ATTEND SENIOR COLLEGE

Imagine stepping onto a stage and captivating an audience with a true story woven from your own life. In this course, you'll learn the art of crafting compelling, first-person narratives in the style of The Moth. Through inspiring examples and fun, hands-on exercises, you'll gain the essential tools to bring to life your memories as an engaging tale. Even if you prefer not to tell a story yourself, your unique insights and perspectives will be invaluable as you collaborate with your classmates, helping them polish their stories. Our final sessions will be a vibrant celebration of storytelling, filled with presentations and supportive feedback.

INSTRUCTOR: Ben Kieffer is the award-winning host of Iowa Public Radio’s daily talk show “River to River.” Kieffer previously worked in Europe, where he reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall and covered the Velvet Revolution in Prague. He is a Cedar Falls native and UI graduate.

Session 1 is now full. If you would like to be added to a waiting list for this course, email the course number, your name, and your phone number to Senior College at alumni.seniorcollege@foriowa.org or contact the UI Center for Advancement at 319-335-3305 or 800-648-6973.

Since its inception in 1967, the International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa has hosted more than 1,500 writers from more than 150 countries. The program introduces talented poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and nonfiction writers to American culture, facilitates their participation in American university life, and provides them with time and a congenial setting for producing their own literary work. Students will meet eight writers in residence at the UI this fall. Each week, two writers will read and discuss their works, talk about the current state of literature in their home countries, and answer questions.

INSTRUCTORS: Two visiting writers will present their work at each session.

The Idiot is Dostoevsky’s most enigmatic novel and serves as a link between the explosively revolutionary Crime and Punishment and the theologically contemplative Brothers Karamazov. It follows the misadventures of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky’s attempt at merging the compassionate meekness of Jesus Christ with the eternal striving of Don Quixote. The Idiot asks deeply philosophical questions: What is the nature of evil and how do we cope with its daily and mundane iterations? Is it possible to live in society without compromising our personal moral convictions? We will consider Dostoevsky’s biography, the novel’s significance in his career, and the intellectual debates raging among his diverse characters.

INSTRUCTOR: Anna Barker, a native speaker of Russian and Hungarian, completed her Ph.D. in comparative literature and translation studies at the University of Iowa in 2002. She teaches UI courses on 19th-century Russian and European literature, history, and culture. Beginning on September 1, her daily posts at annasthinkingcap.substack.com will focus on The Idiot.

How does the evolving intersection of humans and technology affect your life? With a focus on changes in transportation technology, course discussions will extend to the role of artificial intelligence in next-generation teaching, biomimicry’s inspiration from nature, and the creative interplay of robotics and human movement. Professors from the University of Iowa College of Engineering will provide insights into emerging technologies: their practical applications and their potential to improve our health and safety as we interact with machines in everyday life.

INSTRUCTOR: Dan McGehee directs the University of Iowa Driving Safety Research Institute, home of the National Advanced Driving Simulator. He is a professor of industrial and systems engineering, occupational and environmental health, and emergency medicine. His motto in all things is “To Detect and to Swerve.”

Artificial intelligence is changing the world around us. We will explore what AI is, how it works, and how to use it effectively and ethically. We’ll discuss issues of privacy, ethics, and sustainability. Each session includes hands-on practice with tools like ChatGPT, where you’ll learn how to write prompts that help you find what you’re looking for. Together, we’ll explore AI’s strengths and limits and discover how this technology can enhance your daily life. No technical background is needed—just curiosity and a willingness to explore.

INSTRUCTOR: Patrick Johanns teaches business analytics at the University of Iowa and has taught on five continents. He enjoys making complex topics like AI easy to understand. Outside the classroom, he’s a board game enthusiast, Airstream traveler, and, in the summer of 2025, he played in the national Hearts championships.

Science writing is every bit as creative as fiction and poetry. How do scientists best share the wonder of their work? This course will focus on classic and contemporary works of popular science, including writings by authors like Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and Rachel Carson; newer writers like Rebecca Skloot, Ed Yong, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson; and theories on topics of interest by Oliver Sacks (the mind), Katharine Hayhoe (climate), and Lynn Margulis (the biochemistry of the tiny creatures who shape the Earth).

INSTRUCTOR: Ted Anton is a National Magazine Award finalist and DePaul University professor emeritus of English. He is the author of Bold Science: Seven Scientists Who Are Changing Our World; The Longevity Seekers: Science, Business, and the Fountain of Youth; and most recently Programmable Planet: The Synthetic Biology Revolution.

Courtier, diplomat, philosopher, astronomer, and poet of love, both earthly and divine, Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the father of our English language and literature. This course will introduce us to Chaucer’s literary adoption of the ordinary spoken Middle English that, becoming London’s, became Shakespeare’s and then ours. Students will explore selected passages from his work, including The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, with an eye to the enduring elements among his characters and themes.

INSTRUCTOR: David Hamilton taught Chaucer, first at the University of Michigan, then at the University of Iowa, where he also helped develop the Nonfiction Writing Program and edited the Iowa Review. UI emeritus professor of English, he is the author of A Certain Arc, Deep River: A Memoir of a Missouri Farm, and two volumes of poems.

Students will receive practical information about selected medical conditions common in senior individuals. Topics include arthritis, joint replacement, diabetes, and cancer. One session will cover how prescription medicines work and their interactions with other drugs. Each session will include basic anatomy and physiology and then focus on current clinical knowledge. Students will learn how doctors decide upon “best practices.” Throughout, special emphasis will be placed on identifying and using reliable sources of information, so students are able to educate themselves, ask appropriate questions, and make better-informed health decisions.

INSTRUCTOR: Carol Scott-Conner is professor emeritus of surgery at the University of Iowa. She received the Honored Member award from the American Association of Clinical Anatomy and is a founding member of the American College of Surgeons Academy of Surgical Educators. 

The history of Iowa has been largely shaped by its rivers in both geologic and utilitarian ways. This class will use the book The River Knows to examine Iowa’s relationship with water by considering its evolving role in both culture and economy. Focusing on the Raccoon River, which is at the center of many of Iowa’s most pressing ecological challenges and which lends its voice to the narrative, we will discuss the ways industrial agriculture, climate change, conservative politics, and religion combine to challenge the work of many Iowans to make the state’s rivers flow clean and clear again.

INSTRUCTOR: Native Iowan Neil Hamilton is an emeritus professor of law and founding director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University. The author of The Land Remains, The River Knows, and the forthcoming Through Nature’s Lens, he is internationally known for his pioneering work in the field of agriculture and food law.

For centuries, people have sought to live together in harmony removed from mainstream culture. Ashrams, monasteries, and retreat centers have a history of sheltering spiritual seekers and travelers. Other groups banded together to flee religious persecution. Today, people are turning toward co-housing to meet their lodging and social needs. This course will discuss these intentional communities—their history, their formation, and their attempts to find centered, humane ways to live in a chaotic world. Instructor Mary Swander will discuss her life among the Amish, and guest lecturers will explain their values and the choices they have made to live with others.

INSTRUCTOR: Mary Swander, an award-winning author of drama, poetry, and nonfiction, has written about her life with the Amish (Out of This World) as well as her work with Hispanic Russian Orthodox monks in New Mexico (The Desert Pilgrim). She is a recent recipient of an Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant.

Denouncing problematic race-based media constructions as racist or racism simply does not work today, especially if we want to move toward a real solution to America’s race problem. Racialism involves images, ideas, and issues about African American culture that are produced, distributed, and consumed repetitively and intertextually based on stereotypes, biased framing, historical myths, and traditional racism. This class will use the book Racialism and the Media to study how racial constructions of African Americans perpetuated and normalized through the media often influence our thinking, ultimately shaping and influencing societal ideology and behavior.

INSTRUCTOR: Venise Berry is a professor of journalism and African American studies at the University of Iowa. She is published widely in creative and academic circles in the area of media, African Americans, and popular culture. This course is based on 25 years of research for her book, Racialism and the Media.

Prestige Records, an independent jazz record label, was founded by 20-year-old Bob Weinstock in 1949. This course highlights the recorded music from each of the label’s eras, including the many jazz giants whom Prestige nurtured. Students will view a variety of examples of vintage performance footage; hear pertinent interviews; and learn about the evolving record cover artwork, logo designs, producers, and supervisors. As a bonus during the four weeks of the course, Kessler’s weekly radio show on 88.3 KCCK, “Jazz Corner of the World,” will feature the Prestige label.

INSTRUCTOR: Senior College warhorse Craig Kessler has been a jazz radio producer and DJ for over 30 years. He is the owner and producer of the jazz record label Realtown! Records, served on the board of directors of the Iowa City Jazz Festival, and owned Real Records in Iowa City. Janet Lessner serves as his tech guru during class.

Beginning with the early 19th century, we will examine how Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos critiqued both church and state during the last days of the Spanish Inquisition. Moving on to the 20th century, we will explore coded expressions of identity by LGBTQ artists; strategies used by artists to elude or confront censorship by government, religious, and moral authorities; contemporary artists who have made censorship a central theme of their work; and the role of art museums in protecting artistic freedom. Throughout, we will consider the tension between secrecy and communication inherent in coded artistic practices, emphasizing art’s power to transcend silence.

INSTRUCTOR: Lauren Lessing became director of the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art in 2018, bringing with her experience working at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. 

The 1940s marked the zenith of the Hollywood studio era. In a time before television, audiences flocked to movie theaters weekly to process experiences from WWII, purchase war bonds, and slip into stories set beyond the war’s reach. This course explores the ways music shaped some of the decade’s most iconic films, including Casablanca, Rebecca, Humoresque, and The Best Years of Our Lives. Students will learn how music may serve as a plot point, a form of persuasion, and a narrational voice within Hollywood cinema.

INSTRUCTOR: Nathan Platte teaches courses on film music for the School of Music and Department of Cinematic Arts. He is the author of Making Music in Selznick’s Hollywood and coauthored a book on the music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca.

Session 14 is now full. If you would like to be added to a waiting list for this course, email the course number, your name, and your phone number to Senior College at alumni.seniorcollege@foriowa.org or contact the UI Center for Advancement at 319-335-3305 or 800-648-6973.