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:

During the spring semester, we have planned an expanded list of offerings on Zoom and at our Galloway, Hammonton, and Atlantic City campuses. Each course meets once a week for 4 weeks. Tuition for each 4-session SILL course is $45 (unless otherwise notified). Courses are FREE for residents 60 years old or older who live in Atlantic County. 
 

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:

SILL: Streams, Swamps and Spungs   Register HERE               
Professor Emma Witt  
Fridays, 4/5, 12, 19, & 26/2024, 2-3pm 
Galloway Campus, Room F-226 
Come explore the variety of water features we have on Stockton's Galloway campus. This class will visit a different place every week, including Lake Fred, the Cedar Swamp, the big vernal pond, and Lake Pam. Ability to walk moderate distances on uneven ground required. 
Emma Witt, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Environmental Sciences whose research focuses on Pinelands water quantity and quality. 
 
SILL: Chemistry Through Art    Register HERE 
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.
Sarah Gray, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of chemistry at Stockton. When not researching chemical oceanography, her hobbies include painting and fiber arts. 
 
SILL: The Conversation Project     Register HERE
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.
Christine Ferri, Ph.D., is assistant director of SCOSA and an associate professor of psychology at Stockton. She is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in aging and mental health. 

May:   

SILL: Critical Thinking Across Life     Register HERE
Adjunct Professor Jacques Press 
Fridays, 5/10, 17, 24, & 31, 2024, 11am-12pm 
Online via Zoom 
C
ritical 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.
Jacques Press is a long-time adjunct instructor at Stockton. He designed college coursework on critical thinking. Outside campus, he is involved in aviation operations analysis. Fluent in French, he leads an adult group that meets weekly online for language conversation.
 
Professor Guia Calicdan-Apostle 
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.
Guia Calicdan-Apostle is an associate professor of Social Work. She teaches primarily in the Master of Social Work program at Stockton University. She completed her doctorate in Social Work (Clinical Social Work) at the School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania and is currently a coordinator of the Victimology and Victim Services minor.
 
SILL: Teaching to Our Times    Register HERE  
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. 
Richard Miller, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Stockton University. 
 

June:

SILL: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way   Register HERE  
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. 
Lisa E. Cox, PhD, LCSW, MSW is professor of social work and gerontology in Stockton University’s School of Social & Behavioral Science, Social Work Program. 

         

 

 

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Stockton is an Equal Opportunity Institution