Stimulation - Knowledge - Interaction - Fun

Coffee Clash

Social Media: Connection or Corruption?

Maya Caines

and

Gray Cox



Friday, April 12^th, 8:30 a.m.

Join us for coffee, pastries and good conversation at Brasserie Le Brun

74 Cottage St, Bar Harbor.

At our next Coffee Clash, Maya Caines and Gray Cox will address a compact question and a huge subject. The question: Social Media: Connection or Corruption? Those five words can open a discussion of the profound forces that over the past two decades have transformed how we communicate and who we are.

Social media have connected humankind as never before, enabling global reach. But many critics of social media fear the prospect of a society manipulated through uncontrolled private entities.

Please join us and share your views.

Maya Caines has lived in Bar Harbor for five years. She has worked for the Jackson Lab and the Town of Bar Harbor. She currently serves as a member of Bar Harbor’s Town Council and works for College of the Atlantic as the Director of Residence Life and Student Experience. During her time as Bar Harbor’s Communications Coordinator, Maya saw the benefits and perils firsthand of using social media and other media to spread information about local issues. Maya earned her degree from the University of Maine, where she studied marine biology, environmental policy, and economics.

Gray Cox teaches philosophy, peace studies and language learning at College of the Atlantic and is a cofounder and Clerk of the Quaker Institute for the Future. Works include: The Ways of Peace: A Philosophy of Peace as Action; The Will at the Crossroads: A Reconstruction of Kant’s Moral Philosophy; and A Quaker Approach to Research: Collaborative Practice and Communal Discernment. His most recent book is: Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth? Dialogue and Collaboration in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. He is also a singer/songwriter and lives with his wife at the edge of Acadia National Park where they garden and go adventuring with their grandchildren.

The cost to attend in person at Brasserie Le Brun is $10 and includes coffee and pastries. The discussion will also be available on Zoom.

Click for more information and to register

Please let us know by noon on Wednesday, April 10^th if you cannot attend.

Food for Thought

Artificial Intelligence - Good or Evil?

Fred Benson

Friday, April 26^th at 11:30 a.m.

Birch Bay Village, Bar Harbor

and on Zoom

Proponents claim that Artificial Intelligence will produce results with a greater degree of precision, create a new standard for productivity and efficiency, can be used in situations where human intervention can be hazardous, and lead to massive improvements in medicine, education, and product production.

Naysayers argue that maybe so, but at what cost? AI is extremely expensive to build, could lead to massive unemployment as humans are replaced in repetitive jobs, and eventually lead to robots enslaving human beings as it becomes the dominant form of intelligence on earth.

In his presentation, Fred will define Artificial Intelligence, provide more detail on the general benefits and risks, and focus primarily on the threat AI brings to our national security.

Fred Benson retired as an Army full Colonel having served combat command tours in Vietnam and Korea, and Pentagon assignments in the offices of the Army Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, and the Secretary of Defense.

Subsequently, he served as Vice President for National and International Affairs for the Weyerhaeuser Company and later was President of the US-New Zealand Business Council, a consortium of 31 US companies with an active business presence in New Zealand. Read more...

The lunch and talk will be held at Birch Bay Village in Hull’s Cove on Friday, April 26, 2024. The lunch begins at 11:30 and costs $15. The presentation begins at noon. The program will also be offered on Zoom. 

Click for more information and to register

Please let us know by noon on Wednesday, April 24^th if you cannot attend.

Call for Artists!

2024 ASC Members' Art Show

The annual ASC Members' Art Show will be held during the month of May at the Northeast Harbor Library.

All forms of art are encouraged: watercolor, oil, mixed media, wood carvings, photographs, fiber art, and more. What have you been working on this past year?

To participate each member may display up to two pieces and must submit an artist's agreement form. If you plan to exhibit, please take a moment to send in your form so the art show committee can plan the show! The deadline to submit your registration form is Friday, April 26^th.

The show is open to all current ASC members.

Click here for more information

An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 3^rd from 5 to 7 p.m. Refreshments will be served and we will honor our site partners and volunteers. ASC members and their guests are invited.

This year's show and opening reception are generously sponsored by Camden National Bank.

ASC Racial Justice Book Group

Are you interested in joining us? We are open to new members who want to share in the reading and the hard work that ensues as we examine the underpinnings of systemic racism and its effects on society and on each of us individually, in the ultimate hope that our studies can work toward change.

We have been meeting once a month on the 2^nd Tuesday of the month from 10:30- 12:15.

We started with the basic readings of How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. We then spent many months delving deeply into The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Since then, we’ve read some James Baldwin, Colson Whitehead, Zora Neale Hurston, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Clint Smith and many others. We look forward in the next few months to reading some James McBride and Bryan Stevenson. We also share articles of interest that deal with the issues we’re facing.

If the truly hard, but most meaningful, work we are doing to examine our society, culture and ourselves sounds like something that interests you, please contact me at rjbg2021@gmail.com or 207-664-9954.

Ellen L. Dohmen

Read more about the book group

Fall Course Proposal Deadline

It's time to think about fall course proposals. Course proposals for the Fall 2024 term are due May 20^th.

Have an idea for a class? Do you know someone who might like to offer a course?

Click here for the Course Proposal Form

Save the Date! Potluck Supper and Annual General Meeting

Tuesday, June 4th, 5:00 p.m.

Neighborhood House

Northeast Harbor

Join us for appetizers and conversation, a short business meeting and elections, followed by a potluck supper. More details to follow.

More Learning Opportunities

Did you know that as members of Acadia Senior College, you are eligible to register for classes offered by other Senior Colleges in Maine without paying an additional membership fee? Space permitting, you can register for online courses and pay only the course fee.

There are 16 senior colleges in Maine, offering a variety of classes and presentations, some of which are free and many are offered by Zoom. To learn more, read and subscribe to the MSCN newsletter.

You can also visit the What's Happening? page and subscribe to receive email notices for presentations from senior colleges around the state. (Click the Log In link to sign up.)

Weather Cancellation Policy

“Acadia Senior College cancels events and classes when the MDI schools close for snow or weather events. When a delay occurs, ASC also cancels events or classes that start within the delay time period.”

This means that if there is a two-hour school delay, ASC morning classes will be canceled, but afternoon classes will still be held unless otherwise instructed. (Some in-person classes may elect to hold a canceled class by Zoom.)

Check News Center Maine or WABI for school closing information. Look for AOS 91.

Acadia Senior College

PO Box 475

Southwest Harbor, ME 04679

acadiaseniorcollege.org

learn@acadiaseniorcollege.org

207-288-9500