Instructors
Mike Adelman, retired Fayetteville businessman, has lived in Arkansas since 2000. A member of the Ozark Society and the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, he is sensitive to the need for responsible development balanced with conservation and preservation of natural resources for today and tomorrow. Mike is an active and frequent biker and hiker; he frequently leads hikes for the Ozark Society to educate the public on the special place we call home – Arkansas.
Mike Adelman teaches:
The Natural State’s Most Natural Wonders
Parvez Ahmed completed his Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing with a minor in Management Information Systems from the University of Houston, his MA in Near Eastern Studies from Wayne State University, and his Juris Doctor from the University Of Arkansas School Of Law. He was an Articles Editor for the U of A School of Law Journal of Islamic Law and Culture from 2006-2008. He is an Adjunct Instructor for King Fahd Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. He speaks 4 languages and has traveled extensively throughout the US and Canada, Pakistan, and the Middle East. These experiences afford him the ability to interact with and relate to a broad diversity of people. He has previously taught Survey of Islamic Civilization with the Osher Institute.
Parvez F. Ahmed teaches:
Survey of Islamic Civilization
Dr. Jules Beck, Assistant Professor, UA College of Education
Jules Beck is an Assistant Professor at the U of A. He grew up in a small business retail environment and has taught courses in sales training, customer service training, professional sales management, and marketing and promotion. He has been involved with flea marketing since the 1980s, selling since 1990, and has had various collections of his own since childhood.
Dr. Jules Beck teaches:
Anatomy of a Peace Corps: The Early Days
Lynn Berkowitz, the Director of Education at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, is working with colleagues and regional partners to envision and position exceptional learning experiences within the community, at the Museum’s temporary site - Crystal Bridges at the Massey – in preparation for when the Museum opens to the public in 2010. Plans are underway to develop an array of programming for lifelong learners of all ages. Lynn has worked in museums since 1989 and has taught studio art, art history and art educations courses at colleges in addition to the practice of museum education.
Lynn Berkowitz teaches:
Our Great American Landscape - Through Children’s Book Illustrations
Color Play: Josef Albers and the Study of Color
Dr. Malcolm Cleaveland, Professor Emeritus of Geography
Dr. Malcolm Cleaveland is a Professor in the department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas. He has been affiliated with the University of Arkansas since 1983. He teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems: Intro to GIS; Tree-ring Applications to Environmental Research, Conservation of Natural Resources.
Dr. Cleaveland's interests include the origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres and examination of the great differences between the Earth, Venus and Mars as a way of determining what the most important influences are that shape planetary environments. His primary research field is paleoclimatology and paleoclimatic reconstruction through high resolution proxies of climate, especially, in the case of the Earth, tree rings.
Dr. Malcolm Cleaveland teaches:
Global Climate Change: Coming to a Planet Near You
Bio coming soon...
Cindi Cope teaches:
Native Plants Bio Diversity
Ellen Compton received her M.A. in history from the University of Arkansas and was an instructor in the History Department at the U of A from 1963-1976. From 1980 to the present, she has worked as an archivist with the Special Collections Department of the University of Arkansas Libraries. Her primary responsibility is with the papers of architect Fay Jones as well as manuscript processor, reading room supervisor, field archivist, and development officer. Ellen is currently the President of the Oversight Board of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the archival chair for Ozark Society, and a member of the Board of Arkansas Women’s History Institute. She has written in several publications and entries for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. She has also given many presentations from 1980-2007 on Arkansas’s history and literature at numerous meetings for school groups and clubs.
Ellen Compton teaches:
Arkansas’s Most Influential Architect: Fay Jones
Angela DeLille joined the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Arkansas staff in September 2002. As Director of Governmental Affairs, she helps develop and implement State Chamber/AIA legislative strategies at both the state and national level.
Angela represents the positions of the two organizations on issues related to, and focusing on, the enhancement of a quality business climate in Arkansas before numerous government entities, including the legislature, the governor's office and various state agencies, committees and boards.
At the national level, she works with the State Chamber/AIA National Affairs Committee to develop the annual National Affairs Agenda and works with a variety of organizations to improve the Nation’s business climate.
Angela is based in Northwest Arkansas and works out of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. She works closely with local business lobbyists and Northwest Arkansas members of the General Assembly, as well as local chambers of commerce.
Angela graduated cum laude from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville where she received a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration in transportation and logistics. Before joining the State Chamber/AIA, she was the Assistant Traffic and Logistics Manager for AllChem Industries, Industrial Chemicals Group, Inc., in Gainesville, Florida.
Angela is on the advisory committee for the Arkansas Governor’s Family Friendly Initiative and has served on the advisory board of the Salvation Army Central Arkansas Area Command. She serves as an officer of a Political Action Committee - the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce PAC. Angela is a member of the Arkansas Society of Association Executives and the Arkansas Society of Professional Lobbyists.
A Washington County native, Angela lives in Rogers with her husband, Justin, and their son, Jackson.
Angela DeLille teaches:
Insider Insights: Presidential Election 2008
Wendy Florick has lived in Fayetteville for 7 years. She is a speech/language pathologist at the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative where she specializes in working with preschoolers with autism and other speech/language disorders. She currently leads a book group that she has been with for 5 years. She has participated in book groups in several states since 1992. She is married and has a teenaged daughter.
Wendy Florick teaches:
The OLLI Book Club
Robert Ford is a novelist and playwright with an extensive background in classical music and theatre. His growing body of work has been well-received on both sides of the Atlantic by readers, theatre-goers, and critics. He's received numerous awards, including two from the Texas Institute of Letters, a Stanley Drama Award, a James Fellowship, a James A. Michener Fellowship, and a fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Ford lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he directs the Arkansas Playwrights Workshop, is playwright-in-residence at Theatre Squared, and occasionally finds time to perform with the North Arkansas Symphony. His wife, actor & director Amy Herzberg, is professor of drama at the University of Arkansas.
Before turning to theatre and fiction writing, Ford attended Manhattan School of Music for two years, completed his Bachelors in English from Principia College in Illinois, and received his Master of Music degree from Yale School of Music, where he studied with flutist Thomas Nyfenger. He went on to win Second Prize in the 1983 Koussevitzky Competition, compete in the International Flute Competition in Paris, perform on the McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase on WQXR in New York, and in recital at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter auditorium, among other venues. While at Yale he enrolled in the noted conducting pedagogue Otto-Werner Mueller’s introductory class, and studied composition with Roger Reynolds, Martin Bresnick and Jacob Druckman.
Ford drew heavily on his early experiences as a classical musician while writing The Student Conductor, in which a young American flees to West Germany in 1989 to study with an aging conductor, a brilliant teacher who jealously guards his pre-war past. He falls in love with a recent defector from East Germany, a musician with her own dark secrets, all while the Berlin Wall crumbles in the background.
Besides his graduate degree in music, Ford holds an MFA in Acting from Rutgers and another MFA in Playwriting & Screenwriting from the Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas at Austin.
Robert Ford teaches:
"Moonlight, Magnolias and Madness"
Orchestrating, Understanding: An exploration of “The Student Conductor”
Joel Giarrusso
Joel Giarrusso retired from the FBI 3 years ago. She was fortunate to get a transfer to Fayetteville 13 years ago, when her twin sons were 3 years old. They moved from Chicago, where she had worked for 10 years. She is originally from New Orleans, and much of her family is still there, although her mother, brother and sister live in the Baton Rouge area. Her husband, Malcolm Sharp, was a social worker in Chicago, a house husband for many years here in Fayetteville, and is currently a school bus driver.
Joel likes to garden, practice yoga, and read, although 3 years after retirement, she still doesn't find the time she'd like to relax and read. They travel every spring to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest, and she is proud to say her sons have never missed one. She and her husband love to travel and hope to do more when they become empty nesters. For now, they couldn't be happier to live in a place like Fayetteville.
Joel Giarrusso teaches:
Just the facts – FBI
Kristine Hall is an RN with a MS degree, 20 years of yoga practice, and 25 years as a health care practitioner. She has taught yoga classes in Prairie Grove as well as substituted at Episcopal Church class in Fayetteville.
Kristine Hall teaches:
Yoga
As an Arkansas certified teacher, Lorraine Harper has taught art in public schools for the last 15 years. As an art teacher active with the Arkansas Art Educators, she has taught workshops for other teachers as well as volunteer classes at the Jones Center.
She enjoys our beautiful Ozark Mountains that she adopted as her home 35 years ago. She likes to share with people her knowledge of a variety of crafts such as acid etching, basket weaving, copper enameling, and clay work!
Lorraine has two grown sons and is expecting her first grandchild this November. Life is change and change is growth. She enjoys many outdoor activities including gardening, hiking, camping, canoeing, scuba diving, and traveling. She hopes that by participating in OLLI she can give back a little to her community and have some fun!
Lorraine Harper teaches:
Batik
Acid Etching
Vivian Hill has been a member of The Applied Sustainability Center staff since October 2007. She has a broad-based business background in electronics manufacturing and distribution, magazine subscription management, and human resources management. Vivian attended the University of Arkansas from 1976-1979, and received the Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Dallas. An avid “home environmentalist” since the very early 90s, Vivian is very happy to be working with a team dedicated to helping businesses prosper through the adoption of sustainable practices.
Vivian Hill teaches:
Kitchen Sustainability
Jim Johnson is a veteran of two wars and 8 days in another war! After high school, he served in the Marine Corps as an enlisted member. During the Korean War; in Korea, he was a sergeant squad leader and an acting platoon leader in “G” Co., 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. He was discharged in 1954.
After graduation from college, attending graduate school, and four years of teaching and coaching, he again entered the regular Marine Corps. In addition to the standard Junior Officer assignments, Jim served as an Aide-de-Camp to a General Officer. He attended the US Army Management School at Fort Lee, Virginia and served as an instructor for an additional period, teaching statistics and writing. He served as an Officer Selection Officer, and Assistant Instructor-Inspector, a Battalion S-3, commanding officer of a Military Police Company, and was OIC of the Marine Corps, East Coast Instructor Training School, Camp Lejeune, NC. He is a graduate of the Marine Corp Advisor’s Course and the Vietnamese Language School, Quantico, VA.
After his return from Vietnam, he was the Senior Marine on the White House/Department of Defense POW/MIA Task Force, which planned and conducted Operation Homecoming, the 1973 return of US Prisoners of War from Ha-noi, the former South Vietnam, Loas, and China. He was an assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs and was an assistant to, and writer for Dr. Henry Kissinger, with an agenda directly related to POW/MIA issues.
Since leaving the Marine Corps in 1977, he has had another career in Institutional Advancement and Development. His list of client includes: The London School of Economics, The PGA, The Kimbe Bay Research Center (New Britain, Solomon Islands), The United States Naval Academy, Detroit Children’s Hospital, and a number of universities, churches, and United Way organizations. He is the holder of 3 National Aeronautical Association flight records. He is a member of Rotary International, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and is President of Federal Insignia, LLC.
Jim Johnson teaches:
Hey Dad! What did you do in the War
David Jolliffe earned his Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Texas at Austin. The former coordinator of the writing-in-the-disciplines initiative and English professor at DePaul University in Chicago, he served as a distinguished visiting professor at The American University in Cairo in 1997. He is the co-author of "Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing," as well as nine other books, including "Inquiry and Genre: Writing to Learn in College." He is also the author of 25 articles and book chapters and a frequent presenter at national conferences on language and communication.
Dr. David Jolliffe teaches:
"Moonlight, Magnolias and Madness"
Kim Jones is the Team Leader for Conferences, Special Programs and Professional Studies at the University of Arkansas Global Campus. She has worked in education since 1989, and in continuing education since 1997. Although she holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Agricultural Education and began her career as a high school agriculture instructor, she found her true calling when she accepted a position as a conference coordinator for Continuing Education. For the past eight years, she has been the administrative coordinator for all Elderhostel programs sponsored by the U of A.
Kim Jones teaches:
This is Elderhostel
Emeritus Professor of Horticulture, University of Arkansas
Dr. Gerald Klingaman is a native of Mulhall, Oklahoma where he grew up on a wheat farm. He received his undergraduate degree in Horticulture from Oklahoma State University and his MS and PhD from the University of Maryland. He was employed by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture between 1974 and 2005 with his time divided between Extension responsibilities and teaching / research. His research, teaching and Extension duties revolved around nursery and greenhouse growing. He writes for newspapers and gardening magazines and speaks to groups around the state and region. Klingaman is married and has four children and three grandchildren. Hobbies include gardening, book collecting, travel and photography.
Dr. Gerald Klingamon teaches:
Bulbs for year Round Interest
Christine Klinger was an instructor of Child Development and Family Studies with the Dept. of Human and Environmental Sciences at the University of Arkansas from 1984-1995. She presented numerous workshops to child care professionals around the state on topics related to child development and curriculum from 1978-1995. From 1984 to the present, she has created over 60 quilts both traditional bed quilts and art quilts. In addition to creating quilts, she has enjoyed presenting workshops on quilt making to various quilter’s guilds and women’s groups around the area. She created and led a spiritual retreat for women entitled “Patchwork/Spirit Work, The Pieces of Our Lives” from 1999-2001. Then from 1996-2007 Christine served as a quilter consultant for the Arkansas Regional Heritage Studies Program, directed by Dr. Robert Cochran. During that period of time she presented a quilt related program to many elementary schools throughout Northwest Arkansas.
Christine Klinger teaches:
Patchwork Piecework
Jan Luecking moved to Northwest Arkansas quite some time ago after having lived mostly in the Midwest all her life. Until recently she worked at the Walton Arts Center; she is now employed at Arts Live Theater where she had previously worked for nearly 10 years. Folk dancing has been her passion for 40 years, and passing those dances to others –to assure she will always have someone to dance with – has been her goal. Jan has a degree in French and has had a lifelong interest in other cultures. Folk dancing has brought her into contact with people from around the world, through instructors who teach their folk dances to people who have visited Arkansas and joined in and shared the dances of their country.
Jan Luecking teaches:
International Folk Dance: Dances of Other Countries
Matt Mihalevich is the Trails Coordinator for the city of Fayetteville. His tasks include design, construction oversight, and property acquisition for the trail system in Fayetteville.
In 2001 he graduated from the U of A in Landscape Architecture. He then worked for Land Plan consultants in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designing trails. In 2004 he came back to Fayetteville and was hired by the city of Fayetteville as a park planner. In 2006 he was promoted to his current position as Trails Coordinator.
Matt Mihalevich teaches:
Trails of Fayetteville
A graduate from the University of Arkansas with a B.A. and M.A. in history, Don Montgomery recently retired after 28 years of service as a historian/interpreter for Arkansas State Parks. He spent his first 12 years at Old Washington Historic State Park in southwest Arkansas, the site of Arkansas’ Confederate Capital following the capture of Little Rock in 1863. Washington is also one of the premier historic sites in the state and the nation. He transferred to Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park in 1990 and help develop numerous exhibits, programs and special events at the park. He provided tours for the public as well as for school and other special groups. He updated a Booklet about the Battle of Prairie Grove; provided input into the Civil War explorer computer; designed a driving tour complete with audio for the park; developed the park’s brochure, wayside exhibit panels, and the park’s orientation video. He is an active member of the Arkansas Historical Association and current board member as well as chairman of the John G. Ragsdale Award for the best book in Arkansas History. He is a certified Heritage Interpreter and Guide through the National Association of Interpretation. His published articles received a number of awards including the “Best Civil War Article” from the Civil War Roundtable of Arkansas and the “Lucille Westbrook Local History Award” from the Arkansas Historical Association.
Don Montgomery teaches:
The Civil War in Arkansas and Missouri
Gordon Morgan has a BA. MA. and Ph.D. all in sociology, and the latter from Washington State University in 1963. He studied over several summers at University of Minnesota in graduate school. He served in the U.S. Army, with service in Korea and Japan, during the Korean War. He Dr. Morgan taught high school and at a number of universities from 1956-1969. Since then, he holds the title of University Professor at the University of Arkansas. Gordon was a Parole and Probation interne for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in the summer of 1955 and a research assistant for Teachers for East Africa Project from 1963-1965. He did a study of Scandinavian Prisons in the summer of 1976 and has done an extensive study of the Caribbean for a course entitled The Contemporary Caribbean.
Dr. Gordon has many articles in scholarly journals and local, state, and campus newspapers.
Among some of his books published are the following: Winners Never Quit: Marguerite Rogers Howie, African American Woman Sociologist in 2006, Toward and American Sociology, and now in production is No Violence is Progress: Early Integration at a Southern University. He also has many manuscripts, at least 35, and many plays and novels in all topics that have been unpublished.
His latest teaching assignment for the past five years is “Special Topics in Whiteness,: which the students have shortened to simply “Whiteness.” The enrollment is good and so are student attitudes toward the course.
Dr. Gordon Morgan teaches:
The Story of George Washington Carver
Dr. Paige & Mary Bess Mulhollan
Paige and Mary Bess moved back to Fayetteville in January, 2005, after an absence
of 34 years.
Before retiring to Hilton Head, SC in early 1994, Paige was President of Wright State University (1984-1994) in Dayton, OH. He had previously served as a history professor and academic administrator at the University of Arkansas, Kansas State University, the University of Oklahoma, and Arizona State University. During eleven years in Hilton Head Hilton Head he served as President (1999-2001) and Board member of the local Audubon Society and as President of the Carolina Butterfly Society (2000-2001). He was a member of the Rotary Club of Hilton Head, the Greater Island Committee, and the town’s Accommodations Tax Advisory Committee. In Fayetteville he is a Board member of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society and the Botanical Garden Society of the Ozarks. He belongs to the Rotary Club of Fayetteville. He holds the B.S.B.A. in Marketing and the M.A. in History from the University of Arkansas and the Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas. In December, 2005 he received the honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Mary Bess is a zealous bird watcher and plant and beach observer. She has developed these skills over many years, with many hours spent in the field, reading, and taking classes wherever she has resided. She is also an accomplished wildlife photographer and has taken the vast majority of the pictures used in the Mulhollans’ many public presentations. In Arizona she established the first volunteer organization at the Desert Botanical Garden and served as its first president and on the Garden’s Board of Directors. In Dayton, Ohio, she served on the Board of the Cox Arboretum and on the Governor’s Keep Ohio Beautiful Commission, serving as Chair for one year. She later served on a different governor’s Litter Prevention and Advisory Council. In Hilton Head Mary Bess served as Chair of the Stewardship Committee that governs the Whooping Crane Pond and Cypress wetlands in Hilton Head Plantation. She also served as Treasurer and Publicity Chair for the Women’s Association of Hilton Head Island and as a Board member for the Avid Gardeners. In 2003 she received the Garden Club of South Carolina’s highest award for accomplishments in horticulture and conservation. She holds the B.S.H.E. in Home Economics from the University of Arkansas and a B.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Oklahoma. Her pottery work has won several awards in juried shows.
The Mulhollan’s taught Barrier Island Ecology, Beginning Birding, Shorebirds, and Butterfly Identification and Gardening for the Hilton Head Elderhostel. Both are Master Gardeners and certified Lowcountry Master Naturalists. Both served as volunteers for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Low Country Institute. They were co-presidents of the Hilton Head Island Land Trust. Both are active and avid birders and travel regularly to watch birds in various parts of North America and the world. A previous OLLI class taught by the Mulhollan’s was Intro to Birding.
Dr. Paige & Mary Bess Mulhollan teach:
Butterflies & Butterfly Gardening
Oda Mulloy has been a member of “The Tellers of Tales” for 14 years. She tells stories in schools and at events to ‘keep the art of the story alive.’ Once a month they meet to try out new stories. She is a volunteer at the Shiloh Museum and for 11 years gave Museum tours to school children. She belongs to a book club that meets once a month to discuss a book and have lunch. She is also a member of the ‘Writers Table’ at the Public Library led by Rebecca Newth and they write short stories and poetry. She volunteered at the ‘School within the School’ to teach creative writing to juniors and seniors. Mrs. Mulloy is a writer of ‘Creative Nonfiction,’ short stories based on personal experiences of her European childhood and later times. She has read some of these stories on NPR ‘Ozarks at Large’ as a regular contributor for the past 14 years.
In 1951 she left her native town of Hamburg, Germany, to finish a science degree at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. After graduation she worked in a Clinical Laboratory in Philadelphia. She joined a ‘Great Books’ discussion group at the public library where she met her husband. They had 3 sons. She trained as a discussion group leader and introduced the Great Books Program to different schools. In 1971 my sons and I moved to Fayetteville, AR. When the boys attended the U of A, so did she and earned a Master degree in Natural Sciences. Mrs. Mulloy continued to work in a Clinical Laboratory until her retirement.
Oda Mulloy teaches:
How to tell a Good Story
The Effects of Germany Nuremberg Laws
Melinda Nickle graduated from Clemson University with a B.A. in English and Fine Arts, and earned a M.A. and Ph.A. in English at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She has taught more than 30 years, both on the high school and college levels. She has been married for 35 years to Bob Nickle, commercial real estate broker. She is originally from North Carolina but has been a resident of Arkansas since 1970. Mrs. Nickle worked for 5 years on the Educational Outreach Committee at Walton Arts Center in the early 90’s. She was involved with school reform through the Coalition of Essential Schools at Brown University and was appointed the Citibank National Faculty Member. Melinda traveled throughout the U.S. conducting workshops for teachers. She was a master teacher for Brown Summer High School and served in Arkansas on Gov. Clinton’s turning points: a Task Force on Middle School Education. She was also an officer with PDK at the University of Arkansas.
Presently, she is retired but pursuing a lifelong interest in singing with Master Chorale and Presbyterian choir at present, reading, and drama. Melinda Nickle is also happily involved with the Osher Institute!
Dr. Melinda Nickle teaches:
Orchestrating, Understanding: An exploration of “The Student Conductor”
Dr. Tom Paradise, Professor, UA Geosciences Dept and Interim Director, UA Middle East Studies Program
Dr. Paradise joined the faculty of the Geography division of Geosciences in the Fall of 2000. His primary research interests are in geomorphology and resource management, specifically the deterioration of classical architecture, stone weathering, hazards and risk, and in human impacts on cultural resources. Since the 1980s, his work has focused on the magical Nabataean site of Petra in southern Jordan, now one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. New research projects in architecture and hazards include sites across the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Levant.
Dr. Tom Paradise teaches:
Petra: The Lost City of Stone
Chalon Ragsdale was appointed to the University of Arkansas Music faculty in 1975 as Percussion Instructor and Assistant Band Director. He currently serves as Director of Percussion Studies. From 1990-1998, he was Chair of the UA Department of Music, and from 1998-2007 he was Director of the UA Summer Music Camps.
Chal also served as Director of the “Razorback” Marching Band from 1981-82 and 85-87; as Director of the UA Concert Band from 1975-1989; and from 1989 to 1992 served as Conductor of the UA Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble.
The Percussion Ensemble under his direction has performed for audiences at state, regional and national conventions. His private students have won performing honors at the state, regional and national levels of MTNA. He performs as percussionist frequently, and holds the position of solo timpanist with the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
Chal earned an undergraduate degree in Music Education from Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, in 1973 and the Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, in 1975 and served as Director of Instrumental Music in the Tallapoosa County, Alabama school district from 1973-74. He has studied percussion with Harold A. Jones, Johnnie Vinson, and Larry Mathis. He has taught a previous OLLI class on Johnny Cash.
Chalon Ragsdale teaches:
History of Drumming
Michele Raine has worked with public libraries since 1995, delivering library services and programming in venues as small as a one-room branch library and as large as an urban central library. She specializes in reference services for adults and young adults and has responsibility for developing the adult-level fiction, nonfiction, genealogy, media and electronic collections at Blair Library.
Michele Raine teaches:
Genealogy
Dr. Patricia Relph, Arts Learning Specialist, Walton Arts Center
Pat has had a life-long involvement in the visual and performing arts. She began her formal studies in the performing arts at the University of Kansas. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in communication and drama from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Since her arrival in Northwest Arkansas in 1980, she worked as a director in the Opera Theatre program at the University of Arkansas, toured the state in live performances for Arts Live! and taught communications at Northwest Arkansas Community College.
Pat was honored to receive the 2005 Governor’s Arts Award for Arts in Education. Pat starts her sixteenth year as an artist and educator at Walton Arts Center where each year she contributes to learning experiences for over 20,000 students and teachers. She works nationally with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Partners in Education program, collaborating with 100 other arts and educational organizations. With her husband, Roger Gross, she continues learning and traveling the world, sharing the arts and their power to transform the lives of learners everywhere.
Dr. Patricia Relph teaches:
Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors
Linda Roberson has been married for 32 years and resides in Fayetteville. She is self-employed and teaches yoga part time at Fayetteville Youth Center, Methodist Church in Prairie Grove, and St. Paul’s Episcopal in Fayetteville.
Linda M. Roberson teaches:
Yoga
Larry Ropp has had a marketing business since 1962 with the emphasis of helping people. Currently he is Certified Identity Theft Risk Management Specialists, Group Security Specialists and providers of the Advanced Identity Theft Response System for businesses. He, his wife, and associates across the country received Certificate of Completion of the Emergency Response Course of the US Dept. of Homeland Security. Dr. Ropp has written many published articles about Identity Theft. He has marketed the Identity Theft Shield since 2004. He has presented many seminars and company trainings on identity theft. He and his wife Terry are Independent Associates of Pre Paid Legal Services, Inc. which provides an identity theft and legal plan for the individual and businesses. Identity theft is a continuing growing crime, and he will provide the class with how identity theft occurs and ways to detect it when it happens to you.
Larry Ropp teaches:
Identity Theft
Terry Ropp is a graduate of Knox College with a BA in English, of Western Illinois University with a MA in English with a specialty in Creative Writing and a MS in Education with a specialty in secondary reading, and of Union Institute and University with a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies in creative writing, the creative process, and Eastern studies including philosophy, meditation and health. She taught high school in Galesburg, Illinois, for 32 years and retired in 2005. During that time she developed a variety of courses including creative writing, individualized literature, and science fiction/fantasy. She also spent twenty years running the school’s in-school-suspension room. She moved to Arkansas in 2005 retired, got married, honeymooned and sold and dismantled her house in one month. Since here she worked to the University of Arkansas last year as a temporary Adjunct Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction observing interns and teaching curriculum design. Because enrollment numbers returned to normal, she was not needed this year and has been substituting in local schools because her love of teaching was not as ready to retire as the State of Illinois wanted her to be. She has published poetry, short fiction, and journal articles as well as serving as an editor to a literary magazine and continuing as an editor and contributor for a scholarly journal. Her passions are teaching, writing, her family, and living in the Boston Mountains.
Dr. Terry Ropp teaches:
Memoir Writing about yourself and others
Betty Solis is a native Arkansan, who completed both a masters degree in Spanish and a doctorate in Comparative Literature at the University of Arkansas. She taught Spanish, English and World Literature as a graduate assistant in the UA Foreign Language and English Departments. She later became certified in Special Education and taught for 21 years in the public schools.
She is married to a man from Guatemala, and lived there for two years which is why she speaks wonderful Spanish. They have three children, none of them living here, and two grandchildren.
Dr. Betty Solis teaches:
Spanish for Travelers
Scott Starr has a BSA in Horticulture from the Dale Bumper’s College of Agriculture at the U of A at Fayetteville. For 24 years, from 1974 to 1997, he operated a landscape horticulture business in Fayetteville.
In 1998, he worked for 3 ½ years for the Horticulture department at the U of A developing a one acre display garden on the Fayetteville campus and providing logistic research support for various horticulture faculty and graduate students.
In 2001, Scott was hired by the Peel House Foundation in Bentonville. His principle responsibility was to manage the development of the Compton Gardens, a seven acre Ozark native public garden and conference center.
In June 2005, through a gift from Ed Clement, Scott was hired to direct Phase 1a development of the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks at their 85 acre Lake Fayetteville, Crossover Road site.
Scott has lived in Fayetteville for 35 years. He is married and has 5 children and 9 grandchildren.
Scott teaches:
Why a Botanical Garden
Mike Sypult began work at the University of Arkansas School of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach in November 2000. Mr. Sypult is the Coordinator of Computer Training Services (2003-present). Mr. Sypult’s primary responsibility is to plan, develop, customize, coordinate, and implement computer training programs for the Department of Conferences and Professional Development.
With 15 years experience as a Computer Training Specialist, Mr. Sypult has developed customized computer application training programs for both private and public organizations across the State of Arkansas and in South America. Mr. Sypult frequently conducts technology presentations at professional conferences and on radio programs.
Mr. Sypult is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) in Windows Server 2003 and a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). Sypult holds a BA in Education from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and a MA in Education from Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. Additionally, Mr. Sypult is a certified teacher in Adult Education for the State of Arkansas.
Formerly a community college faculty member at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Rogers (1993-2000), Sypult designed and implemented the Computer Literacy Program for the Adult Education Program. Sypult also served as a board member for the Beaver Lake Literacy Council.
Sypult and his wife, Pam, have five children and live in Rogers.
Mike Sypult teaches:
Exploring the railroads of Eureka Springs
Working with Digital Photos
Microsoft Excel
Introduction to Microsoft Word
Sondra Torchia earned her BA in Education and MA in Special Education and retired in 2000. She has been the University of Arkansas Elderhostel On-Site Coordinator from 2000-2008. Sondra was the 1998 Recipient of Arkansas Governors Fine Arts Award for: Traditional & Folk Storytelling & Women from history re-enactor. She was the President of Eureka Historical Museum Board of Directors from 2000-2004 and on the Board of Directors of Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce from 2000-2004. She has been the owner of Sondra Torchia & Company, INC. from 1990-2008 which is a Professional Speaking business. She has been a resident of Eureka Springs, AR since 1991 after moving from Southeast Kansas.
Sondra Torchia teaches:
Visual Arts Tour: Eureka Springs
“Listening to the Still Small Voice: The Story of George Washington Carver,” is a one-person play concerning the life of the famed Scientist, Educator, and Humanitarian. This is the story of one of the most inspiring and enigmatic renaissance men of the 20th century. As you travel from Civil War-era Missouri, to Carver's Laboratory, to the halls of Congress, you will see the trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumph of the scientist/educator/artist known as the "Wizard of Tuskegee." You will learn how Dr. Carver, born into slavery, affected and was affected by such historical figures as Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, Henry Ford, Henry Wallace, the boll weevil, Thomas Edison, Will Rogers, Josef Stalin, and Mahatma Gandhi. Above all, you will see the story of a humble, spirited man who did the best he could to serve humanity, and “fill the poor man’s empty dinner pail.” This performance will certainly show that there is more to Dr. Carver than his 300+ uses for the peanut! This production was written and is performed by Paxton Williams, a graduate of Iowa State University, George Washington Carver’s alma mater, and the Universities of Michigan and Birmingham in the United Kingdom, where he studied as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. While in England, Paxton was on staff at The Drum, the UK's largest arts centre devoted to the promotion of African, Afro-Caribbean, and Asian arts and culture. Since 2000, the play has been performed over 100 times in 17 U.S. states and in England. Since 2005, Paxton Williams has been the executive director of the George Washington Carver Birthplace Association.
Mr. Paxton Williams teaches:
The Story of George Washington Carver
Willa Williams is the 4-H Youth Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Instructor for the University Of Arkansas Division Of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. She spent over 6 years working with Arkansas' aerial applicators, and her master's thesis at the University of Arkansas examined the adoption of GPS technology by aerial applicators. In the past 7 years she has taught practical applications of geospatial technologies to youth and one of her most recent projects has been the incorporation of GPS into fitness programs and activities.
Willa Williams teaches:
GPS – Practical Use
GPS - Part 2 High Tech Treasure Hunting
Gloria A. Young is retired from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where she was Coordinator of Museum Education and Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Baylor University, as well as a Master’s degree from the University of Arkansas and a Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, both in Anthropology. Although partially retired, she continues to work for the University of Arkansas School of Continuing Education and Academic Outreach as an Elderhostel Coordinator in the Non-credit Studies Department and as an Instructor of Anthropology in Independent Study in the Credit Studies Department.
Dr. Gloria Young teaches:
Overland Mail along the Butterfield Trail
Susan Young, Outreach Coordinator, Shiloh Museum
Susan Young is the outreach coordinator at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, a position she has held since 1994. Susan is a lifelong resident of Fayetteville, and a fifth-generation Ozarker. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas.
Susan's duties at the museum include presenting programs to community and civic groups, planning events, putting together the quarterly newsletter, maintaining the museum website, coordinating the volunteer program, and managing the museum store. She has presented workshops and programs for several professional organizations, including the Southeastern Museums Conference, the Appalachian Studies Association, and the Center for Ozark Living Traditions, the Arkansas Archeological Society, the Arkansas Historical Association, and the Arkansas Museums Association.
Susan’s Ozark history interests focus on traditional folkways, religion, cemeteries and tombstone art, and moon shining.
Professional organizations:
- Board of trustees, Arkansas Historical Association
- Board of directors, Arkansas Archeological Society
- Board of directors, Arkansas Museums Association
- Secretary, Heritage Trail Partners
Susan Young teaches:
Northwest Arkansas History
Moon Shining in the Ozarks