~
Collegium
News ~
Volume 8 Issue
2 Newsletter
of the
“A Questing Mind Never Retires”
~
Collegium
News ~
Volume 8 Issue
2 Newsletter
of the
“A Questing Mind Never Retires”
Greetings
from your new Board Chair:
At the May board meeting, Bill Woehrlin stepped down
as Chairman of the CVEC Board, and I was elected to replace him. I am very pleased to serve for this coming
year, for I have been involved with CVEC since Ron Ronning’s first exploratory
meetings. Since then, I have taught a
course every year but one and have served on the Board for the past three
years.
Through all this
activity, I have met many members of CVEC—but not all. I hope to make up for this omission over
2005-2006. If any member wants to contact
me, stop me in the street or at the grocery store. Or my phone is
CVEC is in fine
shape. We have a superb faculty offering
an increasingly varied range of courses.
Our finances are solid. Our
Administrators are energetic, and their reorganization has made them even more
effective. We have a devoted Board.
And, as I know
from personal experience, we have wonderful students. Let me urge all of you to take advantage of
as many of our course offerings as you can.
Our faculty love to teach and you have proved that you love to learn.
Here’s
to a successful 2005-2006 for CVEC.
--George
Soule
Adult Development and Mental Fitness
Why do you take classes at CVEC?
For fun? To learn more about the
world you have lived in so many years?
To engage in thinking along with other thinking people? Whatever your own reasons, there are more
good reasons to continue taking them than most people know.
The 1970s saw a dramatic increase in
life expectancy and an associated increase in disabilities related to aging,
perhaps the most dreaded being dementia.
As the population aged, it became important to learn whether the risk,
magnitude and onset of disabilities could be reduced or delayed. Research ensued.
It was discovered that education is a major factor in retaining cognitive
abilities later in life. Studies of
identical twins were especially useful in highlighting the role environment
plays. While genetic factors are
important (accounting for 50% to 70% of results, depending on the study),
education and other intellectual and social stimuli make huge differences in
onset and severity of dementia and other degenerative diseases. It seems that similar to the case in
children’s brain development, optimal environments and activities create actual
physical differences in the brains of the mature, maintaining a reserve of
mental capacity in those who have developed it and continue to exercise it.
More good news about adult mental development can be summarized by the
word “wisdom.” Across time and cultures
this has been seen as a quality possessed by elders and usually includes a
concept of judgment, especially in the realm of human relationships, and of
expert knowledge acquired through long experience. More recent writings have described one
element of wisdom as “dialectical thinking,” which continually confronts and
then encompasses opposite arguments and thereby progresses. Another is “crystallized knowledge,” the
ability to place new information in a much larger context of meaning, as
opposed to the “flexible knowledge” of the young which absorbs new facts better
but does not fit them into the whole.
Both of these elements of wisdom develop only with maturity and
experience.
As one purpose of the various studies is to suggest a life plan that
will maximize mental powers through later life, here are some positive
findings:
In addition, physical exercise (not typical Collegium material) can
enhance the nervous system, especially memory, and involvement with children is
another positive influence (were it not summer, we could all run to volunteer
at the elementary schools today). It has
also been suggested that learning a foreign language can improve mental
function and memory.
A 79-year-old student in one of the studies summarized what is perhaps
at the heart of why you take CVEC courses:
“I have made many good friends in the classroom and it has kept my brain
ticking.”
FALL TERM
September 19 –
COURSE INSTRUCTOR
Collecting
& Recording Oral Histories Marie Gery
Program Music:
From Beethoven to Richard Strauss Bill Child & Ron Ronning
Tragedy
and Utopia: Two Responses to Suffering and Evil Walter Stromseth
What
are the concerns about stem cells? Ross Shoger
The Early to
Mid-Renaissance in
An
Archaeological Search for Jesus Ruth Hansen
Modern Irish Short Story Stan Frear
Astronomy
–An Ageless Science Duane Olson
(Complete
descriptions of these courses can be found on the web page www.cvec.org)
CVEC EVENTS
The Annual
Spring CD/Video
The Fall
Meeting of CVEC will be held on
We (Collegium members) are invited to a
preview event at the Village on The Cannon Thursday, July 7,
CVEC
CONTACTS
Bill
Carlson 507-645-9642
carlsoncharbill@msn.com
Teresa Ballentine 507-663-6093 teboball@charter.net
Lori Stanley 507-645-9790 floridstanley@msn.com
Members Meeting
Course
Expansion
You will
notice that in 2005-2006 there are eight or nine courses to choose from each
term. This is thanks to an $8000 grant
from the Hoeft Family Foundation to
expand course offerings. In particular,
note the two science courses next fall.
They do not require previous study in these areas, they are “for the
non-major,” designed to impart a greater understanding of our world as science
reveals it and to ponder the magnitude and nature of the influence of this
knowledge on our lives and thought.