Dear ASC Friends,

I hope that your fall has been colorful and rewarding in both nature and friendship. And I hope that many of you were able to enjoy ASC’s fall class offerings. I had the great pleasure and privilege of participating in Scott Planting’s course on Community. The amount of reading was daunting, but enlightening, and the students were uniformly engaged and thoughtful. We explored ideas of what makes a community, how a community thrives or declines, and how conflicts are resolved. As I reflect on our class discussions, I am reminded of how important our ASC community has been to the residents of MDI and the surrounding areas over the past 20 years.

Now, in this time of pandemic, our community has been challenged. We owe a great debt to Janice Kenyon, our administrator, and to the wonderful volunteer pop-up instructors for a very successful spring term after most classes had been cancelled or postponed. And we owe an additional debt to the intrepid instructors and students who taught and learned during the fall term. We have continued with Food for Thought without the food and fellowship, but with thought provoking and informative sessions on The Opioid Epidemic in Maine and LifeFlight of Maine. We had a delightful presentation from Becky Marvil on the Birds of MDI. And Ed Liu enlightened us about the biology of SARS CoV-2 and developing treatments and vaccines.

For those of you who participated in these offerings, thank-you! For those who have been reluctant participants in the online world, please join your friends and neighbors in the ASC community. Winter course registration will begin soon. As an enticement to new members, we are offering pre-registration in one class. And to couples and friends who share a screen, we will be offering discounted tuition for winter term classes. During this challenging time, please renew your membership and consider giving to our fall appeal. Our community’s fiscal health depends on your membership dues and on your donations.

As we yearn to gather in person, let us sustain each other as members and learners in cyberspace. We will be able to schedule in person parties in the future, and we will be able to celebrate our member artists at a live event. And, we will have an outstanding 20^th anniversary celebration even it happens in our 21^st or 22^nd year!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Linda

Friday, November 20^th at 12 noon

Laura Lee, Maine Community Foundation Director of Grantmaking, will discuss lifelong/age-friendly communities in Maine and beyond, and highlight the foundation's efforts to change the conversation around aging.

Click for more information and to register.

Everyone who registers will receive the Zoom link

a day or two before the presentation.

ASC sponsored two wonderful presentations in October. If you missed either of these or want to watch again here are the links to the videos. I highly recommend both of them.

LifeFlight of Maine with Thomas Judge, Executive Director, gave an excellent presentation on the efforts of the folks providing critical care and medical transport, including several heartfelt stories from MDI.

Dr. Ed Liu, President and CEO of the Jackson Laboratory, discussed the biology of SARS CoV-2 and taught us about herd immunity, and the status of vaccines for this current coronavirus.

The deadline to submit Spring 2021 course proposals is November 20^th.

No, we haven't even registered for Winter classes yet, but now is the time to think about teaching in the spring. We anticipate that many classes will continue online, but there may be some creative alternatives - think outside the box!

Classes scheduled later in the spring could be held outdoors. Perhaps a combination of online teaching and outside activities could work, or how about an online class with field trips - see the next article.

Click here for the Course Proposal Form.

Jenna Beaulieu taught a wonderful online fall class called "Engines of Change: The Automobile's Impact on Women's Independence" that explored how women demanded more social and economic freedom through their use of the automobile. After the last class, students joined Jenna and Bill Barter, Curator of Collections, on a socially-distanced field trip to view the Seal Cove Auto Museum's 2020-2021 exhibit, "Engines of Change: A Suffrage Centennial" and see some of the cars we actually talked about in class. Plus, it was super nice to see people in person.

Jenna, Dorcas, John McDonagh (Executive Director), Candy, and Nat admiring a 1905 Pierce Great Arrow, an early limousine.

Candy at the wheel of the 1916 Saxon Model 14. In 1916 Nell Richardson, Alice Burke, and their kitten set off on a 10,000 mile cross-country trip in their Saxon automobile to promote women's suffrage.

Sugar's turn!

Along the way, the Nell and Alice stopped in New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and countless small towns along the way. They painted city names on the door of the car.

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.

You can also subscribe to the MSCN blog to receive notices for online presentations from all the senior colleges in Maine. (Click the Log In link to sign up.)

If you haven't used Zoom, are not yet confident, or just want a little more practice, we can help. Please call (207) 288-9500 or email [email protected] to set up a practice meeting.

Follow ASC on Facebook!