The Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) is a community-based organization of retirement-age people, who share a love of learning. At its heart is an academic program designed by its members and taught by knowledgeable instructors.
Please note some courses are four weeks, some eight weeks, and the dates vary. Some courses offer a Zoom option, all are available for attendance in person on campus.
Formation and evolution of the Moon and Mars
DATES: Each Monday, March 23 - April 13
TIME: 3 - 5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas 124, Marietta College Campus or ZOOM
FEE: $15 (4-Week Class)
PRESENTER: Andrew Beck, Gilde-Grosse Distinguished Professor of Science and Chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Marietta College; Dr. Beck is a CO-I on the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, has been involved with several past NASA missions to the inner planets.
DESCRIPTION: Have you ever looked up at the Moon and wondered ‘how did that form, and what’s with those lighter and darker areas?’, or when reading about Mars thought ‘was there ever life on Mars? How do we know and how did it get there?’. If so, this class is for you! This class will cover everything you ever wanted to know about these two rocky inner Solar System bodies and their geologic evolution through time. We will utilize hands on examination of geologic materials, along with analysis of NASA images and remote sensing data from the Moon and Mars.
Spilling the Tea at Buckingham Palace: The Lives, Loves and Times of England’s Queens, Consorts and Princesses from Victoria to Catherine
DATES: Each Tuesday, March 17 – April 14 (skip March 24)
TIME: 3–5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas Hall 124 or ZOOM
FEE: $15 (4-week course)
PRESENTER: Melissa Bannister, BA, WV Wesleyan College; MALL, Marietta College and Jayne Whitlow, BA Glenville College; MA WVU.
DESCRIPTION: From the grandmother of Europe to the Princess with the common touch, we will delve into those women who have influenced the Houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Windsor-Mountbatten with their beauty, intelligence and, let’s face it, sex appeal! In addition, with each biography comes a special teatime treat especially curat
From Celebration to Sorrow: The Music of the Civil War
DATES: Each Wednesday, March 25 – April 15
TIME: 3–5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas 124, Marietta College Campus or ZOOM
FEE: $15 (4-Week Class)
PRESENTER: Steve Ball, a musician from Columbus, Ohio, who specializes in the music of the American Civil War. He has released two CD’s featuring the music of the Civil War and the life of Stephen Foster.
DESCRIPTION: The course will trace pre-war and civil war events through music. First, the dawn of minstrel music and the effect it had on the country at the time. This will include the development of instruments seen regularly in civil war army camps. Stephen Foster will be highlighted, showing how his music developed. Then, the course will explore the patriotic music that drove the spirit of both armies as the war began. Additionally, the course will address the music that touches the heart — focusing on the songs from home, songs inspired by, written by and performed by women of the time. Finally, looking at the music at the end of the war, examining songs that reflect the loss the country had experienced.
Moves Poets Make: Poetry as a Game
DATES: Each Thursday, March 26 – April 30
TIME: 3–5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas 124, Marietta College Campus or ZOOM
FEE: $25 (6-Week Class)
PRESENTER: Mark VonKennell, graduate of Ohio University and retired teacher of Language Arts for 41 years at Fort Frye High School.
DESCRIPTION: This class is for readers who find poems puzzling, and are intrigued. And readers who expect poetry to be a cooperative game played by poets and their readers. Some of the rules are thousands of years old — older than paper and ink — when epic stories were memorized and performed for audiences who had already worked hard enough and just wanted to be entertained. The rules evolved with the advent of the printed page — when poems became artifacts to be studied and admired. Poetry had to be clever to impress this new, literate audience, so the rules became sophisticated. The class will trace the evolution of playing the game of poetry, a performance that includes Beowulf and “Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko Ko Bop.” Participants are encouraged to play around with the rules for themselves. Spoiler alert: just like Calvin Ball, we have always made our own rules as we go.
Charisma in American History: From the Puritans to Donald Trump
DATES: Each Friday, March 27 – May 1
TIME: 3–5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas Hall 124 on the Marietta College Campus or ZOOM
FEE: $25 (6-week class)
PRESENTER: Ted Goertzel, PhD, retired Rutgers professor.
DESCRIPTION: Charisma is a relationship between leader and follower. It reflects the human need to explain and control unseen forces, and the power of an all-encompassing, empowering story to make people do things for the storyteller. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Mary Baker Eddy, Martin Luther King, the Black nationalists, Angela Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump and Zohan Mamdani, the saga of American charisma stars figures who possess an alluring and sometimes dangerous power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama where hopes are fulfilled and grievances are put right. Textbook: Molly Worthen, Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History.
Special Event: Author Talks
DATES: April 20, 21, 22, and 27, 28, 29
TIME: 3–5 p.m.
LOCATION: Thomas Hall 124 on the Marietta College Campus or ZOOM
FEE: $15 - registration for Special Event: Author Talks includes all six sessions; you may attend as many as you wish
You can buy the books on Amazon and bring them to class for the author to sign if you want an autographed copy.
Monday, April 20
The Process of Researching and Writing Non-Fiction.
Bil Kerrigan. Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History, Johns Hopkins University Press. 2012.
DESCRIPTION: This book weaves together the stories of the Old World apple in America and the life/myth of John Chapman (with his roots in Washington County and travels in Ohio). Dr. Kerrigan, newly retired Arthur G. and Eloise Barnes Cole Distinguished Professor of American History, Muskingum College, is a historian of Appalachian Ohio. His writing has focused on local and regional subjects. He has delivered more than fifty public talks on Johnny Appleseed and the history of the apple in America at libraries, universities, and historical societies across the state. His latest book, *West Virginia's War* (Ohio University Press, June 2025), examines the story of the one state created during the Civil War.
Tuesday, April 21
Writing Historical Biography: Tracing the Process of Researching, Reflecting, and Writing.
Diana Pabst Parsell. Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Tree, Oxford University Press, 2023.
DESCRIPTION: Inspired by her love of Japanese culture, Eliza Scidmore nursed a vision of creating a cherry blossom park on the banks of the Potomac in her adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. The men in charge of the city's public land balked—but she persisted. Finally, with the backing of First Lady Helen Taft, Scidmore saw her dream become a reality with the 1912 planting of 3,000 cherry trees donated by the Japanese.
Ms. Parsell, a native of Marietta and a graduate of Marietta College, is a writer, editor and former journalist in the Washington, D.C., area. Her book Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington’s Cherry Tree (Oxford University Press, 2023) was featured by NBC’s “Today Show” and was a finalist for the 2024 Society of Midland Authors’ biography award. After starting her 40-year editorial career at National Geographic, Diana also worked for other publications and science organizations in Washington and Southeast Asia. In an outgrowth of her book research, she volunteers as a docent for public tours of the Library of Congress. Visit her website at www.dianaparsell.com.
Wednesday, April 22
Collaborative Writing. The pleasures and challenges of working with other writers.
Editors: Vicki Wilson and Debbie Phillips. Gambling and Gender: Men and Women at Play, Peter Lang, NY, 2009
There are two distinct strands in the literature on gambling: one that focuses on how to play and win the various games of chance, and one that focuses on gambling compulsion and addiction. Gambling and Gender forges a new direction, studying gambling as more communication than compulsion, more recreation than deviance, more sociology than psychology.
Vicki Wilson is an educational consultant who has served as Accreditation Mentor for the Ohio Department of Education, as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in Education at Muskingum University, and as chair of the Education Department at Wilmington University. She is the founding co-editor of the Ohio Journal of Teacher Education and the ejournal for Student Teachers and New Teachers. She has co-authored the book Building on Student Diversity.
Debbie Phillips, retired Associate Professor in Communication at Muskingum University, is the Gender and Media Studies Planner for Popular Culture Association. Her latest book, Metal Music, Masculinity and Mass Shootings, (2025) explores the complex world of heavy metal concerts and hypermasculinity.
Monday, April 27
Living the research: Non-fiction and adapting to world changes.
Richard Arnold, Russian Nationalism and Ethnic Violence: Symbolic Violence, Lynching, Pogrom and Massacre (Europa Country Perspectives) Routledge Taylor and Friends, London, NY, 2016
Russian Nationalism brings hate crimes in Russia into the study of ethnic violence and examines the social undercurrents that have led to Putin’s embrace of nationalism. It adds to the growing body of English language scholarship on Russia’s nationalist turn in the post-Cold War era, and will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand not only why different forms of ethnic violence occur, but also the potential trajectory of Russian politics in the next 20 years.
Richard Arnold, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Muskingum University. is the author of Russian Nationalism and Ethnic Violence: Symbolic Violence, Lynching, Pogrom, and Massacre (2016, Routledge) and a member of the PONARS Eurasia network. His work has appeared in numerous journals and book series, including Post-Soviet Affairs, Theoretical Criminology, Problems of Post Communism, Nationalities Papers, PS: Political Science and Politics, Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Oxford Handbook on the Radical Right. He was guest co-editor (with Andrew Foxall, Henry Jackson Institute [London]) on special editions of a journal on the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the FIFA 2018 World Cup.
Tuesday, April 28
The unintentional author walking through hometown history.
Jann K. Adams. Behind the Doors of Historic Marietta. Self-Published 2011.
German Marietta and Washington County, ArcadiaPublishing 2016.
When a tourist was asked why he made an annual pilgrimage to Marietta, he opened his arms, looked to the sky and responded, “Ah, I just like the way it makes me feel.” Marietta, known as the first American settlement in the Northwest Territory, has always had its share of tourists who seemed to be endeared to the lasting antiquity with the ambiance of the brick streets, Victorian Era buildings and homes, historical markers, and the waterfront. A walk around town often leaves more questions than answers as buildings and spaces hold historical mysteries to the modern observer. This class will be two-fold in the publishing of local history. First, we will examine the critical thinking skills and methods, and use of appropriate research sources that all writers of history are expected to follow. Second, examples from the author’s two books will be used to demonstrate the process.
Jann K. Adams is a local historian, frequent instructor in ILR, Marietta tour guide, presenter, and has submitted articles to The Tallow Light and The Marietta Times. Both books are available locally at Campus Martius, The Castle, Wit
Wednesday, April 29
Writing Fiction, Writing to support a Foundation, and Self- Publishing.
Beth Burlingame, From a Kill Pen to a Penthouse, Paperback – February 4, 2025
by Beth Burlingame (Author), Megan Cardet (Author)
Forrest, the Barn Manager Trainee, is a mini horse that leads adult readers on a frolicking good time in his barn. The laughter outweighs the tears as he introduces his barn mates who are equine rescues like himself. You race through the pasture gate into their fun-loving world that knows when to be serious, helpful, shed tears, and show kindness, but mostly creates tons of laughter. This book champions A Place for Peanut, a non-profit equine rescue and sanctuary for healing horses and people. All proceeds from this book go to A Place for Peanut, a 501c3.
Beth Burlingame was a journalist in the Navy. Over the years she has worked as a journalist/photographer, general writer and playwright. Her career included newspapers, radio, and employment at Ms. Magazine for seven years. Making a slight career change, she spent 20 years in senior management at a general hospital. Later, she began a videography company specializing in TV/radio commercials and industrial documentaries. She is a graduate of the US Naval Journalist School. She attended Southern Indiana University, Indiana State University, HB Studios, and West Liberty University. Currently
Registration Instructions
If the course you choose includes a Zoom option, you will be asked whether you prefer to attend in person or on Zoom. You can switch between Zoom and in-person from one week to the next if you like.
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Make checks payable to Institute for Learning in Retirement.
Mail form and check to:
Institute for Learning in Retirement
Jane Murray
515 4th Street, Marietta, OH 45750
REFUND POLICY: Full refunds will be given for any class that a student has paid for and withdraws from up to the Friday before the class begins. No refunds will be made after a class begins. If a student has paid for a book purchased by ILR, the cost of the book will not be refunded. To withdraw, please notify ILR by e-mail at mariettacollegeilr@gmail.com.