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LAS CRUCES - Fourteen years ago, a group of retired New Mexico State University faculty members founded the Academy for Learning in Retirement, a forum for lifelong learning and educational exploration. This spring, four intriguing programs will be offered on different topics including the truth about Africa today, the beauty of math and the beauty of, well, Elvis.
"We'd love to have more people from the community attending (the programs)," said Adrian Edwards, chairman of the board for the academy.
Edwards said, in general, about 90 or more people attend each presentation at the Good Samaritan Village Auditorium, for which there's a $5 fee (payable at the door) for non-members, $4 for members. A season's pass works out to about $3 per presentation, he said.
'Africa Today'
NMSU anthropology professors Miriam Chakein and W. Thomas Conelly say they will challenge "negative stereotypes" of Africa as a hopeless, impoverished place with little hope for change. Instead, they will discuss new strategies for introducing positive change.
"We're going to challenge the gloom and doom images that people tend to have," Chakein said. "To the extent that people think about Africa at all, they may see it as a place where nothing works, nothing can get better."
Chakein said she and Conelly, who worked and lived in Africa for many years, will split the lectures, but will both participate in the discussions.
"I've heard very good things (about the academy audiences),"
'The Beauty of Mathematics'
Math may not seem beautiful to most people, and NMSU math professors Patrick Morandi and David Pengelley understand that. Most people only get to see the "nuts and bolts" part of math - what Morandi calls the rough equivalent of learning only grammar rules and never experiencing the beauty of literature.
"It is a beautiful subject," Pengelley said. "We want to entice people to see mathematics differently."
Morandi said he will discuss the connection between math and art, focusing on the math behind M.C. Escher's famous art works. Pengelley will follow with the life story of Sophie German, a 19th century French mathematician whose work was instrumental in solving a problem that vexed mathematicians for 350 years. (Good news: It was solved in 1993.) Morandi will then hit the audience with the math of encryption, a centuries-old idea that has come to the fore in the age of Internet security. Pengelley will deliver the final twist with a lecture on topology, the study of the qualitative nature of shapes as they twist and turn with a side on the nature of holes.
Morandi hopes the series will present the "richness" of math. Pengelley, who said math is about seeing patterns, said anyone who is intrigued by patterns will be intrigued by math.
'The Heart and Soul of Popular Music'
Arthur Berkeley's academic specialty was labor relations, but his lifelong passion has been popular music, including Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Berkeley said he is fascinated by the wild improbability of the worldwide rise to stardom of each of these artists - and the way in which the commercial music industry makes hits out of the work of artisan musicians.
"The Beatles were a bar band from Liverpool," he said. "They were paired with a producer who had never done rock 'n' roll before. All of a sudden, they take over popular music worldwide. You can't make this up."
Berkeley said he has a special interest in the "trickster" Bob Dylan, who he said has never has given a straight answer in an interview. The 19-year-old dropout hitchhiked to New York City, slept under people's kitchen tables and ended up inventing a new form of music, folk-rock, he said.
The program will also cover Michael Jackson, he said.
'Behind the Camera'
For close to 50 years, New York native Alan Solomon has documented moments that have defined pivotal events in history, first through the lens of his Olympus camera, then, later, in the digital realm. His photos have been published in The New York Times, USA Today, Life Magazine, Newsweek, Time and People, to name just a few.
Beginning as a tabloid photographer in the early '60s, Solomon soon found his niche shooting everybody from the famous to the infamous. "Mafia hits, serial killers, famous people ... if they made news in the upstate New York area, I shot them," he said.
Solomon said he will show slides of 110 of his photos throughout the four-day presentation and will share the stories behind many of them. For example, after taking a picture of a homeless man and his dog in front of a Super8 motel - an image that was picked up nationwide on the Associated Press wire - Solomon said he got the man a room for the night.
He said he'll be talking about how photographers get access to stories, as well as the business of photojournalism.
"There will also be a lot of funny stories," he said. "I'm also going to talk about what I loved about it."
Jeff Barnet can be reached at (575) 541-5476. Freelance writer David Salcido contributed to this report.
If you go
•What: The Academy for Learning in Retirement, featuring new programs each month, lecture/discussion series - four sessions per program.
•Where: Auditorium, Good Samaritan Village.
•When: 10 to 10:30 a.m. coffee, 10:30 to noon program, days vary with class
•Cost: $5 per day for non-members, $4 for members.
Program schedule
•February: "Africa Today," by Miriam Chakein and W. Thomas Conelly, professors of anthropology, New Mexico State University: Monday, Wednesday and Feb. 14 and 16.
•March: "The Beauty of Mathematics, Old and New," by Patrick Morandi and David Pengelley, professors of mathematics, NMSU: March 1, 3, 8 and 10.
•April: "The Heart and Soul of Popular Music," by Arthur Berkeley, DBA George Washington University: April 5, 7, 12 and 14.
•May: "Behind a Camera: Views of a Photojournalist," by Alan Solomon: May 9, 11, 16 and 18.
