Welcome to LINEC’s 2025 Spring Term!

We’re excited to offer a new selection of engaging courses designed for lifelong learners like you.

Registration Deadline: Monday, March 24, 2025.
Membership: $40 per person per academic year, September through August. No household memberships.
Courses: $15 per course.
Below, you’ll find simple step-by-step instructions on registering for your membership (if needed),
signing up for courses, and completing your payment. Follow these steps carefully to ensure a smooth registration process.

Tuesdays, 10 am–11:30 am | April 8–May 6
Location: Zoom
Instructor: Eric J. Simon

Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous scientist of the 19th century, influencing generations of scientists and artists, including Charles Darwin, John James Audubon, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. As part of our ongoing investigation of nature as the consilience of art and science, we will follow von Humboldt’s five-year journey to South America and his resulting groundbreaking scientific studies and published books.

Eric Simon, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Biology and Health Science at New England College, where he teaches introductory biology, human biology, and tropical marine biology. Dr. Simon has also taught a series of international travel courses, including field trips to Belize, the Galapagos, Tanzania, Cuba, the Amazon River, and Patagonia.  For a full bio, visit our website at LINEC.org.

Tuesdays, 1:30 pm–3:30 pm | April 8–May 13
Location: 1st Congregational Church, Hopkinton
Instructor: Glenn Stuart

Helena, the orphaned daughter of a doctor, is under the protection of the widowed Countess of Rossillion and in love with Bertram, the countess’s son. Bertram rejects her, but Helena devises an elaborate plan to meet the conditions under which he would accept her. But does all end well?
We will view the 2011 Globe Theatre production as well as read Canadian novelist Mona Awad’s 2021 novel, All’s Well, inspired by this difficult and fascinating “problem play” by Shakespeare.

Glenn Stuart is a Professor of Theatre Emeritus at NEC, where he taught for 38 years, designed 125 theatre and dance productions, and was the founding director of the Open Door Theatre. He holds an MA in Theater from the State University of New York, Albany. For a full list of his productions, see the full bio at LINEC.org.

Wednesdays, 10:15 am–12:15 pm | April 9–April 30
Location: Baker Free Library, Bow
Instructor: Paul Brogan

From the 1930s until the end of the 1990s, Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, and Mary Martin lit up the stage with thousands of performances. In fact, Carol Channing performed the title role in ‘Hello, Dolly’ more than 5,000 times, a show business record.

Although they also appeared in films, on television, and in recordings, it was the stage where they truly shone. All of the great composers from Irving Berlin to the Gershwins eagerly wrote scores for them to sing.

We’ll talk about them and listen to and watch some of their most memorable work. It was a time when any of their names on a theater marquee was a guarantee for a sell-out.

Paul Brogan attended Plymouth State University and then set out on a life adventure that took him, eventually, to Los Angeles, where he worked at CBS Television City. Paul has written several plays, musicals and screenplays. He is the author of three books, most recently “A Sprinkling of Stardust Over the Outhouse,” which was released in the summer of 2022.

Wednesdays, 1:30 pm–3:00 pm | April 9–April 30, May 14–May 21
Location: Zoom
Instructor: Lisa M. Melander

This course continues our discussion of Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Thought. We will focus on Book Three, Part II, From Rousseau to the Present Day. Philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, William James, and John Dewey will be the topics of our discussions. In addition to the text, other resources, such as video clips and podcasts, will be utilized.

Lisa Melander holds a BA in philosophy from NEC and an M.Ed in education from Plymouth State U. She has served as a 4th, 5th, and 6th-grade teacher in public and private schools. Lisa was a math coach mentoring teachers and developing several schools’ math intervention/enrichment programs. Lisa has designed and taught professional development courses for educators and worked with school districts on curriculum mapping. Currently, she works as a math tutor. Her teaching has been richly informed by her studies of philosophy and poetry.

Wednesdays, 1:30 pm–3:00 pm | April 2 and May 7 (2 sessions)
Location: Tucker Free Library, Henniker
Leader: John McCausland

LINEC’s popular novel group is currently reading books selected from Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize lists. The group meets on the first Wednesday of each month, and new members are always welcome. The class meets informally around a table in the Henniker Library, sharing their reactions to the works selected and connecting their themes to issues in our lives and world today. The April selection is A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr. May’s selection is The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.

John McCausland has taught LINEC courses on the Bible, Chaucer, and the American novel. An Episcopal priest and one-time lawyer, he loves history, literature, theology, teaching, and learning.

Wednesdays, 4:00–6:00 pm | April 9–May 14
Location: Zoom
Instructor: Ali Reza Jalili

This course will address how the US domestic economy and the global economy will interact with US domestic politics under a second Trump administration.

Topics we will discuss include how the incoming administration’s advertised fiscal policies will likely affect and be affected by markets, wealth inequality, inflation, unemployment, the US budget deficit, and the US dollar exchange rate, among others. Where relevant, anticipated economic outcomes will be given historical context.

Ali Reza Jalili is a Professor of Business at New England College. Dr. Jalili earned a BS in accounting and finance from the College of Accounting and Finance in Tehran, Iran, an MBA from James Madison University, an MA in economics from UNH, an MSA concentrating in risk management from Bentley University, and a PhD in business economics from UNH. He has over thirty years of teaching experience specializing in business and experimental/behavioral economics.

Thursdays, 10:15 am–12:15 pm | April 10–April 24
Location: Baker Free Library, Bow
Instructor: Inez McDermott

In the latter years of the 19th century, New Hampshire became a summer haven and an escape from urban centers for artists, writers, composers, and other creative people. We will learn about what cultural, economic, and social factors contributed to the rise of art “colonies” in Peterborough, Dublin, Cornish, and Appledore Island in this era, and learn something about the charismatic figures (Edward MacDowell, Abbott Thayer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Celia Thaxter) whose presence contributed to establishing these creative communities.

Inez McDermott is Professor Emeritus of Art History at New England College. She curates art and history exhibitions at various museums and galleries throughout New England, including most recently, “An Enduring Presence: The Old Man of the Mountain” at the Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University (2023). In 2016, she was co-curator of Mount Washington, The Crown of New England, at the Currier Museum of Art.

Thursdays, 10:15 am–12:15 pm | May 1–June 5
Location: Baker Free Library, Bow
Instructor: Curtiss Rude

Are we alone in the cosmos? How are scientists seeking signs of life beyond our home planet? This course will explain our past, current, and future search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our own solar system and among the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered. We will explore how our increasing understanding of geology and our newest insights into the nature, origin, and evolution of life on Earth inform this search. No prior knowledge of geology, chemistry, biology, or astronomy is required to benefit from this course.

Curtiss Rude has a BS in Physics from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MS in Electrical Engineering (solid-state physics) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He worked in the microelectronics industry for IBM in Vermont for 20+ years in various engineering and engineering management roles. His second career was as a high school chemistry and physics teacher for seven years. Curtiss has previously taught LINEC courses on astronomy, cosmology, artificial intelligence, political geography, and the history of money.

Thursdays, 1:30 pm–3:30 pm | April 10–May 22
Location: 1st Congregational Church, Hopkinton
Instructor: Don Melander

We will screen episodes of The Great Courses The Story of Human Language and read Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language. We will study how language evolved in the human species and how children learn language.

Don Melander is a professor of English Emeritus at New England College, where, in addition to teaching literature and humanities, he taught a course called Language and Grammar, which was a required course for Education majors. He earned MA and PhD degrees in English and American literature, including a course on the language we call “Anglo Saxon” (“Old English”).

Thursdays, 5:00 pm–6:30 pm | April 10–May 1
Location: Zoom
Instructor: Sarah Traphagen

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s famed address honored the hallowed ground of a little crossroads in Pennsylvania. Months earlier, the town and fields of Gettysburg absorbed a deadly choreography of Union and Confederate forces that left unprecedented destruction and proved to be the American Civil War’s turning point. In the vast expanse of people eager to catch a glimpse of Lincoln were several women who sacrificed and put forth tremendous effort during the battle and its aftermath. The world tends to note these women (and so many more left to the unwritten pages of history) little, but we will not forget what they did there. We will read their stories and hear their voices.

Sarah Traphagen received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida. Her areas of expertise are American literature, history, and Civil War medicine. She has published in The Journal of Military Experience and The Journal of Working-Class Studies. She has taught at the University of Florida and in college preparatory schools. Currently, she is at home with her son.

Fridays, 10:15 am–12:15 pm | April 11–April 25; May 23–June 13
Location: Baker Free Library, Bow
Instructor: Don Melander

Films directed by Martin Scorsese starring Robert De Niro, sometimes including Joe Pesci: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Casino (1995).

Don Melander developed and taught a course at NEC called “Literature as Film, Film as Literature.” In the 1980s, he and a colleague in the history team taught period courses in American culture in which they explored the possibilities of using movies as cultural “texts.” During the last decade of his career at NEC, he taught the film course for the Communications program.