Starting in January
Access to The Great Courses Plus
We have extended our partnership with The Great Courses Plus, an online video-on-demand platform offering thousands of college-level videos and lectures. Register for this offering to receive a unique login for your own account with The Great Courses Plus at a significantly discounted yearly rate.
Please note: It will take two weeks to process your account information after you register.
Dates valid: December 1, 2020 – July 31, 2021
Cost: $35
The Memoir in Pieces: Writing Our Stories One Fragment at a Time
This writing workshop will examine a growing trend of memoirs told in pieces. Participants will read excerpts from book-length memoirs and shorter works using fragments, lists, letters, and even illustrations to convey a life story. Discussions will include how these memoirs often blur the line between prose and poetry through the use of white space, compression, and extended metaphor. If you’ve been working on a memoir, this workshop will provide new ideas, approaches, and inspiration.
Please note: This is a pilot workshop that will be held via Zoom Meeting with enrollment limited to 15. It will not be recorded or offered as part of future archived programs.
Presenter: Susan Rowe, MFA, MA
Dates and times: Tue. and Fri., Jan. 19, 22, 26, 29, Feb. 2, and 5, 10 a.m.-noon
Cost: $125
Property Tax: Value, Policy, and You
Join the Ada County Assessor to gain a comprehensive overview of property tax in Idaho, including its history in the state; an explanation of the current system and the assessor’s role in the process; a discussion of property tax as a funding source as well as the interplay with the other tax types; a summary of actual and potential policy implications; and the impact on taxpayers.
Presenter: Robert McQuade, Ada County Assessor
Date and time: Tue., Jan. 19, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with membership
The Nine Lives of Benjamin Franklin
Born the tenth son of a humble family of Puritan candle-makers in Boston in 1706, Benjamin Franklin rose to the front ranks of science, engineering, and invention in ways that were unexpected and meteoric. With only two years of proper schooling, Franklin later received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and St. Andrews as well as the eighteenth-century equivalent of a Nobel Prize for Physics. Like his hero, Isaac Newton, Franklin’s great genius lay in optimizing, tinkering, improving, and never being satisfied with the world as he knew it. We’ll examine many of Franklin’s ideas to make life simpler, cheaper, and easier that encompassed public works, civic improvements, and political trail-blazing.
Presenter: Dr. Richard Bell, Professor of History, University of Maryland
Dates and times: Thu., Jan. 21 and 28, 10 a.m.-noon
Cost: $25
American Art in the Late Modern Period: Rauschenberg to Postmodernism
Meet Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, two important artists of the twentieth century. Both served in WWII, then met at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Over the next decade, Rauschenberg and Johns created works that challenged the norms of the art world and opened possibilities for avant-garde movements such as Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Post-Expressionism. Discover how that work influenced Pop Art, Happenings, Fluxus, Conceptual Art, and other movements leading up to the Post-Expressionist painting of the Postmodern period.
Presenter: Dr. Muffet Jones, Professor of Art History, Boise State University
Dates and times: Fri., Jan. 22, 29, and Feb. 5, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: $35
The Happiest People
Join Dr. Jonathan Biggane as he discusses his book, The Happiest People, and learn about current research on positive emotions, what makes a life worth living, and how to cultivate happiness. His book is a practical guide to well-being that uses interventions and research from the fields of positive psychology, neuroscience, and business. Dr. Biggane’s research focuses on intra-organizational relationships, with a particular emphasis on employee well-being.
Presenter: Dr. Jonathan Biggane, Associate Professor, Department of Management, California State University Fresno
Date and time: Mon., Jan. 25, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with membership
Preserving the Integrity of Elections and the Will of the People: An Osher Special Event
Is it time to enact the National Popular Vote Compact? Efforts in the 2020 election to influence the Electoral College, overturn results of the election, and interfere with the will of the people illuminate the growing call for consideration of enacting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The Compact would protect the integrity of elections and the right of the American voters to elect the president. This discussion will consider the strengths and weaknesses of the Compact in light of serious threats to the integrity of presidential elections and democratic institutions.
Presenter: Dr. David Adler, President, Alturas Institute
Date and time: Tue., Jan. 26, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: $25
What Does Healthcare Reform Mean Now, Post Election, from Both a National and State Perspective?
Join us for this insightful lecture that will discuss issues within our current national healthcare system and what must be done to repair the fractures within it. Insights will be shared about the financial catastrophe we face as a nation as well as the discrepancy between spending the most of any country on the planet while only ranking 37th in the world for healthcare outcomes. Healthcare delivery reform will be emphasized at federal, state, and local levels. Key principles will be shared as well as what to do to stay as healthy as possible and maximize one’s experience within the healthcare system.
Presenter: Ted Epperly, MD, President and CEO, Family Medicine Residency of Idaho (FMRI)
Date and time: Wed., Jan. 27, 10 a.m.-noon
Cost: Included with membership
From Potato Chips to Microchips: The Complex Relationships Among Idaho, the U.S., and China
This presentation will look at how Idaho’s industry and politics put us in the heart of the crossfire of the ongoing U.S. and China trade war.
Presenter: Dr. Jack Marr, Clinical Assistant Professor and COBE Global Programs Directory, Boise State University
Date and time: Wed., Jan. 27, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with membership
Ecology of Emerging Diseases
The COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a novel virus. Misunderstandings about the origin and ecology of the virus have contributed to confusion about how to respond to the pandemic. This course will provide ecological context for emerging diseases, epidemics, and epidemiologists’ recommendations. It will also discuss the proposed origin of the coronavirus in a wildlife market, and what we can expect about the future of COVID-19 and other pandemics to come.
Presenter: Dr. Eric Yensen, Professor Emeritus of Biology, The College of Idaho
Dates and times: Thu., Jan. 28, Feb. 4, 11, and 18, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Cost: $45