Midcoast Senior College has announced its new classes for Spring Term 1. Registration begins on Feb. 14 for current Senior College members and on Feb. 16 for non-members.

The following is the course list for Spring Term I:

Mostly Chekhov will focus on the unforgettable characters in Anton Chekhov’s works who struggle with the twists and turns of life.  With a degree in Slavic Studies, instructor Ann Kimmage has been a lifelong student of Russian and world literature.

Plants: The Elegant Organism explores how plants carry out the imperatives of life and structure the lives of animals. The instructor is Barbara Snapp, who specializes in teaching broad survey courses where she can interweave basic themes, connect them to a human context and build a multidimensional understanding.

American Sign Language – Level 1 will teach basic sign language communication, including the manual alphabet, fingerspelling, numbers and vocabulary. The purpose of the course is to enhance your communication with the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The instructor, Martin Samelson, has taught college and high school courses.

The Whole Shebang: Universe, Life, Consciousness, Meaning: Can the Universe in all its amazing hierarchical complexity simply emerge naturally without any explicit plan or design? And, given an impersonal Universe, what of truth, beauty, love, spirit, and human existence itself? Does any of that have meaning beyond what we subjectively give to it? Biologist and professor Fred Cichocki will guide you through this examination of “The Big Questions.”

What do Colleges and Universities Owe Democracy? An exploration of Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels’s contention that universities must provide students with a civic education that prepares them for the responsibilities of democratic citizenship and his argument that universities fail to recognize, let alone meet this responsibility. The instructor is retired Florida International University professor Bruce Hauptli.

Murder in London will explore many detective novels that are based in London, including works by Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, John Dickson Carr, Sarah Caudwell and Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Instructor Susan Ransom is a retired architectural marketer who has been reading detective fiction all her life. She is also an editor of art history and historical publications.

Whitman and Dickinson: Two Flowerings of the Emersonian Seed will explore — via close reading and discussion — selected poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Specifically, it will consider how both poets embody, in opposing ways, the kind of artistic expression that Ralph Waldo Emerson called for in his essay, “The Poet.” Instructor John Haile is a graduate of Bates College with an M.A. from Middlebury and recently retired from his career as an English teacher and administrator.

Spring Term I begins Monday, March 7, and courses are either six or eight weeks long. Classes will meet online using Zoom. We offer free personal support and assistance to those who need help using Zoom. For assistance, please contact Clare Durst at briegull@gmail.com.

Midcoast Senior College’s mission is to provide noncredit academic courses and other educational events for people 50 years and older to continue their lifelong learning. It is one of 17 senior colleges in Maine.

To register for a course, you must be a current member of Midcoast Senior College or a current member of any Maine senior college. MSC’s membership period is through June 30. Go to midcoastseniorcollege.org to become a member.

For more details on specific courses, visit midcoastseniorcollege.org. For more detail about registering, email mscoffice@midcoastseniorcollege.org or call (207) 725-4900.

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