Case Western Reserve University
EN-12: Continuing Education

PAINTING IN THE OUTDOORS
Pat Sigmier, Local Artist
Fridays, September 7–28
10 a.m.–2 p.m.
In this course, we will explore painting with watercolor on
location at Case Western Reserve University’s Squire
Valleevue Farm. This is an ideal venue for painting outdoors
using direct observation of the natural light, shadows and
ever-changing atmosphere. The changing season brings
new colors of autumn to our palettes. The course includes
demonstrations and group critiques as well as individual
instruction. Each student will work at his/her own pace.
Bring a bag lunch.
Squire Valleevue and Valley Ridge Farms

AMERICAN AIDS
Clayton Koppes, Professor of History, Oberlin College
Wednesdays, September 5–October 17
No class: September 19
1:30–3:30 p.m.
HIV/AIDS is one of the most significant epidemics—
perhaps the most salient—in American history.
Approximately 700,000 people have died of the disease;
1.2 million people are infected today, about half of them
age 50 or older. HIV/AIDS disproportionately impacts
communities of color and people with limited resources.
The disease exposes many of the fault lines in American
society while also highlighting extraordinary political and
cultural resistance and resilience. This course explores the
cultural, political and experiential aspects of the history of
HIV/AIDS in America, from the days of terror in the 1980s
and ‘90s to the remarkable, if not unproblematic, survival
stories of people living with HIV over the past 20 years.
Landmark Centre—Beachwood

A DECADE OF TURMOIL AND TRANSITION: THE 1960s
Jim Lane, Leader-Teacher for Off-Campus Studies
Thursdays, September 20–November 8
10–11:30 a.m.
Put on your bell-bottoms and grab your granny glasses,
tie-dyes and beads! Let’s do a little back-to-the-future
time travel to the seminal decade of the 1960s. Using a
compilation of articles originally published in The New
Yorker, we will re-examine the confrontations over civil
rights, economics, Vietnam and lifestyles. We will review
the tragedies of the all too common assassinations and
the problems and promises of psychedelics and protests.
We will re-experience the highs of Telstar and Apollo 11
and the lows of poverty in The Other America and the
damage echoed in The Silent Spring. And we will review
our fascination with the entertainment and cultural icons
of the era. Book: The 60s: The Story of a Decade (Henry
Finder, editor), The New Yorker
Landmark Centre—Beachwood

WORLD HISTORY AS TOLD BY SALT
Ted Smith, Leader-Teacher for Off-Campus Studies
Thursdays, September 20–November 15
No class October 11
10:30 a.m.–noon
A unique historical perspective centering on a mineral, a
rock, a spice. Prevalent today thanks to modern geology,
salt was one of the world’s most sought-after
commodities, a substance so valuable it served as currency
and influenced trade routes and establishment of cities.
Salt provoked and financed wars, secured empires, inspired
revolutions. We will explore how salt changed economies,
science, politics, religions and food. Book: Salt, a World
History, Mark Kurlansky
Breckenridge Village

WALKING THROUGH NATURE
Jay Abercrombie, Field Biologist,
formerly with the Geauga Park District
Wednesdays, September 12–October 3
No class September 19
10 a.m.–noon
This field seminar provides a close look at the plants,
wildlife and geology of Squire Valleevue Farm. On field trips
into the forest and meadows, we will observe and discuss
habitats and their inhabitants as they transition to fall and
prepare for winter. No strenuous hiking is involved, but
participants should be able to maintain an active pace over
generally moderate but occasionally hilly or wet terrain.
Squire Valleevue and Valley Ridge Farms

THE INESCAPABLE WILDERNESS:
LOST IN AMERICAN FICTION
Shelley Bloomfield, Instructor of Lifelong Learning,
Case Western Reserve University
Tuesdays, September 4–October 9
1:30–3:30 p.m.
For our greatest
19th-century writers,
wilderness emerged as a
rich source for stories
about the American
experience. Across a
century rife with bloody
conflicts, psychic tatters,
factories that signaled
the end of an agrarian
past, and cultural exposure that created new insecurities,
how wilderness is depicted in our greatest works alters
dramatically. We will discuss passages from the work of
Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Twain, James and
Wharton to understand the American writer’s fascination
with the possibilities of wilderness: from wandering in a
prelapsarian Eden, to sailing through watery wastelands,
to suffering in a cruel and deadly wilderness of class
distinctions, the figure of the American flung—often
alone—into a hostile setting becomes a powerful
expression of something endlessly interesting in the
American character.
Landmark Centre—Beachwood

TWO MEMOIRS OF THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK
Phyllis Asnien, Leader-Teacher for Off-Campus Studies
Tuesdays, September 18–November 6
10–11:30 a.m.
A masterpiece of scene and memory is the author’s
retelling of her girlhood spent on an isolated sheep farm
in the grasslands of Australia. She faces an eight-year
drought and compromised female destiny until she
makes her way to America. Jill Ker Conway became the
first woman president of Smith College. All they share in
common is the Australian Outback, but Anne Baxter, an
Academy Award-winner and granddaughter of Frank Lloyd
Wright, writes skillfully of her being swept off her feet by
Randolph Galt, a man constructed in the Frank Lloyd Wright
mold. She follows him to a massive sheep station, spending
many days in isolation while her husband tends to his
37,000 sheep. The reader will uncover the secret of the
book’s title. Books: The Road from Coorain, Jill Ker Conway;
Intermission, Anne Baxter
Lakewood United Methodist Church

RACHEL CARSON: THE GENTLE SUBVERSIVE
Cheryl Wires, Leader-Teacher for Off-Campus Studies
Thursdays, September 20–November 8
10–11:30 a.m.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is among the most
controversial and consequential books in American
history. Learn why she is a heroine for all seasons.
Biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle calls her a “gentle
subversive,” a female scientist who reluctantly challenged
the 1960s male-dominated establishment regarding
pesticide use. The fierce debate she sparked a half-century
ago inspired the rise of the environmental movement and
still resonates in policymaking today. Harvard naturalist
Edward O. Wilson updates Carson’s concern with the
human-nature dynamic. Books: The Gentle Subversive,
Mark Hamilton; Half-Earth, Edward O. Wilson; selections
from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Middleburg Heights Church

PERCEPTIONS OF CLEVELAND
Nina Gibans, Cultural Consultant
Monday, December 10
After four years of small group discussions, public surveys,
seven public discussions and sifting through personal
experience and memory, the book A Sustainable City: Soul
of Cleveland (Bosh Publications) emerges, with 150 images,
some never seen before. This session will show how
and why it evolved with hands-on engagement and
PowerPoint.

THE PHYSICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
John Ruhl, Professor of Physics, Sustainability Advisory
Committee Member, Case Western Reserve University
Tuesday, October 2
Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A/B—
Case Western Reserve University

LET THERE BE CHEAP AND EFFICIENT LIGHT:
FROM QUANTUM MECHANICS TO BETTER LIGHT BULBS
Kathy Kash, Professor of Physics,
Case Western Reserve University
Tuesday, October 30
Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A/B—
Case Western Reserve University

WASTE AND RECYCLING IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY
OR WHY YOU CAN’T ‘WISH-CYCLE’ YOUR WAY TO
SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT
Diane Bickett, Executive Director,
Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District
Thursday, August 30
7 p.m.
The things that get thrown out are becoming a bigger
problem both because of expense and environmental
damage. Diane Bickett will tell us about the trends in
public policy, the economics of landfills and recycling
efforts and how we can limit the damage that we are
doing to our planet.
Fairview Park Library
Free and open to the public

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING: WILDERNESS,
PROGRESS AND AMERICAN IDENTITY
Henry Adams, Ruth Coulter Heede Professor
of Art History, CWRU
Thursdays, February 1–April 19
1:30–3:30 p.m.
This course explores the shift from the view of the
early 19th century, which saw wilderness as something
threatening, which should be destroyed, to the view of
the late 19th century, which saw wilderness as something
to be protected and something that provided psychological
relief from the pressures of modern life.
Landmark Centre—Beachwood

MARGARET MEAD: THE FAME AND SHAME OF AMERICA’S
MOST CELEBRATED SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Alanna Cooper, Director of Jewish Lifelong Learning, CWRU
Monday, April 23
With her 1928 publication of Coming of Age in Samoa—an
account of female adolescent sexuality—Margaret Mead
became one of America’s most celebrated social scientists.
But after her death, her work was exposed as a hoax.
What are the implications for how the field of cultural
anthropology has developed and how human nature
is broadly understood?

OPPORTUNITY CORRIDOR—WILL THE OPPORTUNITY
BE REALIZED?
Steve Litt, Plain Dealer, Art, Architecture,
Urban Design and City Planning Reporter
Wednesday, February 21
7–8:30 p.m.
The Opportunity Corridor provides a connection
between West and East sides, through neighborhoods
that would benefit from economic renewal. It has been
condemned, extolled and now is being realized. But
what will it do in reality?
CWRU, Tinkham Veale University Center
Free and Open to the Public

BIRDS AND BREAKFAST
Timothy O. Matson, Curator and Head of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at
the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Fridays, May 4–June 8 | 6:30 a.m.; breakfast 8:30–9 a.m.
Explore the bluebird trail, watch busy bobolinks or be rewarded with a rare sighting
of Henslow’s Sparrow. May and June are busy months for birds. A continental
breakfast will be available at the Pink Pig following each morning’s activities.
Squire Valleevue Farm—meet in the Greenhouse parking lot

FIBERS AT THE FARM: SILK PAINTING FOR EVERYONE!
Peggy Wertheim, Local Surface Design Artist
Tuesdays, May 8–May 29 | 1–4 p.m.
Discover, create and explore the exciting techniques of batik and silk painting
inspired by the natural beauty of Squire Valleevue Farm. Limited enrollment.
Squire Valleevue Farm—The Honey House

WOMEN IN POLITICS: HOW TO GET MORE WOMEN TO
RUN FOR OFFICE IN OHIO
Karen Beckwith, Flora Stone Mather Professor and Chair,
Department of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University
Nina Turner, President, Our Revolution, former Ohio State
Senator, Cleveland Councilperson
Wednesday, May 16 | 7– 8:30 p.m.
Women make up over 51% of the voting electorate, and yet men
still far outnumber women in elected office in Ohio and across the country. This
forum will explore options for increasing the number of women who run and hold
elected office, particularly in Ohio.
Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library, 2345 Lee Rd., Cleveland
Free and open to the public
This forum is co-sponsored by: Case Western Reserve University Siegal Lifelong
Learning Program; Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer; League of Women Voters-Greater
Cleveland; plus Heights, Lakewood and Cuyahoga County Library systems.

HOW TO REDUCE GUN VIOLENCE IN CLEVELAND
Moderator: Peter Krouse, Cleveland.com
Date and Time TBA.
Experts will discuss the history, present and future, of attempts to reduce gun
violence in Northeast Ohio.
Case Western Reserve University-Tinkham Veale University Center
11038 Bellflower Rd., Cleveland
Free and open to the public

FROM CHALLENGES TO OPPORTUNITIES: RETHINKING
DISABILITY IN OLD AGE
Eva Kahana, Distinguished University Professor and Director
of the Elderly Care Research Center at CWRU
Jeffrey Kahana, Associate Professor of History and co-director
of the Center on Aging and Policy at Mount Saint Mary College
Tuesday, August 7 | 7 p.m.
There is a growing challenge of large numbers of older adults
maintaining independence and living satisfying lives in spite of
frailty as they reach very old age.Jeffrey and Eva Kahana will
offer personal, legal, social and policy perspectives on meeting
late life challenges posed by disability. Their 2017 book,
Disability and Aging: Learning from Both to Empower the Lives
of Older Adults (Lynne Rienner Publishers) has received acclaim
both in the field of gerontology and disability studies.

This information covers Fall 2018, Summer 2018 and Spring 2018,