Utah Westerners

Want to Teach at Osher Institute?

July 1, 2009 at 11:41 pm kenttschanz Leave a comment

I received the following email from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the U. They are looking for instructors to teach history courses–may be a good opportunity to share your love of history. If you want me to send you the attachments he mentions, contact me. Or contact him directly.
–Kristen

Let me introduce myself, I’m Ed Svikhart who has recently been asked to serve on the curriculum committee of the Osher Institute for the purpose of enlarging the history offerings. It was suggested I be in touch with the Westerners who may have interest in teaching a course on western history. More about Osher in the enclosures.

There is significant interest in Osher participants in history offerings ranging from American history to western history and women and men in western/Utah history. The Osher Institute has enjoyed the participation of current and former faculty members from the University of Utah, history buffs from many diverse careers and backgrounds and now Westminster history professors are indicating an interest in participating. My efforts are directed toward expanding and enriching the offerings, increasing the cardre of instructors, and bringing instructors to the program with difering perspectives, knowledge and backgrounds who can engage the participants.

So as to acquaint you with the program and some of the courses I’ve included some attachments. These include:
First an “Information Sheet” providing general information,
Second, a “Course Proposal”,
Third, Email announcing Spring Term, and
Fourth, the spring and winter 2009 catalogues
The Osher program at the university currently has in the neighborhood of 600 participants. These are senior citizens who participate in classes that meet for six sessions of one and one half hours each. They are essentially very short courses, so to speak, in various subjects. It is a “tri-term ” program with classes in the fall, winter and spring. The participants come from diverse backgrounds and have, in my opinion, a very healthy appetite to learn. They are for the most part inquisitive and on many occasions quite stimulating. It is a somewhat different class culture in that the class is made of mature adults seeking to further their knowledge. Based on surveys following the spring term and as mentioned above there is a very strong interest in history offerings and we would like to enrich the program with more history.

Most recently our cirriculum committee met and began planning the winter term of one lecture/ a week over a six week period commencing January 11th and continuing through February 19th in 2010.

I look forward to hearing from you and visiting with you and learning of the potential interest of members of Westerners in teaching, answering questions. .

Should you wish to contact me, my email is eghart@msn.com or my phone is 801 281 5785. I greatly appreciate your possible interest in Westerners participating.

Ed Svikhart

Entry filed under: Events and Opportunities.