OLLI Courses & Special Events - Spring 2024
Enrollment for Spring 2024 Courses begins February 12th! See offerings below:
Please Contact Chandra Allison (chandra.allison@Vanderbilt.Edu) with any registration questions
Spring Special Events
OLLI0185 - OLLI Lunch and Learn
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $0
Join us for lunch, and learn about the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt. OLLI at Vanderbilt helps adults over 50 rediscover the joy of learning and build community through diverse social interaction.
Date: Apr 30, 2024
Time: 11:30AM - 1:00PM
OLLI0170 - OLLI Annual Meeting
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $0
Enjoy a delicious lunch followed by our annual business meeting with OLLI at Vanderbilt updates.
Date: May 08, 2024
Time: 11:30AM - 1:30PM
OLLI0184 - Tennessee State Capitol Tour
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $0
Join us for a docent led tour of The Tennessee State Capitol. The Tennessee State Capitol stands today much as it did when it first opened in 1859 and is a magnificent tribute to the people of Tennessee. This graceful structure was designed by noted architect William Strickland who considered it his crowning achievement.
Date: Apr 12, 2024
Time: 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Spring Courses
OLLI0164 - Beginners Harmonica
Instructor: Bronson Herrmuth
Tuition: $60
This six-week course will be led by teaching artist and multitalented instrumentalist and vocalist, Bronson Herrmuth. No prior experience is required. Participants will gain foundational understanding about the diatonic harmonica’s design and learn proper ways to clean and care for their instrument. We will learn and practice effective techniques for holding and playing the harmonica, including the “train” exercise to develop lung capacity and use of the diaphragm; the “pucker” technique for playing single notes; how to create vibrato and “bend” notes; and more. While having fun learning simple, familiar songs and playing music together, participants also will be introduced to basic music theory and harmonica tablature. Harmonicas will be provided for all participants. Course enrollment is limited to 25 participants.
Start Date: Mar 19, 2024
End Date: Apr 23, 2024
OLLI0145 - Choral Singing
Instructor: Mary Combs
Tuition: $70
This seven-week course will instruct singers in blending tones, vocal techniques, singing in harmony, and in musicianship as well as prepare the participants to perform a few songs to an audience. The goal for the overall experience is to have fun while making beautiful music together. Be aware that some side effects may occur…. Spontaneous happiness, increased memory and motor function, social connection, and movement of the feet and head. Since singing skills build on each other, to benefit most from this seven-week course attendance at each class is encouraged, barring signs of illness. Course enrollment is limited to 50 participants.
Start Date: Mar 19, 2024
End Date: Apr 30, 2024
OLLI0147 - Consider the Birds of the Air
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
Designed to support learners’ exploration and application of the many facets of birdwatching, this course is best suited to those with some birding experience though it is not a pre-requisite. In addition to birdwatching using apps like eBird, Merlin, and Audubon, we will hear from local experts to examine practices that protect birds. Participants will also learn how to participate in local citizen science projects like Project Safe Flight and MOTUS. Course enrollment is limited to 25 participants. This course will not be recorded.
Start Date: Mar 18, 2024
End Date: Apr 22, 2024
OLLI0039 - Great Decisions, Foreign Policy Discussion
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $80
Great Decisions is a discussion-based course built around an annual publication of the Foreign Policy Association; a non-profit organization founded in 1918 dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world. The Great Decisions publication contains eight chapters, each focused on a different foreign policy issue or subject of international importance written by experts in the field. This course will discuss six of the eight topics and be facilitated by Keith Simmons. Many of the sessions will have a co-facilitator who has expertise in the subject area. Participants are expected to read and be prepared to discuss the topics covered by the publication and under discussion in each class. A syllabus will be sent to all registrants prior to the first class.
Start Date: Mar 19, 2024
End Date: Apr 23, 2024
OLLI0182 - History of Public Health
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
This course will cover the unique history of public health and sanitation in the United States, from the earliest days of the fledgling United States to our modern era. Sanitation and hygiene issues have been a central aspect of much of American life from America’s founding fathers' exceptional attention to matters of health, to the recent pandemic response. However, this prioritization of sanitary measures and even their connection to health was, and is, not uniformly accepted, and then as now, much of society actively resisted their implementation. This course will explore the role of sanitation and public health in American society including its history, the science of sanitation, and the ongoing debate about the role of American institutions in the promotion of health with special emphasis on Nashville.
Start Date: Mar 28, 2024
End Date: May 02, 2024
OLLI0031 - How to Write a Memoir
Instructor: Carole Webb Moore-Slater
Tuition: $80
A memoir is creative nonfiction that relies on memories from your own experiences. This eight week creative non-fiction writing series provides practical information designed to motivate and inspire each participant to write a personal or family memoir one story at a time. Information includes organizational guidelines when planning a story and writing tips to bring characters to life as a story unfolds. There will be writing exercises during class and each participant will be encouraged to write a short memoir to share in class toward the end of this series with kind feedback provided. We will learn from each other. Never doubt that your story matters because sharing it with friends or family could be the best gift you ever give. Course enrollment is limited to 14 participants.
Start Date: Mar 19, 2024
End Date: May 07, 2024
OLLI0177 - Media Mindfulness: Navigating Information in the Digital Age
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $50
Navigating the ever-changing digital landscape can be daunting. This course is designed to provide practical tools for responsibly consuming, analyzing, and engaging with (or disengaging from) an increasingly digital world. Topics will include analyzing media messages, navigating misinformation, digital privacy, AI literacies, and more.
Start Date: Mar 18, 2024
End Date: Apr 22, 2024
OLLI0178 - Meditative Birding
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
The accessible and inclusive practice of Meditative Birding has been gaining popularity in recent years. Sometimes called Mindful Birding or Slow Birding, this practice focuses on; focused Observation - taking time to notice bird’s features, habitats, and behaviors; engaged mind, body, soul - trying various modalities of engagement, e.g. nature journaling, sketching, photography, and sensory activities; intentional connection - exploring research that shows connecting with nature has mental health benefits such as improved memory and attention, decrease in anxiety and depression, and more happiness; shared reflection — learning in the solitary processing and community sharing. Bring your curiosity and let’s spend some time appreciating and pondering our avian companions and the world we share. Course enrollment is limited to 25 participants.
Start Date: Mar 18, 2024
End Date: Apr 22, 2024
OLLI0004 - OLLI Steel Drum Band - ADVANCED
Instructor: Mathew Britain
Tuition: $100
After excelling in the beginner and intermediate bands, it is time to approach music that is more difficult. We will implement more advanced musical terminology and playing techniques. This group often performs in the Vanderbilt Steel Bands Concert at Blair School of Music. Your success and enjoyment in the band, as well as the band's success, is dependent on regular attendance. Everyone in the band plays an important role. Please make every effort to attend each class. Recommendations for enrollment: prerequisite of the beginner and intermediate levels is required unless instructor permission is granted through invitation or a short audition; reading music is very helpful but not essential as long as you learn quickly by ear; strong rhythmic comprehension is helpful; understanding the concepts of underlying pulse, syncopation, and being able to hear and repeat rhythms is helpful; willingness to practice before class recommended if needed. Limited to 14 participants.
Start Date: Mar 24, 2024
End Date: May 05, 2024
OLLI0005 - OLLI Steel Drum Band - BEGINNER
Instructor: Mathew Britain
Tuition: $100
This musical journey to the Caribbean is a hands-on experience where you will learn how to play the steel drums. During the seven-week term, we will approach proper playing techniques, which we will apply by learning a song. History of the art form and its birthplace will be discussed in class, along with easy “homework” assignments (short YouTube videos, articles, listening examples). Your success and enjoyment in the band, as well as the band's success, is dependent on regular attendance. Everyone in the band plays an important role. Please make every effort to attend each class. Come join us for a low-stress, fun musical adventure! Recommendations for enrollment: No musical experience needed but helpful; able to stand for 60-75 minutes; reasonable mobility in fingers, wrists, and arms; willingness to practice before class recommended if needed. Limited to 14 participants.
Start Date: Mar 24, 2024
End Date: May 05, 2024
OLLI0024 - OLLI Steel Drum Band - INTERMEDIATE
Instructor: Mathew Britain
Tuition: $100
For those who have grasped the basics, this band will refine the basics and techniques on the steel pans. We will work on slightly more difficult music and dive deeper into the culture of Trinidad and the steel band art form. Your success and enjoyment in the band, as well as the band's success, is dependent on regular attendance. Everyone in the band plays an important role. Please make every effort to attend each class. Recommendations for enrollment: prerequisite of the beginner level is required unless instructor permission is granted through invitation or a short audition; reading music is helpful but not essential; able to stand for 60-75 minutes; reasonable mobility in fingers, wrists, and arms; willingness to practice before class recommended if needed. Limited to 14 participants.
Start Date: Mar 24, 2024
End Date: May 05, 2024
OLLI0179 - Reading Shakespeare with Film – Part 2
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
This six-week course will explore the plays of William Shakespeare by use of the text and scenes from films depicting the plays. Students will see how reading Shakespeare with film aids in understanding the text and in enhancing the artistic experience. Of particular focus for Part 2 will be Shakespeare’s villains. Plays expected to be discussed will include Henry V; I Henry VI, Part 3; Richard III; Julius Caesar; Othello; King Lear (Tragedy of Gloucester); Much Ado About Nothing.
Start Date: Mar 20, 2024
End Date: Apr 24, 2024
OLLI0180 - The Concerto: Relationships, Power, and Mission in Music
Instructor: Mitchell Korn
Tuition: $60
Mitchell Korn, recently retired Blair School at Vanderbilt Senior Lecturer, returns to OLLI to present a new class in honor of OLLI Director Norma Clippard. Mitchell digs deep into the musical, personal, and spiritual relationships of the concerto, its creators, and performers. This course will explore concertos of Mozart, Paganini, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Elgar, Bartok, Dun, and Marsalis, covering concertos for piano, violin, cello, orchestra, water, and tuba. These concertos include incredible music from 1785 to 2021. Join Mitchell Korn with his engaging insights, videos, biographical images, and conversation!
Start Date: Mar 21, 2024
End Date: Mar 25, 2024
OLLI0183 - The Durability of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Instructor: Denice Hicks
Tuition: $30
Somewhere in the world, a production of Hamlet is running, or a student is studying Hamlet or a group of readers is exploring the text. Why has this play remained a vital part of the stage and study and reading group for over 400 years? Join Denice Hicks (Executive Artistic Director, Nashville Shakespeare Festival), and Marcia McDonald (Professor Emerita of Early Modern Literature, Belmont University), for an exploration of the meaning of this play on the page and stage over the centuries and for an audience of 2024. This OLLI course will meet in three sessions; two in-person instructional sessions and the third session will be attending the full production and talk back, running at Lipscomb University’s Collins Auditorium. This course will invite us to consider not only what different eras and productions have revealed about the play, but what our fascination with the play reveals about us.
Start Date: Apr 05, 2024
End Date: Apr 12, 2024
OLLI0181 - The Incarnational Art of Flannery O’Connor
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
In her essay titled “The Nature and Aim of Fiction,” the modern American literary-theologian Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) states, “…fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnational art. …Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.” During this series, we shall read and discuss from O’Connor’s canon short stories in which she draws portraits of aspiring writers and who “scorn getting dusty” and whose preconceptions of writing are challenged by their encounters with the ‘flesh and blood’ of reality. The selections we shall study as representations of O’Connor’s incarnational artistry are: “The Crop,” “The Partridge Festival,” “The Enduring Chill,” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge”.
Start Date: Mar 28, 2024
End Date: May 02, 2024
OLLI0030 - Working Virtues: Essential Moral Skills for a Good Life
Instructor: TBA
Tuition: $60
We typically think of ethics as problems that periodically call for decisions and choices. Yet the moral life goes on continuously and is best defined not as episodic choices but as streams of practical virtues, or traits of character. These character traits live in us as personal and interactive skills, and it is these skills that both give us our daily orientation and shape our decisions and choices. This course will define and explore those moral skills that are most important for a good and happy life. We will draw from a wide range of sources: religious and secular, humanistic, poetic, literary, and scientific. The emphasis will be on how these virtues function, this is, the work they do for us. Exercises and practical engagement will be a part of each session.
Start Date: Mar 20, 2024
End Date: Apr 24, 2024
Winter Special Events
OLLI0175 - TN State Museum Tour Session 5
Instructor: Miranda Fraley-Rhodes
Tuition: $0
Miranda Fraley-Rhodes, Assistant Chief Curator, will provide insights into the late 1800s and early 1900s, a period of “Change and Challenge.” It was a time of when women got the vote, automobiles and roads transformed life, public education developed, two world wars brought immense change, electricity became widespread, and a divided society confronted Jim Crow.
Date: Feb 07, 2024
Time: 3:15PM - 4:15PM
OLLI0176 - TN State Museum Tour Session 6
Instructor: Trenae Chatman
Tuition: $0
Trenae Chatman, Curator of Social History, and Curator Matthew Gailani will present “Tennessee Transforms,” which embraces the mid-1900s and into the 2000s, when the civil rights movement brought vast changes and Tennessee became a centerpiece of American music. Television brought entertainment into the home and sports, from schools to professional leagues, became a dominant part of life.