Course Catalog OLLI@UGA
January through June 2014 The World Around Us Looking forward to the blooming of spring and appreciating the beauty of the season leads to consideration of the environment that makes it possible. OLLI’s spring curriculum with 13 ecology-themed courses provides an opportunity to explore the health of Mother Nature, as well as the rewards of her bounty.
administrator Suki Janssen and including field trips to the ACC landfill and recycling facility. What happens to all that waste is a mystery to many, but Janssen explains that recycled items become raw material for manufacturing new products. “One example is that many plastic water and soft drink bottles are recycled into carpet, right here in the state of Georgia.”
“Many of us are interested in the environment, in the impact we humans are having on the rest of nature, in the pollution of our planet, in the ways we can live more sustainably in the future,” says curriculum director Dr. Betty Jean Craige.
According to Janssen, “Here in Athens, recycling seems to work as we receive about 80 tons of recovered material a day at a profit of about $10/ton and employ over 50 folks locally.” Other OLLI courses in the ecology field cover a range of subjects including climate change, energy sources, gardening and health. The spring curriculum also includes academic subjects, the arts, fitness and finance.
One contentious issue in Georgia and neighboring states is Atlanta’s water usage from Lake Lanier, created when Buford Dam was completed in 1957 on the Chattahoochee River, which then flows on to Alabama and Florida. Lake Lanier is regulated by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. “This has actually been in court since 1990 and the dispute was going on before then,” explains Dr. Jim Kundall, whose course, Water: Being Neighborly—Georgia’s Interstate Water Tiffs, Disagreements, Disputes and Wars, focuses on the complex legal and environmental conflicts involved. Kundell served as Georgia General Assembly science advisor for 30 years and is chairman of the Environmental Advisory Board to the chief of the Corps of Engineers.
“We offer OLLI members the opportunity to choose among 144 courses selected to appeal to our many different interests,” Craige says. “Is 144 too many? I say, No. Not for 1,000 OLLI members eager to stay intellectually lively. OLLI is our college. We want to study what we have never had time to study before.”
What’s Inside? Course listing by category
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“Although we have been in court for over 20 years, we have never gone to the Supreme Court, which is the court for interstate disputes,” Kundell says. “Alabama sued other interests but not the State of Georgia; now the governor of Florida says it will file for the Supreme Court, which takes it up a notch.” At the present time, the Corps of Engineers is developing an operations plan, which has not been updated for 15 years, and that will determine what happens next. “We are letting the Corps do its job and we’ll go by that.”
Alphabetical listing of presenters
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Alphabetical course listing with descriptions
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Another subject that is close to home is Recycling: Digging Deep into Your Trash Bin, led by ACC waste reduction
Monthly Calendar with courses Alphabetical course listing with schedule
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OLLI@UGA - Membership Form
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Course registration and payment form
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Travel/Study registration payment form
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OLLI@UGA - Maps
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