The teachers at the Renaissance Academy at Chicago aren’t there to collect a paycheck. Rather, they’re there to share their passion for their subject with their students, who have plenty of life experience themselves.
That includes Carol Conway, who began leading classes at the academy for people age 55 and up after first being a Renaissance student.
“The instructors are people who volunteer their time and their interest,” she said. “It’s completely collegial — we teach each other. There is nobody outside who is hired. It’s just if you have an interest in something.”
When the fall session starts Oct. 10, Conway will lead a class titled The Novels You Weren’t Ready for in High School. The former high school English teacher called teaching this class “a different experience than cramming it down the throats of a sophomore.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” will be the first book this year, and “Great Expectations” will be the last one, she said.
“It’s so amazing to me that people who read this book in high school — and almost everyone has — said ‘I don’t remember that. I didn’t realize that.'”
The academy specializes in unusual classes, such as Let’s Talk Happiness, which aims to provide “lively discussions about what happiness means to the class participants,” according to the academy’s registration booklet.
“It’s a new one. It’s really something,” Conway said. “It’s talking about what brings you joy.”
Women Athletes, which explores female athletes who went on to become legends and role models for people around the world, tells the stories of stars such as Bobbi Gibb, Wilma Rudolph and Billie Jean King. News and Views is a class that helps participants “make sense of the news of the day,” according to the registration booklet.
For an annual fee of $180, adults can take one to three courses during each of the Renaissance Academy’s three, 6-week sessions in the fall, winter and spring. The fee includes luncheons in the winter and spring, access to some of the university’s facilities and two speakers’ forums.
In-person classes meet Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at Saint Xavier University, 3700 W 103rd St., Chicago. Zoom classes take place Wednesday afternoons. Registration is online at www.renaissancechgo.org from Sept. 8 to 15, and the academy is limited to 300 students.
“Obviously you get a particular kind of person who is a lifelong learner and they’re willing to do a little bit of work,” Conway shared, explaining although most academy members are women, quite a few men are facilitators. “My experience with people is they love the community, the camaraderie. They love learning something new and using our brains that are still working.”
That social aspect also can be found among students taking personal enrichment classes at Moraine Valley Community College, which is based in Palos Hills but also has education centers in Blue Island and Tinley Park.
“Some of our culinary courses actually have friends who take the class together or family members. That’s really fun,” said Elizabeth Micheletti, program manager for Corporate Community & Continuing Education. “Our crafting classes tend to draw those as well. It’s kind of a fun group outing activity.”
She said the arts and crafts class have lots of returning students.
“They say it’s not just the art they come for but the community around it, and they have made friends by taking the classes multiple times,” Micheletti said. “They’re able to build a sense of community in the classes, especially the ones that will run multiple weeks where they get to know each other.”
Micheletti said the college strives to be “accessible to the community so we want to be sure we can offer something that is for everyone — not just our credit students.”
“I think that’s one of the fun things we can differentiate ourselves with is we have such a wealth of knowledge at the college, and we want to be able to make that accessible to anyone who is interested in learning something new or trying a new hobby or exploring a topic they know nothing about.”
Micheletti said classes run the gamut. “We have a really great birding class, and we get people who have never thought about putting a bird feeder in their yard to an ornithologist.”
Noncredit and personal enrichment classes are available to everyone. One program this summer featured a classic activity.
“One of our staff here at Moraine has actually been a dungeon master since he was a kid growing up — Kipp Cozad,” she explained. “He was able to bring Dungeons and Dragons to our kids’ programs. We ran it four times and all filled, which has been so fun. We’re definitely going to bring that back to the spring semester.”
Another popular class discusses movies filmed at the Old Joliet Prison, offered in the fall and the spring. The state prison was built in 1858 and operated until 2002.
“It’s an off-site class, and they meet at the prison. We have an amazing movie and film instructor who will take them all throughout the prison and all the different buildings and talk about the movies that have been filmed there over time” such as “Blues Brothers,” Micheletti said, adding she’d like to take the class herself.
A new topic this semester, taught by a faculty member, is about Chat GPT. One class is about understanding the technology and how it works, and the other is how people can incorporate artificial intelligence elements into their everyday life and work.
Chef Lampros Tizmas leads a one-day class titled Cooking With Starches that features risotto, sweet potato mash, quinoa and more, as well as Greek Street Food, which shows how to make the country’s most popular dishes and a bit about Greek culture, cuisine and lifestyle.
Participants can learn about the geography, weather patterns and culture that make up the Chicago area and how waterways shaped the region during a Chicagoland Waterways class. Another class teaches students how to Save Money With Extreme Couponing. Those considering travel in a recreational vehicle might want to take the one-day class So You Want to R.V.?
Midwestern Foraging, which teaches participants how to safely identify plants in the area that can be cooked and eaten, is another course offered this fall.
“In the spring we had a bird watching course. I was so surprised a lot of people wanted to sign up for that,” said Syreeta Brown, senior program manager for Moraine Valley. “The knife-sharpening class is pretty popular — we only have two spots left. The succulent sauce class is pretty popular too.”
Some students seem to enjoy taking classes with the same instructor. “We have a following of (watercolor teacher) John Howard, and people take his class over and over. Every time registration opens, they sign up. It’s a social thing for them,” Brown said.
The classes are a good way for people to expand their horizons, she said.
“I don’t think we usually explore who we are outside of our jobs, outside of our personal lives — the different facets that make us up. Look and see what catches your eye. What did you want to be when you were a kid? Or maybe you want to travel in the future. Take an RV course.”
Personal enrichment courses start at $25 and go up from there, depending on materials needed and how long the class meets, but the majority are within $25 to $150,” Micheletti said. The fall schedule is available online, and some classes have already started. For information, email CommunityEducation@morainevalley.edu or call 708-974-5735.
Moraine is “always open to class suggestions and ideas from the public, so if anyone has any subject matter that they’d be interested in and want us to host in the future, please send us an email,” Micheletti said. “And if anyone is a subject matter expert or something within their field that they want to share with us, we’re always looking for new instructors. They can contact us and talk about bringing their subject to our schedule.”
South Suburban College, which has a main campus in South Holland and a center in Oak Forest, also offers “a wide variety of classes and opportunities for everyone from tots to senior citizens throughout the academic years, with a primary focus on lifelong learning,” according to its website. Some fall classes have already started, and the fall schedule is available online.
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
