Stockton Institute for Lifelong Learning
SCOSA's Stockton Institute for Lifelong Learning (SILL) brings the best of Stockton's faculty to the community via short-courses (generally four 1-hour sessions) related to their teaching, scholarship, service, and interests. Space is limited, tuition is reasonable (free to Atlantic County residents who are 60 and older), and we hope to continually expand this programming that let you learn from and interact with Stockton’s accomplished faculty. For further information please contact Gina.Maguire@stockton.edu or Assistant Director Christine.Ferri@stockton.edu or call 609-652-4311 and leave a message.
Current SILL Programs:
March, April, May & June 2024 SILL Courses:
Click Here to View Stockton's February/March SILL Press Release
March:
SILL: Contemporary American Short Story Register HERE
Fridays, 3/8, 15, 22, & 29/2024, 2-3pm
Stockton University Room F-226, Professor Kristin Jacobson
Explore the diverse world of contemporary American short fiction by reading and discussing
two short stories per week. PDFs of the stories will be provided to participants.
Authors will include Lauren Groff, Ling Ma, Etaf Rum, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Nana Kwame
Adjei-Brenyah, Morgan Talty, Ben Marcus, and Colson Whitehead. Kristin Jacobson is a professor of American literature, American studies, and Women, Gender and Sexuality
Studies. She is the author of two literary criticism books.
SILL: Mediums & Mediumship: An Interdisciplinary Perspective Register HERE
Fridays, 3/1, 8, (skip 15), 22, & 29/2024, 3:30-4:30pm
Stockton University Room F-121, Professor Jennifer Lyke
This course covers mediums, people who purportedly receive messages from spirits,
and the practice of mediumship from historical, sociocultural, scientific, and psychological
perspectives. We will consider examples in popular culture, such as the Long Island
Medium, and evaluate evidence for and against the hypothesis that mediums communicate
with disembodied spirits. Jennifer Lyke, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist who has taught at Stockton for over twenty years. Her
research interests focus on altered states of consciousness.
SILL: Quilts: Storytellers of the United States Register HERE
Tuesdays, 3/19, 26 & 4/2, & 9/2024, 1:30-2:30pm
Online via Zoom, Professor Cynthia Arrieu-King
Through the practices of material culture, we will learn how to "read" the testimony of quilts from the United States. Four major periods will be discussed: civil war era, Gee's Bend and depression era, AIDS quilts, and the quilts of the disappeared. The effects of quilts and the cotton industry and machine quilting on daily life will also be examined. Cynthia Arrieu-King is a professor of creative writing in the Literature Program at Stockton University. She runs the international visiting writers series in the fall semester and her radio show The Last Word airs on 91.7 WLFR Lake Fred Radio.
April:
Galloway Campus, Room F-226
Professor Sarah Gray
Fridays, 4/5, 12, 19, & 26/2024, 3-4:30pm
Galloway Campus, Unified Science Center Room 154
This course will explore the chemical principles behind the creation and analysis of art. Students will work in a laboratory to produce several artwork pieces and investigate four main topics: properties of light, paints and pigments, dyes and fibers, and modern materials.
Professor Christine Ferri
Tuesdays, 4/9, 16, 23, 30/2024, 1:30-2:30pm
Online via Zoom
The Conversation Project helps people share their wishes about care through the end of life. This course will review the starter kit and their guide to choosing and to being a health care proxy. Discussions will focus on how to best share what matters most to you with your loved ones.
May:
Adjunct Professor Jacques Press
Fridays, 5/10, 17, 24, & 31, 2024, 11am-12pm
Online via Zoom
Critical thinking is a practical reasoning process derived from logic and psychology and used to decide what to believe and do in real life. Course audience will actively participate in exercises focused on ways to think clearly, techniques to handle logical obstacles, biases, and fallacies and exposure to deductive and inductive reasoning.
Wednesdays, 5/15, 22, 29, & 6/5/2024, 10-11am
May 15 & June 5 on Galloway Campus (Room TBD), May 22 & 29 on Zoom
Spirituality has a profound and compelling role in healing the mind and body. Those experiencing life’s challenges develop attributes that increase acceptance, reduce negative emotions, form meaningful relationships, and find life’s purpose. This session will explore ways to assess challenges of self in hopes of reconstructing a better understanding of health and healing as they intersect with spirituality. Some techniques will be introduced to benefit or enhance health e.g. meditation, reflective journaling.
Professor Richard Miller
Wednesdays, 5/15, 22, 29, & 6/5/2024, 1-2pm
Stockton University Galloway Campus, Room TBD
How do we improve daily life, feel good about ourselves, find happiness, build friendships and stay active and think positive? How can we live for today? This course discusses life issues, relationships, happiness, values and ethics, and other topics related to well-being and personal growth. Material is based upon research by Buscaglia, Pliskin, Twerski, and other psychologists and spiritual leaders.
June:
Professor Lisa E. Cox
Wednesdays, 6/5, 12, 19, & 26, 2024, 6-7pm
Online via Zoom
People find meaning and happiness in life through their connection with nature, places, service, relationships, community, and leisure. Exceptional longevity has been studied by many, including Dan Buettner who in 2004 coined the term “Blue Zones.” In this synchronous online zoom series, students will learn more about some “power 9 commonalities” (moving naturally with purpose and belonging) by exploring aging and spirituality aspects and qualities (diet, exercise, sense of community) that comprise a Blue Zone.
Stockton is an Equal Opportunity Institution