Love of learning

Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter

January 18, 2017 2:03 p.m.

Amelia Lifelong Learning (ALL) will debut this month, offering short courses in literature, art, history, current events, science, and language. ALL was formerly affiliated with Florida State College at Jacksonville. At the end of last year, the group made a decision to set out on its own in order to focus on courses of interest to our community. (Full disclosure: I am on the board for the new venture.)
This spring at St. Peter’s we have two sessions of Great Decisions, a popular current events course starting January 23. The Foreign Policy Institute decides on topics of interest, provides a magazine with short essays on each topic, and a video of a panel of experts on the topic. A group discussion follows.

Literature is well represented in two courses also at St. Peter’s. Bernie McCabe will be taking his audience through “Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” starting February 8. Marilyn Wesley will be exploring Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories starting February 21.

Berta Arias is continuing her successful Spanish language courses at the Plantation. This semester she will be focusing on basic Spanish starting February 7. Berta’s class meets twice a week.

We live on an island that is a little unusual for a barrier island in that it has a ridge that tops out at about 60 feet above sea level. Robert Prager in his Geomorphology course will explain how that came about and what it means for the island. This course begins February 20 at the Plantation.

Last spring Sandra Dawson taught us about the masters of the Renaissance – Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. She is continuing this spring with some of the less well known but important Renaissance artists. The course begins February 8 at St. Peter’s.

New this spring is a course on Roman History, taught by Tony Daniels. Rome and its empire had a huge influence on Western civilization. This course will explore the impact of Rome focusing on areas of interest to the students. This course is being held at St. Peter’s beginning February 7.

Last but surely not least, Lea Gallardo will continue to introduce students to the ins and outs of Lightroom. This spring she will be using the newly opened technology room in the downtown Fernandina library beginning February 8.

You can find out about the courses being offered at www.amelialearning.com. On the site you can register for courses using a credit card. Or you can print a registration form and mail it to Amelia Lifelong Learning, P.O. Box 15639, Fernandina Beach, FL 32035. Come and enjoy learning with no exams, no papers, and no grades.

Evelyn McDonaldEvelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ’s Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.