 18 thru mid-April) will be announced in the next two weeks (probably by Dec. 10th).  If you’re a current or recent member or have already requested to be on our email list, you’ll get an email with the catalog attached.  If you’ve never signed up with us, click above where it says “Email List: Add Me!”

We’ll have 25 courses this semester, in the arts, history, literature, natural sciences, social sciences/current events, and philosophy.  Most will be on Zoom–at least as long as face masks are required; but some will be in-person (with CoVid safety requirements followed) at our meeting venue: the Church of Reconciliation, 110 Elliott Rd., Chapel Hill.  All meet weekly, either from 9:15-10:45 or 11:15-12:45.  Now in our 43rd year.  Come join us!

First Fall ’21 Lindgren Lecture: Epigenetics (Mom & Me)

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Friday, October 22nd, at 11:15 a.m., Professor Brian Strahl, Professor and Interim Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics, UNC Chapel Hill, will discuss Epigenetics and the Histone Code or “Things Mom Didn’t Have to Teach Me.”  (Title line above abbreviated for impact.)  We will meet over Zoom and the Zoom link will be emailed to current members.  If you are a previous member or are on our mailing list, email hjbecker@uci.edu for the Zoom link.

Each cell in our body contains ~3.4 billion base pairs, which, if stretched out from end to end, would be 6 ft in length, but somehow fits into a cell nucleus only about 10 μm (~0.00001 yards) in diameter. How our DNA is packaged into the nucleus and then unwound for gene expression and protein synthesis (both critical to cell identity and fetal development) is still poorly understood. Brian Strahl, co-Director of the UNC Program in Chromatin and Epigenetics, is at the forefront of deciphering how DNA is packaged and then unwound for expression. DNA packaging and unwinding is largely mediated by a class of proteins called histones. Brian’s lab has been studying these proteins and the small chemical additions that occur on them or they make to DNA (e.g., adding or deleting phosphate or methyl groups).

Download full flyer HERE.

Modified Schedule for Fall Courses due to CoVid

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Shared Learning is beginning our Fall semester with courses meeting remotely via Zoom.  Several courses have instead postponed their starting date to mid-October, and two have been cancelled.  We are hoping to return most courses at that point to “on-site” — in person at our new location, the Church of Reconciliation, 110 Elliott Rd.  Decisions about doing so will be made in mid-October with the possibility that some courses, originally scheduled to be on-site will remain being offered on Zoom instead.

DEADLINE FOR ON-TIME REGISTRATION HAS PASSED!  We will accept late registrations, but you will need to wait until your moderator contacts you in order to receive the Zoom link.  Also, your ID and password for the members’ part of the website will be delayed. A Registration Form should be mailed to the address shown. The fee remains as it was in pre-CoVid years at $60/person which includes your enrollment in all of our Fall, Winter, and Spring courses for the coming academic year.

A few notes:

The following classes are full: Controversies, Exploring Breakthrough Ideas (in Art), Film Appreciation, and [not yet indicated in the catalog] Secret Societies and Opera.  Two others are cancelled: Into the Afterlife; Wednesday Book Club. 

Below is the SCHEDULE and here’s a link to the FULL CATALOG.  And if you want you can download just the REGISTRATION PAGE.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A PRINTER: You can write on a piece of paper all of your answers to the questions on the registration page, including the Vaccination affirmation check box, and of course which classes you want to take (by the number is on the registration page) and mail it with your membership fee.  The registration form makes it easier to accurately process your request, but we don’t require it as long as you provide all the information some other way.

Shared Learning Fall 2021 Course Schedule-4

Shared Learning Is Moving to the Church of Reconciliation

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Shared Learning and the Church of Reconciliation have finalized our agreement for 2021-2022 with classes beginning the week of September 13th.  The Curriculum and Catalog Committee is working with more than two dozen moderators to prepare an exciting set of courses for the Fall semester.  Most will be in-person at the Church (“the Rec” at 110 N. Elliot Rd.); some will be given remotely over Zoom; and a few are likely to be “hybrid” with participants both in-person and remote.

More details will be forthcoming soon–including a tentative schedule of courses–with the full catalog expected near the beginning of August.  Tell your friends to look out for the latest information–which will be on Shared Learning’s Public Home Page, https://sharedlearning.us.