feature

Education: It’s Not Just Kid Stuff

By Diane Boudreau

“We will not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

— T S Eliot

Learning is a lifelong endeavor—it does not stop upon the arrival of a diploma or degree. Outside of a formal degree program, however, educational opportunities can be hard to find. While anyone can take college courses, many of them are geared toward full-time students in a degree program, and they can be expensive.

However, higher education institutions also offer lectures, performances and exhibitions that are free and open to the public. These programs often get overlooked because there is rarely a centralized listing of what’s available.

ASU offers a variety of educational events that are free and open to the public. The Brown Bag Lecture series meets at ASU Downtown most weekdays from noon to 1:00 p.m. Remaining topics for September include coping with change, starting a small business, dream interpretation, traditional and contemporary Latino art, and a “meet the author” session with Annette Mahon. Visit http://www.asu.edu/xed/lectures/ for more information and to RSVP.

Arts aficionados will enjoy “Coffee at Kerr,” a series of free morning performances and discussions featuring the Kerr Center’s guest artists. Performers typically hail from music, theatre or dance, but upcoming sessions also include an ASU historian and a comedy troupe. Visit http://www.asukerr.com/kerr/coffee.html for a complete list of events and to RSVP.

Every spring, ASU presents the Last Lecture Series. Students are asked to nominate exceptional faculty members, who are asked to give a lecture as if it were their last presentation ever. This year’s lectures included: “A Journey Within: Discovering Earth’s Innermost Secrets” from geologist Ed Garnero; “Smurfs, Marlboro Men, and Cosmo: How the Personal is Political and the Seemingly Trivial Can Be Truly Important” by women’s studies professor Rose Weitz; and “Bald Eagles, Body Parts, and Haunted Houses: The Many Margins of Economics” by economist Allan DeSerpa. The next series of lectures will take place in April 2005. For more information, visit http://www.asu.edu/vpsa/partnerships/last.htm.

For regularly updated information on all ASU-sponsored events, sign up for the weekly ASUEvent e-mail calendar at http://www.asu.edu/clas/asuevent/ or go to http://events.asu.edu.

Other great educational opportunities are available through local community colleges (http://www.50states.com/cc/arizona.htm), libraries (http://www.publiclibraries.com/arizona.htm) and city parks and recreation departments.