Midcoast Senior College, bringing classes to seniors interested in lifelong learning, announces a variety of courses for its Spring Term I. Courses will begin the week of Monday, Feb. 5 and will run through April 7 and are four to seven weeks long. There is a selection of in-person and on-line (Zoom) classes. No grades, no exams just learning for the fun of it! To register and find out more, visit www.midcoastseniorcollege.org or call us at 207-725-4900.

To register for a course, you must be a current MSC member or a current member of another Maine senior college. The annual $35 membership fee is valid from July 1 through June 30 of each calendar year. All courses are $60 per person. MSC offers confidential tuition waivers to its members from its scholarship fund. Please contact us if our fees are outside your budget. Send your tuition waiver request to info@midcoastseniorcollege.org and we will contact you. There are no forms to complete.

We have an exciting array of classes to offer seniors this spring: 

John Haile will be teaching Twenty-one Sonnets by William Shakespeare. The first week will be a quick exploration of the sonnet form and its conventions; in subsequent weeks students will dig into how Shakespeare brilliantly manipulates language, form, and content to create these verbal works of art. Class meets on Zoom.

Ann Kimmage will offer Revisiting Childhood, a course that will concentrate on three authors’ perspectives on childhood. Students will explore a child’s perception of the world, the experiences that shape one’s personality, the people who influence us, and our relationship to the home and the outside world we are born into. Class meets in person.

Breda White will offer Medieval Imagery-Devotion, Didacticism, and Delight? Students will become acquainted with the multifarious riches to be found in illuminated manuscripts and will develop a fuller appreciation of how, why, when, and for whom they were produced and build a more nuanced understanding of medieval imagery drawing on examples from 550 to 1550. Class meets on Zoom.

Martin Samelson will take students through an in-person course American Sign Language (Handshapes & Simple Sentences). A relaxed demonstration of the 36 basic A-B-C / 1, 2, 3 handshapes used to fingerspell everyday English words and sign useful expressions. Students will enjoy communicating in sign language with family, coworkers, and friends. Class meets in person.

Barbara Snapp continues her exploration of Being Female, Part 2: The Human Female. Beginning with the earliest mammals, this course will explore the biological adaptations, challenges, and compromises leading to the modern human female. The study of human evolution has traditionally focused on the male of the species. A focus on the female will reveal some powerful, surprising, and revolutionary additions to the understanding of our species. Class meets in person and on Zoom.

Paul Kalkstein will take students through Tales of the Jazz Age through the famous chronicler of it, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although the in the popular view this was a time of flashy wealth, wild parties, and licentious behavior, the era had a dark side, too. Class meets on Zoom.

Donald Stein will offer Brain Repair. What do we know about what happens when the brain is damaged? This is a complex question. Currently, there are no safe and effective treatments for the various types of injury that can occur. Historical concepts will be discussed about how the brain is organized and how these ideas have shaped how we approach treatment and repair after TBI (traumatic brain injury), stroke, or other serious injuries to the brain. Class meets in person.