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Registration

Online Registration for Fee-Based Lectures

Spring 2024

Online & Phone Registration

  • Register online by Friday, March 29 at the registration page.
  • Register by phone by Friday, March 29: 707-664-2691 (8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.).
  • Register by downloading and completing the course registration form and either bringing it to class or mailing it to the address below: 

    Adobe acrobat PDF icon

     Spring 2024 Course Registration Form 
     
     

     

    OLLI@SSU, 
    Stevenson 2700, 
    Sonoma State University, 
    1801 East Cotati Road, 
    Rohnert Park, CA 94928

  • Registered students will receive an email with class Zoom link the day before class starts with information on attending in person and remotely. The Zoom link is the same link for each class. Please save the email and link for the duration of your class.
  • In Person classes: Registered students will receive an email the day before class starts with course location, directions, and parking information. There is a $5 daily parking fee at the SSU campus.
  • If you do not receive an email please let us know promptly by emailing olli@sonoma.edu.
  • Course materials are available at the course materials page.

If you were not able to register before Friday March 29, do not worry! Registration is available in person at all classes.

OLLI Spring 2024 Courses

Registration is currently open

OLLI Spring 2024: Six-Week Classes

Registration is currently open

A hand touching stalks of grain


Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation
Andy Wallace
Tuesdays, April 2 - May 7, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Location: Green Music Center (GMC) 1058

This class will focus on the benefits of mindfulness for regulating emotions, and thus, the nervous system. Research shows that mindfulness-based practices can change the subjective conditions that give rise to emotions and also strengthen a person’s ability to respond wisely to them. There might not be a more consequential strategy for cultivating emotional wellbeing than a regular mindfulness practice. Participants will have many opportunities to apply concepts to their daily experiences and emotional triggers. The class will demystify mindfulness, identify its psychological elements, and explain the underlying science. The class includes short lectures and fun experiential exercises. This class is ideal for anyone interested in the mind, meditation, emotions, and wellness. No prior experience with mindfulness is necessary.This class will focus on the benefits of mindfulness for regulating emotions, and thus, the nervous system. Research shows that mindfulness-based practices can change the subjective conditions that give rise to emotions and also strengthen a person’s ability to respond wisely to them. There might not be a more consequential strategy for cultivating emotional wellbeing than a regular mindfulness practice. Participants will have many opportunities to apply concepts to their daily experiences and emotional triggers. The class will demystify mindfulness, identify its psychological elements, and explain the underlying science. The class includes short lectures and fun experiential exercises. This class is ideal for anyone interested in the mind, meditation, emotions, and wellness. No prior experience with mindfulness is necessary.

Faces of three 1960s rock starts against a psychedelic background


The Golden Age of San Francisco Rock
Ritchie Unterberger
Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:30 pm
**Location: Stevenson Hall 1301

In the mid-to-late 1960s, the San Francisco Bay Area exploded with psychedelic rock that captured the imagination of the world, creating legendary music that endures and influences popular culture to this day. The roots and heyday of the San Francisco Sound will be explored in depth via both common and rare audio recordings by greats like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Santana. We'll also investigate how the Bay Area's unique counterculture, promoters such as Bill Graham, and venues like the Fillmore created a scene in which experimental and idiosyncratic rock music could flower. The course will also detail its roots in folk-rock; the integration of jazz, ethnic, blues, and avant-garde influences into psychedelic rock; and how San Francisco rock continued to evolve in the 1970s, into funk, punk, and beyond.

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

A group of illegal immigrants walking along a dirt road in a field of corn


"The Permanently Unfinished Country": 500 Years of Immigration to America
Douglas Kenning
Wednesdays, April 3 - May 8, 10 am - 12 pm
**Location: Stevenson Hall 1300 

Every American, except Native Americans, descends from folks arriving from overseas and finding themselves welcomed with hostility by earlier arrivals. Our story looks briefly at why each major group came, what they faced, and how they coped: from Spanish seeking to exploit “the Land of Flowers”, through English seeking profits, Africans driven here by whips, Scots set adrift by the Clearances, Germans wishing to be left alone, Irish escaping famine, Chinese lured by gold, Italians forced here by poverty, Jews by hatred, Vietnamese by war, Latinx by unemployment, and others. Each group carried trepidation in their baggage but also, except for the Africans, an elixir of hope.  It’s a story with no ending for our “permanently unfinished country”.

 

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

A painting of a scene from the Dark Ages of women in a room performing various activities


The Dark Ages
Sam Cohen
Wednesdays, April 3 - May 8, 3 - 5 pm
**Location: Stevenson 1301

The period following the ‘fall of the Roman Empire’ has often been thought of as a dark age when civilization all but collapsed. But how dark was it really? How much did things change for ordinary individuals? Did people really stop reading, writing, and bathing (eww)? To address these and related questions, this course examines the political, social, religious, economic, and military history of the Mediterranean world from roughly the sixth century to the year 1000, taking as its focus the relationship between the three principal religiopolitical blocs, which defined the period: the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire and the various successor states in the Latin West, including Vandal Africa, Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, Ostrogothic and Lombard Italy, and Merovingian Gaul. We will also consider the Christianization of Europe, the formation and collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the rise of the Vikings.

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

Statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial


Lincoln's Mentors
Mick Chantler
Thursdays, April 4 - May 9, 10 am - 12 pm
**Location: Stevenson 1300

Abraham Lincoln is generally accepted by historians as our most inspiring leader (although some would argue that he should be placed second in this regard, next to Washington), our most eloquent writer, and our most
philosophically minded president. But how he acquired these attributes remains something of a mystery. Lincoln had practically no formal education, was raised in poverty and squalor, and had no insider connections that could set the table for his ascension to power. This course will attempt to explain that seemingly inexplicable rise from humble obscurity to our greatest and most beloved statesman. The guiding theme for our analysis of Lincoln’s life will be that he was obsessively determined to remedy the deficiencies in his formal schooling, and relentlessly sought out teachers wherever he could find them to help him on his journey to greatness. Some of these teachers were living men and women in his immediate surroundings, and others were the great thinkers of history long since departed, but still alive for Lincoln through the written word (he was an indefatigable reader.) Taken collectively, these people were “Lincoln’s Mentors.”

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

Supreme Court building


May It Please the Court
Bill O'Connor
Thursdays, April 4 - May 9, 1: 30 - 3:30 pm
**Location: Stevenson 1300

The course will include the study of the Warren Supreme Court and its successors by examining five of the most influential cases of the 20th.Century. It will include lectures on how the Court actually operates, the process by which a case gets to and is accepted by the Court, and the inner procedure for decisions. We will listen to the original arguments before the Court and hear the actual voices of the participants. Cases will be selected on their relevance to current affairs and offer constitutional guidelines for some of the most pressing legal and political issues in America today.

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

OLLI Spring 2024: Three-Week Classes

Registration is currently open

A black and white picture of Jack London reclining in a chair

 

The Life of Jack London, The Real and the Myths
Lou Leal
Fridays, April 12 - April 26, 10 am - 12 pm
**Location: Stevenson 1300 

Jack London is known throughout the world for stories of adventure, survival, and determination. We will look into his life of forty years to gain an understanding of Jack London as a person. There was significant instability in his early life and there were key people who gave him support which allowed him to grow, dream, and achieve.

The six course meetings will include an overview of London's personal life, his early adventures in sailing to the Bering Sea, tramping across the country, and hunting gold in the Klondike. There will also be a summary of London biographies, his socialism, writing career, and pursuit of his innovative farming methods.

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

A landscape painting featuring the Macchiaioli impressionistic technique


The Macchiaioli
Heidi Chretein
Fridays, April 5 - April 19, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
**Location: Stevenson 1301

One usually associates Impressionism as a purely French artistic style. But before Monet, Manet and others held their exhibitions in Paris, another group of artists in Italy were experimenting with new subjects and new ways to  paint. Called the "Macchiaioli '' referring to the Italian term for "stain", they  applied paint more freely and rapidly to the canvas. This group, focused in Tuscany and meeting in Florentine cafes, painted images of warfare as Italy fought battles for independence and they also created the visual language  of surging national identity that led to eventual creation of the Italian State. Often overlooked and overshadowed by their French counterparts, their contribution to the development of Impressionism is enjoying a new discovery and appreciation.

**This class will be Hyflex, i.e., it will take place both in person and through Zoom. This class will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date.

Santa Rosa Finley Center in March

Finley Community Center
2060 West College Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Parking is free!

Registration is currently open!

A painting of a woman by Amedeo Modigliani

Amadeo Modigliani
Linda Reid
Saturday, March 30, 2024, 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location:  Santa Rosa Finley Center, Cypress Room

The quintessential bohemian artist, Amedeo Modigliani is a master painter of the 20th century. A Sephardic Jew, from an Italian family, his works were seen as an oddity, outside every movement by other greats, such as Picasso, Matisse and Degas. It took decades for his work to be appreciated. Today it soars with a sale in 2015 of $170 million for one of his masterpieces. Modigliani kept a deadly secret (tuberculosis). One artist said, “There was something like a curse on this very noble and beautiful boy.”