Curriculum Planning is a Team Process
Curriculum Committee Open Meeting on Tuesday, November 13th at 10 a.m.
Planning the LLI fall semester now underway began more than one year ago, as the 18-member Curriculum Committee, chaired by Anne Sunners, began to weave ideas, experts, space, and time slots into a complex and stimulating program.
While acting as a team, the committee members are also individual course producers working with presenters and content to create the most interesting experience possible for the LLI audience, whether for small groups or large auditorium audiences.
Complex Balance
“Course planning at LLI is a challenging process,” says Emily Michael, a former department chair and philosopher at CUNY in Brooklyn.
Emily has found that curriculum planning by committee is more complex than academic planning. “There is no bulletin that lists approved courses, and that, in turn, provides the choices available for scheduling. Course topics or presenters may be assigned to a committee member although producers are encouraged to find innovative course topics on their own as well. Multi-presenter courses such as this semester’s Women in Music course produced by Emily and Jane Diamond or Jay Hochstadt’s multi-presenter, Hope and Optimism in Religion, can be a complex balancing act to produce because the producer is dealing with finding and organizing seven different presenters, as opposed to one, for a single presenter course.
We are fortunate to be living in the Rhinebeck, Red Hook, Woodstock area that has attracted accomplished retirees excited to have the opportunity to share their expertise and knowledge. Often presenters’ approach LLI, “because of our reputation in the area,” says Margaret Shuhala, a committee member and class producer who enjoys developing literature and writing courses. “…. presenters have written to our LLI email expressing an interest in teaching. Some retired Bard faculty have contacted us …and, in one instance, a managing editor at the Bard literary journal Conjunctions offered to teach what turned out to be a series of incredibly rich writing workshops. Our most successful presenters are those who are extremely passionate about their topics, many having spent a lifetime studying and teaching. They immediately engage our students with their enthusiasm.”
Building a balanced curriculum that includes literature, science, history, religion, the arts and hands-on sessions like writing, photography, hiking and touring; finding talented presenters willing to donate their time, and fitting courses into the most popular time slots (second and third periods) are continuous challenges. Locating physical space has also become an issue given LLI’s expanded membership. And then there are unanticipated surprises. We knew that Victoria Sullivan, college professor, playwright, and poet, was a popular presenter. We didn’t anticipate that Victoria’s Chekhov class, produced by Margaret Shuhala, would draw more than three times the anticipated enrollment this fall!
Monthly Planning and The Big Picture
The Curriculum Committee meets monthly to plot the structure, content, and timing of what becomes seven weeks of five-period, spring and fall Friday and Off-Friday classes covering topics as diverse as religious mysticism, black holes, and opera. There are also mid-winter and summer sessions. The main priority in course selection and design, Anne Sunners says, is “meeting members’ needs while providing academically sound course offerings.”
Typically, the committee will be composing a semester that will only come to life many months in the future.
Most ideas for courses are put forward by individual committee members although courses are also developed and produced by other LLI members. Once a topic has been proposed and the presenter identified, the delicate dance of fitting it into the schedule begins. The committee works to ensure variety in each semester.
Finding Presenters
Presenters come from Bard College faculty, the LLI membership, or the community—about a third from each of those sectors. Presenters, like all those who make LLI work so effectively, are volunteers.
Finding a single lecturer for one session of a multi-presenter course may be easier than finding someone who will teach every week. Still the various speakers must be sequenced and prepared so as to complement rather than overlap one another and to build on the vision of the class producer.
Regina Armstrong has produced several multi-presenter courses. Her courses tend to be topical, and she cites her high school civics class as a motivation.
“Basically, I’ve been plotting multi-presenter courses based on my interests, aided by a past professional experience in city planning. Although not all of them have followed this logic, I like to start out with a policy or overarching vision–from the mayor of a city, for example, or a professor with a specialization in the field. And then, I document the various components of achieving a policy vision, for example, economic development or historic preservation. Or we represent the opening speaker’s themes with the stories of real actors, for example, with women superintendents of local governments.
In addition to Women in Government, she produced Land Use Issues in the Mid Hudson featuring local officials and planners who represented different aspects of land use and positive and adverse activities affecting our environment. Currently she is producing a course on the First Amendment, led by attorney James Rogers, who reached back to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau in its first session to lay the ground for discussions on today’s hot topics in governance.
“It’s important to have some courses that are current Issues or public affairs,” she said. “Not just a curriculum that is steeped is history, literature, science and the arts. I hated Civics as a kid, but now think is very important.”
Music Courses Benefit from Bard Conservatory
Bob Blacker, who produces many of the music courses, came to his role on the committee through his love of music, honed since he had been an accompanist for a choir in elementary school.
He notes that LLI benefits from the proximity of the Bard Conservatory, which has offered both faculty and students to teach LLI courses. Since presenters aren’t paid by LLI, the committee has to “encourage these folks to volunteer their time. But sometimes… we are giving them an audience eager to hear their work, so that makes it somewhat easier.”
During his time, LLI has offered conducting, jazz, percussion, chamber music, opera and participative creative performance as well as courses on the masters such as Bach and Beethoven. He also had a hand in a long-running series of live performances mentored by Joan Tower.
Expanding Course Offerings
In the years that Anne Sunners has been with LLI, she has noticed that class offerings have expanded as has their quality, along with the expectations of the LLI membership.
Coming up in the spring will be:
- Return of the popular Bach course by Ray Ericson
- Exploring Music with Joan Tower
- A multi-presenter course on the city of Hudson, a course on local artists
- Return of Steve Bassin with a course on the McCarthy Era and the Hollywood Blacklist
- A course on the Biology of Infectious Diseases.
Plans for Off-Friday include a dance course and a tour of the city of Hudson, to name but a few are scheduled.
The members of LLI are an excellent audience, intelligent, receptive, appreciative, says Emily Michael. Once the courses are planned and scheduled, and especially if they are successful and well-received by the class members, this can be a very uplifting experience.
Course and Presenter Suggestions Welcomed
Please send course ideas, but more importantly, the names of possible presenters, to Anne Sunners.
Our thanks to the Curriculum Committee, whose members include: Anne Sunners, Regina Armstrong, Dorothy Baran, Bob Blacker, Anne Brueckner, Jane Diamond, Ellen Foreman, Dacie Kershaw, Linda LeGendre, Claire Luse, Emily Michael, Chuck Mishaan, Marge Moran, Cathy Reinis, Linda Sherr, Margaret Shuhala, Bill Tuel, Leslie Weinstock. Irene Esposito is our loyal and long-standing committee secretary.
Learn More at the Curriculum Committee Open House
Please join the Curriculum Committee for an open meeting, with coffee and refreshments, on Tuesday, November 13 at 10 a.m. in room 204 of Bertelsmann Campus Center.
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