Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College
Fall 2025 Course Schedule
Registration will open on Tuesday, August 19 at 9:30 a.m.
Need help deciding what to sign up for?
- Many course description pages, linked through the course schedules below, include a video introduction from the instructor (coming by August 15). Click on the course names below for full descriptions and instructor bios.
- If a course is full, you can join the waiting list by calling 413-236-2190.
- Hiking classes have a separate registration page found here.
- Come to our Fall Open House and Information Session on August 26 at 10:00 a.m.
Where are classes held?
- Our schedule includes courses held online and in-person. See listings below for locations.
- All indoor spaces are ADA accessible.
Course cost:
- $60 for one class
- $110 for 2 classes
- $150 for 3 or more classes
Most courses held online are recorded so if you miss one, or your schedule doesn't work for a particular course, you can access the recordings and watch the class sessions on your own time. Note: in-person classes are not recorded.
(Note: you need to be an OLLI at BCC member to register for courses. Membership information can be found here.)
Also available this fall:
Online courses through Osher Online. This program is offered through the Osher National Resource Center (NRC) at Northwestern University. These classes are delivered by the Osher NRC via Zoom, with participants from all over the country. These courses are not recorded. Registration is separate from our fall courses.
2025 Fall Semester Course Schedule
-- Click on the course names below for full descriptions and instructor bios. --
See a printable .pdf of the Fall 2025 course schedule.
Monday
Instructors: Charlotte Hood and Taylor Staubach | This course will offer naturalist interpretation relevant to what is seen in the Berkshire outdoors. The sessions will focus on the natural and cultural history of the Berkshires. Participants will be given a chance to put their learning to use during the in-person portion of the class. This hybrid class will take place on Zoom and in-person with two on-trail visits. |
Instructor: Pamela Quirinale | This is the sequel to “Learn to Paint a Landscape” offered in Fall 2024, and we welcome beginners, as well as returners from the last season. Because…there is more to learn! In this class, we will cover adding buildings, learning about perspective, and even discussing features of local historic houses. |
Instructor: Kathleen Duguay |
Dante’s Divine Comedy is one of the most celebrated literary works of world literature. Dante creates a persona of himself as a pilgrim who travels on an arduous journey through hell, purgatory and heaven in search of redemption. In this course, we will read and discuss the first half of Purgatorio which deals with the second part of Dante’s journey toward redemption.
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Day: Mondays | Today's Headlines is a moderated discussion course that provides an opportunity to voice your opinions on national and international issues. Serving as a guide and provocateur, the moderator will introduce selected topics drawn from a variety of newspapers and the internet. Lively discussion is the centerpiece of this course. |
Instructor: Ralph Pearson | The course examines the lives and works of the most important Post-Impressionist artists. Beginning with an introduction to their "movement" and comparison with Impressionism, we move to Neo-Impressionists and Pointillists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, continuing to Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. |
Tuesday |
Instructor: Roxanne McCaffrey | This course is designed to teach the basics of knitting, allowing the learner to advance at their own pace. Learners will be working on a small project designed to use a variety of techniques including how to “read” one’s knitting and correct mistakes. |
Instructor: Phil Deely |
This class is part of OLLI's Rev250 Project celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. |
This six-session seminar
will examine critical issues in the development of American foreign policy from
its origins in the colonial world until today. Instructor: Dale Scalise-Smith | This course will educate participants about body systems involved in balance and factors that impact balance risk, will introduce exercises and modifications to impact environments to positively influence balance, and help participants define their own path to successful aging. |
Instructor: Amy Whitworth Limit: 15 | Uncertainty is the foundation of human existence, and yet, at every moment we must choose, not knowing if it is the right choice or how it will play out in our lives. How do we find meaning? Existentialism asks fundamental questions of meaning and choice as they affect persons as individuals. In this course we will read and discuss some key texts of existentialist philosophers including Soren Kierkegaard, Frederich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus. |
Instructor: Mary Rogers | Explore how Chaucer, ever the destabilizing narrator, mingles tragedy with comedy, politics with philosophy, and deference to authority with subversive creativity to construct the dramatic arc of his masterpiece “from woe to weal, and after out of joy”. |
Wednesday |
Instructor: Phil McKnight |
This class is part of OLLI's Rev250 Project celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. |
Instructor: Laycolaion Freeman | In Practical Self Defense for Active Older Adults you will learn knowledge and skills to stay safe and confident in any situation. This course is specifically designed for active older adults and focuses on practical, easy-to-learn self-defense techniques tailored to your unique abilities and needs. |
Instructor: Noel Staples Freeman Limit: 20 | This course offers a welcoming space for active older adults to explore the foundational rhythms and movements of African-rooted dance. |
Instructor: Lou-Ellen Barkan
Location: Zoom |
Review the elements of storytelling to
transform your story into one that connects with readers. As we work together,
we will share and critique each other's work and, at our last session, explore
opportunities for publication. The world is waiting for our stories. Let's
start here!
Please note this class will not be recorded. |
Instructor: Ken Stark |
We will listen to
compositions which were crafted as a result of the personal, professional, or
political impact significant events in history had on composers, and how they
memorialized those in their music. Who, what, where, when, and why these pieces
were composed, will be explored.
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Instructors: Anne Stuart |
Narrative nonfiction blends
journalistic reporting with storytelling techniques commonly used in fiction,
such as character development, scenes, and dialogue. In this course, we’ll read
and discuss articles, essays, and book excerpts by writers such as Truman
Capote, Meghan Daum, Erik Larson, and Isabel Wilkerson. No student writing will
be required.
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Thursday |
Instructor: Ilene Richard | This class will focus on perspective, balance, and form as it relates to composition. You will learn to train your eye on seeing to take your work from sketch to finished drawing. There will be still life set ups, drawing outdoors, or a photo of choice. |
Instructor: Nancy Bonvillain 9/18, 9/25, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23, 10/30 Location: Zoom | This course examines current movements of Indigenous Peoples worldwide to assert their rights to lands, resources, and cultural practices and it stresses the resilience and resistance of Indigenous communities to protect their sovereignty. |
Instructor: Nancy Seguin | We will step off the beaten path and into the rich stories and scenic trails of the Berkshires. Our hiking journey combines the beauty of nature with local history as we explore three to four miles of easy to moderate level trails each week. |
Instructor: Katherine Kidd |
This class is part of OLLI's Rev250 Project celebrating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. |
Instructor: Patricia Kennedy | We will consider Indigenous literature of the Northeast through a sampling of fiction, poetry, essays, and historical accounts, with a focus on the roles of storytelling, community, and the land. Authors will include: Joseph Bruchac, Cheryl Savageau, and Morgan Talty. |
Instructor: Markes Johnson | This course looks at the physical evidence for storm deposits of exceptional size from the Pliocene warm period and the last inter-glacial epoch roughly 125,000 years ago. In the northern hemisphere, such deposits are well studied along the shores of Mexico’s Gulf of California as well as islands such as the Azores in the North Atlantic. The physical dynamics of recent hurricanes are reviewed for further insight on where and how coastal impact is most expected. |
Friday |
Instructor: Jim McKairnes | The first television network, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC celebrates its centennial next year. This fast-moving, memory-stirring, discussion-heavy course shines a spotlight on key program innovations and key figures from the network's storied history. |
Instructors: Larry Bennet and Amy Whitworth 9/19, 9/26, 10/3, 10/10, 10/17
Location: In-person at various locations |
We will explore properties
of the Columbia Land Conservancy and Hudson Taconic Lands with a variety of
landscapes that include rushing waters, rolling grassland, and majestic 360-degree
views.
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Instructor: Hank Gold | Join us to discuss science news appearing in the Tuesday “Science Times” section of The New York Times, plus magazines and journals. |
Facilitator: Richard Matturro | Three hundred years after Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, George Bernard Shaw wrote Caesar and Cleopatra,to correct Shakespeare’s distorted characters and his faulty and romantic view of human motivation . In class, besides discussing all three plays, we will also have the rare opportunity to view the 1976 film of Caesar and Cleopatra starring Alec Guinness and Geneviève Bujold in the title roles. |
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Please note that you must be an OLLI at BCC member and have created a login account to register for classes online. How to create a login account. You can register by phone from 9:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m. Eastern at 413.236.2190.
OLLI: the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College |
