Register for ORICL courses and trips by Aug. 27; semester starts Sept. 22

 

Submitted

How would you like to see 10 award-winning films from 10 countries? Find information on your ancestors on the Internet? Learn about female Pharaohs in ancient Egypt?

Better understand tax law changes, Medicare, long-term care services, and investment fundamentals? Get a new perspective on Jesus, the Trinity, and the Quakers? Learn to analyze dreams and play better bridge?

You can take courses on any of these and other topics by registering for the fall semester of the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning, or ORICL.

The early registration deadline is Aug. 27 for the fall semester, which starts Sept. 22 and ends Dec. 12. Members should register by Aug. 27 to have the best chance of getting preferred classes and trips.

ORICL has more than 400 members who take courses in two classrooms and an auditorium at Roane State Community College’s Oak Ridge campus on Briarcliff Road. A few courses, such as drawing and pottery classes, are taught at the Oak Ridge Art Center.

ORICL “students” also sign up for bus trips and take ORICL-sponsored tours in the state and states bordering Tennessee. Each traveler must pay a fee.

Anyone interested in becoming a member of ORICL and receiving a catalog should call Laura Bowles, administrator, at (865) 481-8222. The cost for membership in ORICL for three terms (fall, winter-spring, summer) is $100.

The ORICL trips offer a visit to Falcon Rest, the Victorian mansion in McMinnville, where guests play the “Murder in the Mansion” game; Cumberland Gap and the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum at Lincoln Memorial University; Shenandoah Valley, for historic and artistic experiences in Virginia; the National Transportation Research Center; and the Provision Center for Proton Therapy, both in Knox County.

The courses range from one to 11 sessions. Most sessions last 70 minutes each.

For the fall semester, ORICL offers courses in art and culture, computers, finance, history, language, literature, medicine and health, music, philosophy, religion, science and technology, social science, and economics.

Music courses include instruction in playing the guitar and seven classes on Mozart and his piano music.

Science and technology course topics are problem solving, science fairs, synthetic biology and biofuels production, DNA sequencing technologies, isotopes, and use of neutrons to understand the universe.

Philosophy courses are titled “Thinking Clearly,” “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?” “Graham Greene’s Novel ‘The Heart of the Matter,’” and “N Carroll’s Humour.”

Also offered are courses designed to teach you how to make sure your money lasts, how to use personal computers, and how to speak German or Spanish.

You can learn about the history of home, Egyptology, the Enigma code, and war.

If you are interested in book discussions, you might wish to join the fiction, nonfiction, mystery, or technical book group. In one course local poets will read their works. Or you could join the circle that reads Shakespeare’s plays out loud.

The ORICL office is located in Room F-111 in the Coffey-McNally Building at RSCC in Oak Ridge at 701 Briarcliff Avenue. For more information and a catalog in printed form or as a pdf, e-mail the ORICL office at [email protected] or visit the www.roanestate.edu/oricl website.