The Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning (ORICL) is offering a smorgasbord of 54 courses for its fall term, half of which are in-person classes. The other 27 offerings are online via Zoom videoconferencing.
The fall catalog is posted on the ORICL website (www.roanestate.edu/oricl). The registration form and calendar are also posted there. Online registration opens Aug. 10.
Aug. 24 is the deadline for online registration and mailed paper forms (postmarked no later than that date). The registration fee for three terms (fall, winter-spring, and summer) is $100; by paying it online or by a check included with the mailed paper form, you will become an ORICL member for a year. Mail your form and check to ORICL, RSCC, 701 Briarcliff Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. For more information, contact the ORICL office at [email protected]
The size of in-person classes will be reduced because of social distancing requirements. To be on campus all students must wear masks, practice social distancing in the classrooms, hallways and restrooms and use the provided hand sanitizer. Before attending class, you must do a daily wellness screening by clicking on the Coronavirus Updates tab of the www.roanestate.edu website and filling out a questionnaire that you must bring with you in printed form or downloaded on your smartphone.
ORICL offers art classes at the Oak Ridge Art Center on pottery (taught by Bill Capshaw), jewelry making, weaving, elements of design using mixed media and other topics.
ORICL’s in-person classes in the Coffey-McNally building on Roane State Community College’s Oak Ridge Branch Campus deal with topics such as Australia, annuities, investing, Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill and the history of the U.S. after World War II.
Students attending courses in the classroom can learn how to speak Russian, how to make effective oral presentations, how to deal with hearing loss and tinnitus, and how to obtain wisdom from past writings.
The science of birds, contemporary mathematicians, CBD from hemp, combatting elder abuse, reducing unwanted phone calls and learning family history are topics of other in-person classes.
The only in-person history class is on a topic of high interest: “The Great Monsters of the 20th Century” such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
The classes on the history of Israel, American racism and Native Americans are online. Most travelogues are online; they include Zoom classes on Berlin, Iceland and caves in France and Spain.
Other online classes deal with stock option investing for income, Secret City stories, myths and fairy tales, caring for dementia patients, medical advocacy and various medical topics, ranging from COVID-19 and vaccines to inflammatory bowel diseases of the colon.
If you like reading books, writing and exploring literary topics, you may want to register for these online courses: reading Shakespeare out loud, writing a memoir, learning about the great American novel “Huckleberry Finn” and Homer’s “The Odyssey” and experiencing poetry.
If you enjoy participating in book groups, ORICL has online courses on nonfiction, mystery novels, classical literature and technical books. The fiction book group meets in person.
The traditional Friday Lecture series, which often addresses scientific topics for a lay audience, will be online.

CUTLINE: Watercolor art class held last year in an ORICL classroom.