Senior Seminars

Senior Seminars

Although our Senior Seminars won’t be five years old until fall 2025, this spring marks the fifth anniversary of their conception, which occurred both because of and in spite of the Covid 19 lockdown. Peter F., a resident who moved onto campus during this period, wrote: “This was hardly what I had expected in March 2020 when I moved into Carol Woods. Instead of Wednesday concerts, Thursday lectures, Friday afternoon sherry gatherings, Saturday movies, art classes and croquet matches, and spirited conversations in the dining room, I received a lukewarm dinner that arrived in a cardboard container outside my door. I walked around campus waving at masked, white-haired strangers.”

At that time Rebecca B., a three-year resident and the chair of the Newcomers Service Committee, was trying to bridge the many gaps in social connections through Zoom meetings. She invited Peter, Stuart M., Dan and Susan B., Lois and Al H., Adams W., and Sibyl W. to form a Newcomers group.

Gradually the group grew, and outdoor “socially-distanced" gatherings replaced Zoom. Then, the administration provided an open-sided tent for meetings. Richard F. recalls that during one of these meetings Peter mentioned how much he missed teaching. Al asked, “Why don’t you teach us something?” Peter took up the challenge and held a session on the U.S. presidential campaign of 1932. A group member represented each of the three candidates and a lively group discussion followed. Richard wished that his high school history classes had been like that, rather than “dreary collections of kings and presidents, and dates of battles.” Later, Peter wrote, “Who could have imagined that out of this little invitation would emerge, by some blend of ingenuity and doggedness, a curriculum of exciting, monthlong seminars of, by and for the residents!” Shortly thereafter, Rebecca, Peter, and Al came up with a plan and launched the first seminars in the fall.

Rebecca describes this as one of the most rewarding experiences of her time at Carol Woods. “In a period of profound isolation, we were able to create a space for social connection and learning that brought joy and engagement to our friends and neighbors when they needed it most.”

She is no longer directly involved in the seminars that occur each spring and fall but keeps a careful record of Seminar leaders and participants. From the beginning in the fall of 2020, there have been 75seminars, taught by 42 different instructors, filling 988 seats with residents. Topics have included hands-on crafts and experiments, biology, history, politics, philosophy, literature, and poetry. The possibilities for the future are endless given the variety and breadth of knowledge, expertise, curiosity, and experience among our residents.

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To check on the current health of the seminars, we first asked residents who signed up for seminars this spring to tell us something about that experience. Then we asked the leaders of seminars since the beginning to reflect on their own experiences. Not everyone responded, but clearly the Seminars are both alive and well. They continue to serve the original goals of creating social connections and providing stimulating learning experiences. Participation remains strong. Additionally, it appears that there is a pipeline of leaders for future seminars. Those who have led are inclined to volunteer again, and new residents arrive with knowledge, interests, and skills they are willing to share.

Seminar Participants

As with other surveys of this sort, not all the seminar participants responded. Some noted that they were unable to get into the seminars they had chosen (class size is limited to 15, and a lottery determines who gets in). Many praised their seminar experience without describing anything specific. Newcomers were more likely to cite the seminars’ role in creating new friendships and developing a sense of belonging in the community, but similar sentiments were also expressed by some who have participated in as many as tenor eleven seminars.

Other respondents described their experience in some detail. Paul F. wrote that “one of the benefits of retirement is to explore what one was too busy or too sequestered to explore when younger.” He referenced his experience in the seminar A Novel by Ian McEwan: Atonement. He had read the book 20 years ago but had missed the richness that emerged through the leader’s knowledge and the discussions with other residents. Doug K. and several others echoed similar sentiments about that seminar.

Although our generation is familiar with Apartheid and the Holocaust, learning about them through the knowledge and the personal experiences of other residents is entirely different. Betsy B., Janie C., and Mary R. all noted how much more they learned about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany in the Seminar on Women in Resistance Against National Socialism, led by Hans W., who included his research and shared his personal and family experiences during World War II. For Judith G. and Roscoe R., the seminar on The Rise and Fall of Apartheid in South Africa had the similar effect of expanding their understanding. Judith had been to South Africa and jumped at the chance to take this seminar. She noted that the small group and detailed material led to discussions that “were nothing less than outstanding.”

Some chose seminars because of their relevance to salient political and social problems in our current era of division and changes in social norms. Harriet S. and Barbara W. found the discussions around the assigned sections of Project 2025 in the Body Politics seminar enlightening and helpful for understanding specific actions taken by the new administration. Similarly, Donna H. and Janie C. noted that the seminar Using Ethics in Everyday Life was especially timely. Donna said she appreciated the careful class discussion of specific ethical quandaries.

Linda B. and Virginia G., who were both in the seminar A Second Month of Memoirs, noted that while they have long enjoyed reading about other people’s lives, they had learned that being able to discuss what they had read with others greatly enriched their experience. Others wrote of the pleasure of challenging themselves by learning something unrelated to their past experience. Dan O. and Thomas L. reported on their participation in Exploring “Darkness” in the Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, a highly technical seminar. Thomas said the leader presented new ideas in a way that was generally not hard to follow, but he asked, “How often have you thought back13.8 billion years?”

A science seminar of a different sort, Scientific Inquiry is Fun, was mentioned and praised as both unusual and genuinely fun by six participants. The group had a different puzzle to solve each week— all hands-on, no lectures or homework, just natural curiosity, touch, sight, and simple materials. They reported that it was not only fun, but it stimulated thought. Dan O. wrote, “I learned the value of humility. I went out on a limb with my hypotheses a couple of times and was wrong. Good scientific inquiry needs to be wrong occasionally to push the envelope.”

Seminar Leaders 2020–2025

It should surprise no one that 17 of the 21 seminar leaders who responded to our request for input are career teachers. Fifteen taught at Duke or UNC-Chapel Hill; four others at Guilford (NC), Moravian University (PA)and Eckerd College (FL). Two were schoolteachers. Although teaching was not his primary occupation, David B. had led commercial and graduate school seminars. In contrast, Sibyl W. held a clinical position in the UNC Hospital Psychiatry department, a role that did not include teaching classes or leading seminars. Taking on a Senior Seminar was her first dip into that part of academia. She said that the necessary research and planning made her “feel more alive cognitively” and that “the participants’ enthusiasm and appreciation have been enormously gratifying.” This should encourage other non-teachers to take up the challenge.

The former professors and teachers cited a love of teaching as their primary motivation for leading seminars. The most effusive of them, Norm B., stated that he has loved teaching “since the first day I walked into a classroom in 1974,” and “Each spring and fall I get that familiar adrenaline rush as I walk into the Building 1 classroom. I’m more exhausted at the end of each class than I used to be, but the old joy is still there. How lucky I am.”

Some of these seminar leaders focused on the subject matter of their professional expertise. For Will B., Russian history and culture were both major areas of his teaching and research. Sunny L. cited the pleasure of teaching three separate senior seminars focused on different aspects of education policy, which has been one of her longtime research and teaching interests. Hans W.’s seminar on “Women Resisters Against National Socialism” covered a topic to which he has devoted much of his recent scholarship.

Others challenged themselves with topics only tangentially related or totally unrelated to their previous areas of teaching. Howard C.., who explored many other interests before and after his teaching career in English literature, led a seminar on cadavers based on research, observing an autopsy by medical students and what he had learned as an EMT! Carol C. wrote,“ What a luxury to be retired and finally able to learn about topics outside my field. . .. Everyone becomes both teacher and student in a seminar. And if all goes well, you are surprised by what you discover about the topic you thought you knew something about.” Similarly, Peter F. “excitedly seized the chance to teach whatever interests me.” Ed D. and Bob F. had both taught the clinical trials course at UNC and teamed up to lead a seminar on the management of Covid infection. According to Bob, “Together we overcame large differences in background, including social and laboratory science, theoretical statistics, clinical medicine, and little science at all. I hope learners had as much fun as I did.”

Many of our seminar leaders wrote about what it was like to teach older people as opposed to college students, graduate students, or young professionals. They found residents to be enthusiastic learners. As Jean O. wrote, “We are eager to be up to date on recent scholarship in many fields, especially those that are controversial.” Neal B. described his seminar participants as “openly curious and enjoying helping each other learn.” And, perhaps most importantly from a leader’s perspective, residents “bring a wealth of their own experience” (Cynthia D.) and “a wide range of perspective” (Alan L.).

This enthusiastic participation is stimulating and rewarding but sometimes presents challenges. Ross M., who led the Ethics seminar wrote, “Interestingly, nearly everyone I’ve met at Carol Woods seems to have an opinion about what is ethical and what’s not. It was a bit like teaching Flavor Science in an ice cream store.”

There are also other challenges. Some of us “elders” have had relatively little experience navigating the online world to access materials for the classes. Some have visual, hearing, or mild cognitive deficits that may interfere with their class participation. Yet, according to David B., “Leading a seminar at Carol Woods was an experience equal to or more challenging than I’ve had in years of leading commercial seminars and graduate programs. Residents showed gaps in my knowledge and made me come back with answers.”

Finally, we should recognize that gaining and sharing knowledge are two legs of a three-legged stool supporting the Senior Seminars. The third leg is the role they play in building the connections and lasting friendships that make this community special. Peter described this as “anintellectual personableness, if that is a word.” However, it is not just intellectual. Seminars that are focused on poetry, memoirs or literature, orare related to lived experiences in a particular era, elicit the kind of sharing central to deep friendships. Nancy C. wrote of her seminar on Braiding Sweetgrass: Stories for Healing our Relationship with the World. “What was most moving to me was my students’ honesty and good humor in expanding these topics into rich sharing about their own lives.”

– Nancy Martin

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