Jessica Birthisel | June 20, 2010
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| Photo by Brian Buckey |
| Assistant professor Lesa Hatley Major led a class at the 2008 Mini U. This year, five journalism professors will teach. |
Hosted by the IU Alumni Association and IU Bloomington Continuing Studies, the sold-out event allows about 500 participants to attend up to 15 classes out of more than 100 choices. Courses are on campus, many at the Indiana Memorial Union. In its 39th year, Mini U often draws repeat students who enjoy classes as well as campus life for a week.
IU faculty volunteer their time. The journalism faculty members are Professor Emeritus Peter Jacobi on “Letters and Notes—Composers in Words and Music”; associate dean of graduate studies Shannon Martin on “Newspapers in a Paperless World”; associate professor Claude Cookman on “20-20 Photographic Vision”; associate professor Owen Johnson on “Ernie Pyle: World War II Hoosier Correspondent”; and assistant professor Hans Ibold on “The Year in Dissent: Social Media and Social Movements from Texas to Tehran.”
Jacobi’s talks are popular favorites, according to the School of Continuing Studies, which has awarded him its Teaching Excellence Award for his development and teaching of lifelong learning courses in opera and classical music. Often, students sign up for his session summer after summer.
Jacobi, who continues to review the Bloomington-area classical music scene in his (Bloomington) Herald-Times columns, changes his topic each year but not his approach.
“We’ll spend most of the time listening to music or watching footage,” he said of the class structure.
Students look at the comments, letters and statements crafted by composers themselves and how they relate to their music. For example, topics include Mozart’s telling of his composition method and how this is evidenced in his The Magic Flute. Additionally, he’ll explore Giuseppe Verdi’s reaction to censorship, particularly in relation to his opera, Rigoletto, known for its controversial characters and subject matter.
Though the content is important, Jacobi says that Mini University instructors seek to do more than just pass content information on to students.
“The key is to enlighten, inspire and entertain them,” he said.
Given the students, Jacobi said this isn’t difficult.
“It’s a wonderful audience, who come desirous of being engulfed in a subject for hours,” said Jacobi. “They respond enthusiastically.”
Martin will present this year for the first time. Her topic considers how the function of papers has changed over time, one of her research areas. She, too, is developing her talk for the audience.
“It seemed that this was a good opportunity to practice instruction to a different group of students,” said Martin, “a demographic that may be unaware, despite living through it, of changes in newspaper production and who may be unhappy with changes in newspaper distribution.”
Martin has observed that younger, more traditional university students are submerged in digital culture, making them perhaps less interested in the topic than the older Mini University students, students she believes may be resistant to changes happening in media production and distribution.
She will use the old papers from her own collection to demonstrate that there have been format changes in the newspaper over the years, but that the function remained largely the same.
“When you focus on function rather than format, you get less concerned about changes in format,” said Martin.
Registration is closed to the sold-out event. Learn more about Mini University at the IUAA website.
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