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 Calendar & Announcements
Upcoming Schedule of Events
January 27-February 2, 2013
In this issue:
This Week
Next Week
And Beyond

Dear OLLI members,    

We hope you will take some time to read the story on Paula Withrow in this newsletter, part of a series by members of OLLI's marketing committee that appears on the last Sunday of the month.  We post these stories on the front page of our website, as a way to highlight the many amazing people who enliven OLLI through their time and talent.

 

We also hope that you will review the information on our Advance Care Planning workshop to be held at the Reuter Center, February 7 from 3 to 5 pm. OLLI members Larry Haas, David Mouw, and Mary Campbell have contributed to our focus on this issue and have been diligent in spreading the word about our workshops outside the Center. We understand that end of life issues can be difficult to address, but we hope that you will take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from experts and to have your Five Wishes document notarized. This event is open to the public, so pass the word to friends who are not OLLI members.

 

Thanks to all of you for the many ways you contribute to our community, 

 

Catherine Frank       

Executive Director  

      

 

 

Appalachian Studies

Committee needs members

Great Smoky Mtns  

Are you interested in the southern Appalachia-this endlessly fascinating region we live in? If so, you might want to join the College for Seniors Appalachian Studies Committee.

 

The committee's goal is to promote the study and enjoyment of the many facets of Appalachia--from music to literature, from history to foodways. We have offered three popular Appalachian Sampler courses (a fourth is in the works for Fall 2013), and we sponsored a successful Appalachian Authors series last July. We are also planning an Appalachian music series for this summer.  

 

If you're interested in joining this committee, contact 

Carol Taylor, [email protected], or Susan Grabel, [email protected]

committee co-chairs. 

We'll be happy to meet with you.

 

  The Center for Jewish Studies and The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at UNC Asheville, in cooperation with the Asheville Jewish Community Center present 

GOD vs GAY? jay michaelson
The Case for Religious Equality

A talk by Jay Michaelson

Monday, January 28, 7 pm,
in the Sherrill Center Mountain View Room

Free and open to the public
 For more information www.unca.edu/cjs
  Raise Your Hand

RSVP  Information Session

Tuesday January 29,  

9-11 am 

 

"At-Risk Seniors"

 

Join us at our January Information Session as we discover the many on-going volunteer opportunities in our community that help support at-risk seniors.  

 

Reserve your seat; call the RSVP office at 

828-251-6622 or [email protected]  

INTERDISCIPLINARY STEM SEMINAR SERIES

 (Science, Technology,

Engineering, & Mathematics) 

 

Dr. Brian Dennison

UNC Asheville 

Department of Physics 

"The Discovery of Pulsars and the

1974 Nobel Prize in Physics"

Tuesday, Jan 29

Reuter Center, Room 206,

4:30 pm-6:00 pm

 

The serendipitous discovery of pulsars in 1967 was a pivotal event in 20th century astrophysics. Soon after the discovery it was shown that pulsars are rotating neutron stars, bizarre objects so compressed by gravity that a thimble-full of neutron star material would contain a mass equal to that of 

Mount Pisgah.   

Various controversies swirled amidst the scientific progress that led to and followed the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics. They serve to remind us that science is at its core a human endeavor.  

 

This lecture is free and open to the public. 

board meeting
 

Advance Care Planning Workshop

Thursday, February 7,

 3-5 pm 

at the Reuter Center

 

The workshop will feature a panel whose members are experienced in addressing end-of-life issues. Discussion will include communicating your treatment wishes to loved ones and to medical personnel, ethical and legal issues, and the uses of advance directives.  Ample time will be reserved for questions. Assistance will be provided for anyone wishing to complete a legally valid advance directive, including the notarization required in North Carolina, using the Five Wishes format.

 

Click here to view a sample of the Five Wishes brochure

 

Preparation for you to do before the workshop:  Talk to your possible "power of attorney for healthcare," the person who would make health care decisions if you are unable; if you have Internet-access, print the sample Five Wishes brochure and study it and write down any questions you might have for the panel.  

This workshop is free and open to the public. 

 For more information, call OLLI at 828-251-6140 or email

[email protected].   

 

Click here to view an event flier. 
Contact Information

 [email protected]   828.251.6140

This Week   

Jan 27-Feb 2, 2013      

 Monday, Jan 28, 7 pm, Center for Jewish Studies lecture "God vs Gay" (held at the Sherrill Center)
Tuesday, Jan 29, 9 am, RSVP Info Session on "At Risk Seniors"
Tuesday, Jan 29, 4:30 pm, STEM lecture with Dr. Brian Dennison 
Wednesday, Jan 30, 7 pm, Blue Ridge Orchestra Open Rehearsal

Friday, Feb 1, 11:30 am, Fab Friday Lunch & Learn Lecture by audiologist Dr. Cynthia Earle "How We Hear"
Friday, Feb 1, 2 pm, Architecture of Asheville Lecture by Richard Hansley
Click here to see the OLLI calendar and then click on each event to discover times, event specifics and more.   

Next Week

Feb 3-9, 2013

Tuesday, Feb 5, 7:30 pm, World Affairs Council lecture - "The New Egypt" with Samer Traboulsi
Wednesday, Feb 6, 7 pm, Blue Ridge Orchestra Open Rehearsal
Thursday, Feb 7, 3 pm, Advance Care Planning workshop
Thursday, Feb 7, 7 pm, Astronomy Club of Asheville
Friday, Feb 8, 11:30 am, Fab Friday Lunch and Learn Lecture by author Jean Boone Benfield, "Mountain Born"
Friday, Feb 8, 2 pm, New to Medicare Information Session (registration required; call Council on Aging, 277-8288)
Friday, Feb 8, 3 pm, Symphony Talk with Daniel Meyer


Click here to see the OLLI calendar and then click on each event to discover times, event specifics and more.  

And Beyond

Monday, Feb 11, 4:30 pm, Volunteer to Teach Idea Exchange
Tuesday, Feb 12, 4:30 pm, Member Social
Tuesday, Feb 12, 7:30 pm, World Affairs Council lecture - "Sacred Cow: Defending America on a Budget" with Lee McMinn
Wednesday, Feb 13, 9 am, Humanities Lecture by Dr. Michael Ruiz
Wednesday, Feb 13, 7 pm, Blue Ridge Orchestra open rehearsal
Wednesday, Feb 13, 7 pm, f/32 Photography Group meeting

Click here to visit the OLLI calendar where you will find details on the above listed events and more.

unca


Campus Events Highlights 
Week of 1/27/13

 

1/28 Humanities Lecture: "Egypt," Brian Hook, associate professor of classics, and Rob Berls, associate professor of drama. 11:25 am in UNC Asheville's Lipinsky Auditorium. Free

and open to the public. Park in white striped student spaces.   

 

1/31 Music: UNC Asheville Music Department Faculty Showcase Concert, 7:30 pm, Lipinsky Auditorium. Tickets $5 at the door.

 

2/1 Humanities Lecture: "Industrialization, Capitalism and Alienation," Jeff Konz, professor of  economics and dean of social sciences. 11:25 am in Lipinsky Auditorium. Free and

open to the public. Park in white striped student spaces.


Click here to view the UNC Asheville Events calendar          

Notice for OLLI Health & Fitness Membership Participants

Please note the following message sent out by the UNC Asheville Campus Recreation Department.

 

Sunday, January 27th

All recreational space (except the swimming pool) in the Student Recreation Center will be closed all day. This includes multipurpose courts, racquetball courts and indoor track. Kimmel Arena will be available for recreational basketball.

 

  Paula Withrow

Paula Withrow brings history to life, one vignette at a time

By Judy LaMee

When Paula Withrow decided to teach a six-week College for Seniors (CFS) course called "Racy and Righteous," examining the lives of the women who followed the gold rushes to California, Colorado and Alaska, she knew she wanted to delve into the lives of the good girls and the bad, the saints and the sinners. Describing herself as "a bit of an actress," Paula says her goal with all the classes she leads is to make history come alive for class members through some microcosm of the era. OLLI at UNC Asheville members benefit from her enthusiasm.

"I don't try to go into great depth, capturing every single date and every single nuance of the period. Rather, I want to find some interesting facets that will make history live," she explains. With Paula, history is theater, and she often comes to class in costume. Her teaching style is to produce a series of vignettes. She wants people to come out of class with something thought-provoking, something new, even if it's something small. And they do.

OLLI member Dave Castel describes his experience taking one of Paula's classes, "She unfailingly takes a little piece of history and humanizes it. I took one course from her, and I can tell you today that the standard bundle of beaver hides contained 90 hides. Paula manages to take a fascinating, unexpected piece of history and get you hooked and wanting to learn more."

A typical course evaluation comment reads something like this, "I never liked history in school, and now I find that I love history because I found someone who loves to teach history. I wish I had had a Paula Withrow as a teacher when I was studying history, back in the day." Don't we all!

Paula arrived at the College for Seniors in the fall of 2009, and has taught a different topic every semester since. She describes it as an addiction. Her attention will typically be caught by something fascinating she reads in an article or someone will suggest a topic, such as railroads or the Pony Express. She will spend the next three months researching, digging up obscure details that build a fascinating story. She reads books, goes to the library, scours the Internet. The 6-8 hours daily she spends on this in-depth research will become her lectures with backup slides of pictures, anything that will make the subjects live for class members.

Paula's fascination with history can be traced to her childhood living in Europe as an Army brat, from ages 6-9, shortly after World War II had ended. When she returned to those same sites 20 and 30 years later, she remarked on how the cities had rebuilt, and noted that most of the historic sites had survived. When she revisited the Colloseum all those years later, she remembers thinking, "I always thought it was bigger than this," and speculated about what could have happened to render it so much smaller! But how fascinating it was that a structure built so many years ago could have been the setting for such amazing theater, sometimes even flooded to produce naval battles, for instance.

Growing up in a military family, Paula was born in Hawaii and has lived all over the US. She has called the Midwest and California home; she has visited the Gold Rush cities. She has also lived in the Philippines.

During college, she spent one Christmas vacation visiting her Army officer father in Viet Nam, where he was stationed during the war. Her mom had been told,  "Just be glad we're going to his base by land and not by air"; the Tet offensive was going on and surface travel was considered safer. Paula had barely arrived when she was told, "Great news! We've got you a helicopter!" Terrified, she did not want to get on that chopper, but gamely she survived the flight and the next week in war-torn Viet Nam. The first two nights there, hearing gunfire all around, she knew she was surrounded by war. She tells of making up her bed and then climbing under it to sleep, believing she was safer. She visited orphanages and veterans hospitals, even water skied on the Mekong River. But there was also an incident where her family was being shot at. She described the visit as a bit like being a tourist, but your father is wearing a gun! At holiday's end, she returned to a calmer, safer college life at Colorado State University, where she continued her studies in history, earning her master of arts degree.

Paula's incredibly enriching nomadic background helps her to develop the vignettes that become her CFS courses. Then there is the fascination with visiting more accessible places such as Philadelphia and Sturbridge Village, which she says, can help us to learn so much here in our own United States.

Prior to her move to the Asheville area, Paula taught history and computers in a community college in Birmingham, Alabama, for five years. This multi-faceted woman has taught home schooled students about U.S., world and ancient history as well as comparative religions. She directed a woman's adult education school, conducted right/left brain research, interned with the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey and later with the American Revolution Bicentennial where she focused on expeditions in the Western United States.

These days, in addition to teaching at OLLI's College for Seniors, Paula finds time to co-chair the Apple Special Interest Group, co-chair the Faculty Development Committee and to join the Life Transitions Committee as a new member.

Paula lives with her husband Gene in Weaverville. He retired after 30 years in the military and another 18 years as a dentist. Paula's daughter Claire, an anthropologist living in Atlanta, was recently married in what the proud mom describes as "an amazing ceremony" here in Asheville.
  Financial Strategies in Retirement 
Special Interest Group  
Friday, February 1,  1:30 pm
 
Dan Jacobs
Managing Partner, French Broad Global Investors
"Global Equity Investing: 
A Practitioner's Perspective (Part II)"
Global investment
 
Come with your questions on global investing, finding companies that are promising candidates for dividends and growth, and gearing your portfolio to an ever- smaller global investment landscape.
 
The meeting is open to all OLLI members.  Email/call Kate Beatty for further information at [email protected] or 828-231-7710.

1st Annual OLLI Art Bazaar
April 26, 2013, 11am-5pm
Interested in joining the fun?  Click here to access an exhibitor registration form.