By Peggy Carroll
Sharpen your pencils, put on your thinking caps and get ready to go back to school.
Great Horizons is an adult school with a difference.
The faculty is not quite the usual. This fall, it includes a descendant of a U.S. president, a museum curator, an orchestra conductor, a best-selling author of romances and murders, a retired New Jersey judge, the director of a political polling center, college teachers (retired and active), artists and people with a passion for history, music, the arts, and the town where they live.
They teach skills and they teach ideas – from the techniques of art to the techniques of politics, from the lives of strong women to the lives of infamous tyrants, from great books to great events.
And they tell stories of the world, the country and their towns.
It is the first such program in the region to hold classes during the day rather than the evening. And it meets not in schools, but in community settings – at the Morris Plains Community Center, the Morris Museum, the Kemmerer Library in New Vernon and, on occasion, at a restaurant, a park, or an historic site.
Great Horizons was designed by the Morris School District Community School to fill what it saw as a gap: Classes for people who would prefer daytime lectures.
This includes, said Program Coordinator Karin Ruppel, retirees, stay-at-home parents, workers between jobs, and folks who just feel more comfortable driving in daylight hours.
The program, which complements the traditional evening adult school, concentrates on the cultural side – art and art history, music, literature, history (local, state and national) — and the potpourri of other topics Great Horizons calls “general interest.”
It started modestly five years ago. There were only 15 offerings in the 2011 fall semester. But it has proved to be a smash hit. More than 60 courses are offered this semester.
Some are repeats of popular topics, but most are new. Ruppel searches the media for ideas and collects suggestions from her students and listens to what they have to say about their lives and their interests.
And she is continually adding ingredients to the mix. This semester, new courses include birding, 20th-century comedians and, in keeping with the most talked-about topic of the season, the presidential elections.
The most popular classes? “History,” she said without hesitation, “and then art history.”
There are plenty of both this fall to make them happy.
In history:
Ulysses Grant Dietz, great-great-grandson of the Civil War hero and president, and an avid scholar of America’s Gilded Age, will tell the story of Grant, Twain, and the Gilded Age: How a Symbol of Corruption Became a Literary Hero. Included: How Grant and Twain became friends. (Sept. 19, 2016.)
Judge Kenneth C. Mackenzie, retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge and popular Great Horizons presenter, will return on Nov. 3 to tell of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders – the group with the highest casualty rate of any American unit in the Spanish American War. Judge Mackenzie is known to teach with flair as well as fact. He last lectured on Alexander Hamilton, playing the role of the Founding Father to his costumed co-presenter, Pat Sanftner, as Elizabeth (Betsy) Hamilton.
Jim DelGuidice, photographer and adjunct college instructor, will roll back the years a bit to the time of our own Millicent V. Fenwick, the pipe-smoking fashion editor, politician and diplomat, who served as a Congresswoman and U.S.Ambassador to the United Nations in Rome. The class is called Conscience of Congress. (Oct. 24) Stories of two other famous women, Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Adams, will be told in later sessions.
Dr. Craig Pilant, a professor at the County College of Morris, will offer another three-part series, this one on Ruthless Leaders, namely, Peter the Great, Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. (Sept. 28, Oct. 5 and 19)
For Local History buffs: A field trip to th Fosterfields Living Historic Farm and The Willows is scheduled for Sept. 27. Classes also will explore the story of Acorn Hall (home of the Morris County Historical Society) and tales of New Jersey restaurants and their historic origins, including a lunch-and-learn at Bernardsville’s Olde Mill Inn (a meal along with the story of the 1768 building), and a biography of Morristown’s Vail family.
And for those whose interests are broader, courses range from the ancient world (Julius Caesar) to the modern (Al Quaida and ISIS), and events and people in between: George Washington’s manuscripts, Benedict Arnold, the Civil War, the 1920s; World War II (including doughnuts and doughboys), the Vietnam War, John F. Kennedy and the saga of the Passaic River.
ELECTING A PRESIDENT
Ryan Hyman, curator at the Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, will look at Thomas Nast’s Influence Over the Great Presidential Election Controversy of 1876: Hayes vs Tilden. Nast covered six presidential elections in his career, including this memorable one. Macculloch Hall, cross the street from Nast’s Morristown home, owns many of his powerful political cartoons.
Dr. Frank Argote-Freyre, an assistant history professor at Kean University, former journalist and former press secretary to then-Congressman Robert Menendez, and an elector for President Obama in 2012, will give a first-hand account of how the Electoral College works – and explain why the framers of the Constitution created the body that could, in theory at least, overturn election results.
Dr. David Redlawsk, director of the Center for Public Interest Polling at the Eagleton Institute, will state the Positive Case for Negative Campaigning and answer the question: Is negative advertising necessary to convey information that otherwise would not be revealed.? Stay tuned.
FOR MYSTERY LOVERS
Andrea Kane, author of 27 novels – including 13 psychological thrillers and 14 historical romantic suspense titles–will talk on Oct. 10 about Murder, Mystery and the FBI, sharing her experiences with the FBI during her research and giving an overview of the writing process.
FOR MUSIC LOVERS
Dr. Robert W. Butts, maestro for the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey, will lead Let’s Go to the Opera, an exploration of five classic operas by Handel, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Leoncavalle, in five sessions between Oct. 6 and Nov. 3.
Vocalist Jan Findlay, jazz pianist Tomoko Ohno and bassist Rick Crane will pay homage to great American classics and jazz in a concert/lecture on the Great American Songbook, on Sept. 26 at Fosterfields in Morris Township.
Also among the offerings: Folk music, music and Shakespeare through the ages, love songs from opera to Broadway, and an exploration of the moral complexity of French composers during World War II, and what it means to resist or collaborate while pursuing a career in art in politically charged times.
Art History: Classes on Gustave Klimt and Vienna’s Golden Age; the forgotten women artists of Vienna, garden art, and Dutch art; Claude Monet; the Bayeux Tapestry, Georgia O’Keeffe and Raphael, and the artists known as the Nabis.
Art: Silk Scarf painting, drawing for beginners and acrylic panting for beginners.
Entertainment: Bickford Theater Director Eric Hafen will lead a backstage tour, giving an inside look at everything from lighting to set design to stage props and sound boards, on Nov. 18.
On a very light note, Larry Wolfert, Rutgers instructor in comedy and music, will review the people who created comedy in the 20th century. That means folks like Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Carol Burnett, Woody Allen, Danny Kaye, Robert Klein and many more. On Nov. 7.
Great Horizons offers annual memberships for $15. Members get discounts. While course costs vary, most single session classes are $31 for non-members, $25 for members. Some lectures are free.
For a complete listing of classes, dates, locations and fees, and to register, visit www.msdcommunityschool.org. While there, check out the Adult School offerings and the special day journeys. Like every good school, this one has field trips.
Wonderful program. Gets better all the time. Thank you .