Getting rich with the LIFE curriculum committee
Wealth is many things besides money. Health, relations and friendships and a wide-ranging mental life are some other components of total wealth and happiness. Working with the LIFE curriculum committee can open your eyes and heart to valuable and charming aspects of your experiences and your surroundings.
Florence, Italy rose up. A town or small city can have good spirit. One way it does that is to recognize the talents, skills and stories of its citizens.
Talents, skills and stories of citizens can be recognized around Point with a LIFE presentation. Life also conducts tours.
Many people have an interesting talent, skill, background or story but are reluctant to speak in front of a group.
Some are put off by knowing that many people in LIFE are highly educated and have PhD degrees. Many are former professors and teachers.
We have had presentations in LIFE by assistant professors who said they enjoyed the experience and found LIFE audiences lively and willing to comment and question.
Some assistant professors felt that presenting to a LIFE audience was similar to doing their oral exam on their dissertation.
Most of the members of LIFE are older. Older people have seen what our lives are about. You may recognize an interesting person you know as a possible LIFE presenter.
Life presentations do not have to be in person. You or someone you enlist can do a presentation about someone, living now or not, that lead an interesting or inspirational life. It may take a little reflection to recognize that someone you know, or have read about, had a story or experience that you are glad to have heard about. You may want to arrange for others to learn about that life.
Life presentations do not have to be done by a single person. Two or three people can sit across the front of the room and discuss a subject. Alternatively, one speaker after the other can deliver their part. We typically schedule LIFE presentations for 90 minutes but they can easily be scheduled for less. We typically schedule a topic for a single presentation but it can be scheduled for multiple sessions.
My own preference is for the typical 90 minutes, single-time presentation. Many people in LIFE are busy and have complex schedules. I don’t like to ask them to reserve a subsequent time for another session.
Some people who attend LIFE sessions travel a good distance to get here. It seems right to try to offer them a good class, one that is not cancelled or overly shortened. However, if a speaker does a good job and needs to leave after 45 minutes, that is something that LIFE audiences can handle.
You can project an email onto the screen in the front of the room or you can use Google Slides or Powerpoint to create separate items to project one at a time.
Mike Wrzisinski worked steadily to have the curriculum committee take a look at every proposal. The majority of proposals come in conjunction with both a presenter and a member of the curriculum committee, often prompted by the committee member. Some come directly for a proposed speaker. Proposals come into the LIFE office manager, Mrs. Anne Rogalski, online.
LIFE seeks to offer presentations, not courses. You can contact Anne Rogalski to discuss possibilities for a course involving skills and complex learning. UWSP does offer non-credit courses on a wide range of topics.
To get to the LIFE section of the UWSP website, click on the UWSP site and then the Site Index. Click on the L for LIFE and you are there. The proposal form is one of the links provided.
LIFE seeks interesting topics in a wide range of subjects. The current curriculum chair, Paul Shogren, keeps an eye on the range of topics and tries to shepherd a balance slate of presentations. Paul is open to suggestions for more of a given subject or less.
The Spring Curriculum Committee meetings are scheduled for Feb. 11 and 25, March 11 and 25, and Apr. 8 and 22, 2019.
We usually meet in room 235 of the student center. There is an elevator. The room is on the north end of the balcony.
Several people have found LIFE to be exciting, satisfying and fulfilling, including me. Try attending some of the curriculum committee meetings and see what they are like. We only meet six times a semester, at 10:30-12:00 AM on the Mondays of Feb. 11 & 25, March 11 & 25 and April 8 & 22. The meetings are two weeks apart.
When you come, you just take a seat at the table, comment if you wish and see how things go. You can attend for as long as you want without creating an idea you want to work on.
Some ideas pan out and some don’t. Mostly, they do.
Think of a presentation you have attended. The review of the content, the construction of the message, creating the sequence of comments - those steps are of great value to the presenter, never mind the audience.
It’s very satisfying. Somewhat like looking through your picture album and explaining what and who the pictures are about.
Most of the time, we focus on the presentation. That’s the active part and the part that seems to matter. However, the construction and preparation can be more important and have more lasting and satisfying effects that the actual talk.