Living a LearningLife

Robert Elde, Saturday Morning Seminar speaker and dean of the College of Biological Sciences asks, "Are We Intrinsically Violent?"

Warfare and violence have been part of human society for so long that one might wonder if they are inevitable, an intrinsic characteristic of the human mind. From the Crusades to the French Revolution, from the Holocaust to today's suicide bombers, it seems that a propensity towards violent behavior can be found in cultures throughout history and around the world.

So, is there hope for us? Are we an intrinsically violent species? And if so, does the answer lie in mitigating our behavior, our genetics, or something else entirely?

Dr. Robert Elde, dean of the U's College of Biological Sciences (CBS), tackles those questions and more at the Saturday Morning Seminar, Are We Intrinsically Violent on April 13, on the St. Paul campus.

The LearningLife Forum: Witness to History series will kick off 2011 with a true Minnesota luminary: former U.S. Vice President, Senator, and Ambassador Walter Mondale.

Mondale will be interviewed by the Humphrey Institute's Larry Jacobs. Jacobs is director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, an expert in American political history and policy, and the author of 10 books.

Many LearningLife participants will know that this will not be the first time the two have teamed up: Mondale and Jacobs have been Headliners and Great Conversations presenters, and each spring for the last several years, Mondale and Jacobs have co-taught a popular undergraduate course at the U focusing on national security issues and public policy.

Says director of LearningLife programming Margy Ligon, "When [they] spoke at a Headliners event last year, the audience gave them a spontaneous standing ovation. As one participant said, 'the Mondale/Jacobs Headliners event was simply extraordinary. I actually had tears in my eyes because of the privilege of hearing Mondale speak in such an intimate, informal setting.'"

by Megan Gerst Rocker

This winter, LearningLife short course participants can go around the world in a day--or two or three, if they wish.

February 24 kicks off Adventure Travel: Three Stories, a miniseries-style short course featuring speakers and instructors who travel to exotic parts of the world as an integral part of their lives and work.

The miniseries is a new format for LearningLife: the course as a whole is unified by a common theme, but each night of the course features a stand-alone topic and participants have the option of registering for one, two, or all three of the meetings. (See end of story for registration links to each meeting.)

Says LearningLife program director Lara Roy, "Depending on their schedules and/or interests, people can get a taste of a theme...or savor the whole experience."

The first session (February 24) features Aaron Doering (pictured), U of M associate professor and designer and founder of the GoNorth! Adventure Learning Series and the new Earthducation Series.

Doering, who has dogsledded and skied thousands of miles across the Arctic in order to educate students and bring attention to global climate change and sustainability, will showcase his adventure learning programs, which he began in 2004.

"As a former social studies teacher, I recognized early on that students and adults around the world needed an opportunity to learn about global climate change, sustainability, and the impact each individual is having on this issue," he says.

"During my morning run years ago, I had an epiphany: educators needed to tie real-world experiences to a curriculum that affords collaboration among learners in an online learning environment... thus, 'adventure learning' was born."

Since then, Doering has led online education programs from such locales as Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, and Burkina Faso, Africa.

The amazing peaks of the Himalayas will be the destination on March 10, as longtime Star Tribune columnist Jim Klobuchar describes how he got his start in adventure travel, visiting such exotic locations as the Andes and the Himalayas.

Split Rock Arts Program instructor Jack El-Hai has made a successful career out of "telling the great untold stories" in science and medicine. For the author of many medical science books, articles, and essays, writing scientific nonfiction is a spellbinding form of storytelling.

"Medical science is inherently dramatic--you have at least two engaged protagonists: the sick person and the one helping. You have a host of interesting conflicts...between the protagonists and their own internal conflicts, and between the medical personnel and the community. Stories about medical science really are true-life, life-and-death tales."

It was during the writing of one such dramatic tale, his most recent book, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), that El-Hai became interested in the intersection of an individual's career and his or her personal life. "Here was this story of a brilliant medical mind [Walter Freeman] who became obsessed. The story shows a real parallel between the rise and fall of Freeman's career and of lobotomy as a common medical practice, with the rise and collapse of Freeman's personal life.

"Ask a historian, a biology buff, and an avid traveler to make a "bucket list," and chances are all three will share a common destination: the Galápagos Islands.

Situated on the equator, about 620 miles west of Guayaquil, Ecuador, the islands and their unique flora and fauna gained widespread public notoriety after being described by Charles Darwin in his 1839 book, The Voyage of the Beagle.

The archipelago is young, geologically speaking; it also is distinctive in that it is one of the few places in the world without an indigenous human population. Those attributes, coupled with the multitudes of endemic species found there, have made it a wonderland of information for biologists, historians, geologists, and others.

The islands are so valuable that Ecuador has set aside virtually the entire archipelago as a national park and UNESCO made the Galápagos its first World Heritage Site.

Says Randy Moore, U professor of biology and LearningLife short-course instructor for Galápagos! Walking in Darwin's Footsteps, "words cannot fully describe the richness of the place. It's hard to take it all in. Discovering new places, new things, new animals and plants, exploration...that stuff isn't ancient history--it's right there in Galápagos.

An interview with Todd Kashdan

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but what did in the inquisitive feline just may help you live longer--and have more fun doing it. Or so contends psychologist and George Mason University professor Todd Kashdan, author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life.

"Of course we all want to be happy in life," says Kashdan, who will be the keynote speaker at the LearningLife spring fest in April. "If you ask folks what the goal of life is, most of them will say 'happiness.' But really, that's only part of the equation. What we're searching for is meaning, fulfillment. Curiosity is a key ingredient to finding that fulfillment."

Adults in conversation with children will often resort to this fail-safe question to make a connection with a child. Children usually have a quick and ready answer: An astronaut! A fireman! A pilot! A teacher! And so on. They call out their favorites without restraints, without hesitation. They see it and they believe it.
Can you remember longing for the grown-up day when you would magically become who and what you dreamed to be? For some people, things turned out exactly as believed; for others a new, different, and often surprising path was followed.
Whatever your path has been to now, do you find yourself coming full circle lamenting, "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up!"? You are not alone. In my work as a coach, I hear it often. I've been in that place myself.
Read this and other posts at Donna's LearningLife expert blog, Thresholds...

Tips and tricks for getting started on Facebook, LinkedIn, and more....

In the last couple of years, social networking Web sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have become almost as ubiquitous an accessory as a cell phone or a computer. A sizeable proportion of Gen X and Millenials have a page (or two or three)--some estimates say nearly 90 percent of college students maintain at least one page--but what about baby boomers? Is social networking "just for kids," or are people over 40 adopting the technology as well?

A recent report from Forrester Research indicates that baby boomers are more technically savvy than might be popularly believed. According to the study, more than 60 percent of boomers are using social media like blogs, forums, podcasts, and online videos. And one-third of adult Internet users have a profile on a social networking site, up from 8 percent in 2005 (according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project).

Sometimes, it seems that everyone, from individuals still in the corporate world to retired grandparents, is going online. Heck, even nonagenarian actor and academy award winner Kirk Douglas has his own MySpace page to keep in touch with fans and family alike. (He's a Sagittarius, by the way.)

Navigating major transitions, especially in the second half of life, can be difficult, but it can also be joyful and rewarding. If we see transition as such, our journeys become positive and purposeful, offering time for review, rediscovery, retooling, and re-emergence.

Enter LearningLife's Transition Workshop series, which kicks off on October 17.

Transition Workshops are designed to help participants prepare for the next stage of life by allowing them to take a step back, rekindle their sense of purpose, make new connections, explore options, move toward meaningful "encore" work, and embrace community engagement.

These half-day workshops feature lively interaction with a community of learners, presentations from outstanding experts, and practical strategies and tools attendees can employ in their own lives.

Tours open in late August on the St. Paul campus

For as long as people have been building homes, the sun has played a role in design and architecture. Yet even today, in our ever-growing "green conscious" society, only a fraction of buildings make use of solar energy for power needs.

Now, a team of University of Minnesota students, faculty and alumni is working to make solar technology more accessible for the average Minnesota homeowner.

They are building an entirely solar-powered house that's especially designed for the Minnesota climate, and hope that Minnesotans can take away a few tips and tricks for their own homes.