11:30 AM Course List

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM Courses

• Bright Moments of Jazz & Rock

  This course celebrates the great bands and stars of pop, rock, soul, and jazz. We will listen to recordings, watch videos, and talk about a wide variety of musicians and bands. Social, historical, and musical context will be provided. Examples of the artists who will be included are Aretha Franklin, Doobie Brothers, Vulfpeck, Beatles, California Honeydrops, Temptations, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Jon Cleary and some Doo-wop thrown in too. You will likely discover artists you like that are new to you along the way. We will listen, watch, and discuss the greats. We will take a look at what it takes for new bands to be successful in the Internet era. You will expand your jazz and rock music appreciation and have fun doing it. Come and share your bright moments!

  Teacher: Tom Doran is a retired bassist/vocalist who played Soul, Funk, Blues, Jazz, and Rock. In retirement he loves to make abstract art abstract art. He loves to talk about music, so if you do too, please join!

• CREATIVE UNIVERSE: The Scientific History of Everything for the Non-Scientist

  The remarkable story of how the Universe created itself, as told by science, follows a long path that evolved from the chaos of the beginning of time billions of years ago –the Big Bang– to the present day, which includes the complex interactions of a creature we call Human. In this 10-week course, we will build together this long and complicated sequence of events as it progresses from pure energy to elementary matter to form the origins of our planet and the evolution of life and human culture.

  We will also explore the ways that this story of science helps –and doesn’t help– provide insight into fundamental questions of human existence.

  Join us as we explore the depths and fringes of science in a way that a non-scientist can understand and that will also be thought-provoking and awe-inspiring.

  Teacher: For a detailed description of the course, please see the attached document, Creative Universe: A History of Time from Chaos to Consciousness, written by Mr. Villa.

  Frank Villa has a lifelong interest in the natural sciences. An award-winning lecturer, he is a natural teacher who finds great joy in explaining complex principles and processes and bringing the latest quests and discoveries of science to a general audience. He developed curricula and taught courses in many settings on topics as diverse as the formation of the Universe, human genetics, and how to make moonshine.

  In addition to his degrees in the sciences, to explore his interest in the “big questions” Frank earned a master's degree in Religion and Theology from Andover Newton Theological School in 2004. He led the Science and Religion Program at the Boston Theological Institute for many years.

  Frank is a former teacher of high school physics and earth science, a fully rated commercial pilot and flight instructor, and was a small business owner whose company specialized in the design and outfitting of science laboratories.

• FOOD: THE SECRET SAUCE OF HISTORY: PART I

  For thousands of years, we humans have amazingly solved our problems and lived our dreams. We’ve harnessed fire, invented iron and steel, created motor cars and computers and telephones. We’ve gone to the moon, conquered bacteria and even fought cancer to a standstill. But there remains one urgent matter nobody has ever solved, and it’s the oldest problem in the world: What are we going to have for dinner?

  Our inescapable need to eat is the source of all human history. Long before Hitler needed “Lebensraum” and starved Europe to feed Germany, we created banana republics. Even before that, the Romans and Greeks created empires because they needed other lands to feed all their people. The Dutch sold Manna Hatta island to the British so they could get into the sugar business, and the French gave Canada to the British for the same reason. The great British Empire actually began with the East India Company’s obsession to monopolize India’s black pepper and cinnamon, then all the tea in China. And perhaps none of us would be here today on this continent if southern European Catholics hadn’t needed to eat so much fish.

  Those ho-hum items in your pantry—salt, pasta, nutmeg—actually changed the world, and food keeps doing that because it has always been more than just nutrition. As the source of survival, it’s been the call to action and thus the root of all history. So, ingredient by ingredient, we’re going to get a taste of that.

  Here is a list of books germane in various ways to the presentations of this course. Books about Food.

  Teacher: Sandy Garson, an Ivy League international relations graduate, has been a journalist, tour guide, caterer and food historian who has cooked things up all over the planet (e.g., Mongolia, Nepal, Spain, France, England, Sardinia). She’s written two cookbooks, one with food history anecdotes included that won a prize. For the last six years, she’s been sharing all her food knowledge gathering with enthusiastic senior college participants and also gives popular, shorter talks at senior living centers as part of a group called The Savvy Palates. She lives in Maine.

• Notable Supreme Court Cases of 2026

  8 weeks: no class October 26 & November 30 This year, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed tariffs, birthright citizenship, presidential authority, voting rights, free speech, digital searches, and gun rights. Did the justices honestly try to determine what the Constitution, precedent and facts require? Or do their decisions just reflect the majority’s policy preferences or partisan behavior? As one justice says, to answer these questions, we must “read the decision.” For eight of the court’s 2026 decisions, we will do that by reading summaries of the court’s own language and viewing PowerPoint presentations. Did the court’s majority stay within its judicial lane in each case? Did it jump existing guardrails or put its thumb on the scales? Did it respect the Civil War Amendments’ guarantees, including the abolition of the incidents of slavery? The instructor will draw on his experience as a recently retired trial court judge and, previously, a lawyer who briefed and argued cases in state and federal appellate courts, including one U.S. Supreme Court oral argument.

  Teacher: Doug Wilkins recently retired as a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, where he served from 2010 to 2023. In retirement, he has taught classes on the Supreme Court decisions of 2023, 2024, and 2025. From 1983 to 1999, he held various positions in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, where he argued more than 80 appeals at all levels of the state and federal courts, including numerous briefs and one argument in the U.S. Supreme Court. After receiving his J.D. in 1978, Wilkins clerked in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, was an associate in the Boston law firm of Palmer & Dodge and, in the 2000s, became a partner at the Cambridge law firm of Anderson & Kreiger LLP.

• Stories of Conflict as Seen Through a Narrators' Lens, Part XX

  We will discuss how narrators’ perspectives affect our appreciation of works including selected sonnets by Shakespeare. Our emphasis will be on Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen and Middlemarch by George Eliot.

  Teacher: Helen Smith has taught at the Winsor School, Newton North, and in Armenia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Georgia, Romania, and Zambia. A Smith College graduate, she edits texts about writing and journalism. She is the president of the New England Scholastic Press Association.

• Ten Uplifting, Slightly Eccentric, Little-Known Movies

  Join us for a welcome escape from today’s turbulent world as we explore ten international films that earned critical acclaim yet remained largely under the radar. The selections include Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams, the story of two estranged brothers—sheepherders in Iceland—who are brought back together when tragedy strikes their flocks, and John Roberts’ War of the Buttons, which recounts the rivalry between two gangs of Irish schoolboys in County Cork. Links for streaming the films will be provided.

  Teacher: David Moore received his master’s degree in American Studies from Boston College in 1966. He taught in the History Department at Newton North High School, receiving the Charles Dana Meserve Outstanding Teacher Award in 1993. His particular historical interests include classical Greece, American Studies, fin de siècle Europe, and the Holocaust.

• Writing Your Story: (Memoir, NOT autobiography)

  Maximum Enrollment: 14 If you enjoy writing and sharing stories of your life with a community of writers who will give you constructive feedback, this class may be for you. During each class, participants take turns reading their stories aloud while the class listens and writes thoughtful responses that are shared with the writer. This class will not only inspire you to write, but also will offer an opportunity to hear the intimate stories of others. Everything shared is confidential. The class regularly extends to 1 pm.

  Teacher: Sue Crossley is a retired executive director with more than 40 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. During this time, she founded a nonprofit in PA supporting people with disabilities and led Family Promise Metrowest in Natick, serving families facing homelessness. Sue retired in 2022. During her tenure, she was inspired by the incredible resilience of the families served and wrote extensively to share their personal stories with others as a means of education and outreach to the community. Having come from an Armenian family of storytellers, she now enjoys writing her own personal stories in reflection of a life of gratitude.