Even fully-grown adults feel nostalgic sometimes when September comes. Where are my pencils? Where is my new notebook? Don't wait until fall. Use your summer vacation this year as an opportunity to make yourself smarter and use parts of your brain that perhaps your workaday world does not always require. Go back to school. Well, summer school that is. Indulge in the classics, talk about topics that we are facing in the modern world, hone your musical chops at jazz camp, or simply savor the opportunity to read some great books and share your thoughts with others.
In Ithaca, New York, Cornell University's Adult University (tel. 607/255-6260; www.sce.cornell.edu/cau/on_campus/courses.php) runs four one-week programs July 8-14, July 15-21, July 22-28 and July 29-August 4, with sessions on wine, digital video, photography, cooking, golf, sailing and rowing, among others. On the academic side, there are classes on architecture, an introduction to spider biology, something called "Holy War, Crusade and Jihad in Judaism, Christianity and Islam," and "Energy in the Modern World: Science, Technology, Politics and Business." It's advisable to take one course per week -- more than that is too much. The fees include tuition, lodging, sixteen meals, tours, welcome and farewell parties, parking fees and the use of Cornell's facilities. The fees will vary depending on your accommodations, but you can choose from Court Hall for $1,355, Ecology House for $1,375, and Courtyard by Marriot at $1,535. The commuter rate, for $760, is also available but it does not include housing, meals or any special course fees. You can, however, take the whole family, because there are programs for kids, too. The registration form is available online.
If you feel that somewhere along the line you've missed the classics, then head to St. John's College (tel. 505/984-6117; www.stjohnscollege.edu) in Santa Fe, New Mexico this July for its Summer Classics Program. There are three separate weeklong seminars. You aren't lectured to, nor do you show up and engage in a discussion a la a book club -- it's a seminar, so they're an intense conversation and lively debate. Week one's seminars run July 8-13 and include "The Qur'an and the Life of Muhammed," "Fear, Profit, and Honor: Statecraft and Foreign Policy in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War" Dostoevsky's Demons, and a discussion of Thoreau's Walden that asks questions about biology, science and nature. Week two runs July 15-20 and topics range from Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Henry James's The Wings of the Dove, Shakespeare's Tempest, opera, texts on knighthood, and more. Week three runs July 22-27 and covers Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Bhagavadgita, Darwin's Origin of Species, The Plague by Camus, and more.
Each seminar costs $1,100, which covers course materials, books, lunches, and any special events or activities. Choose between either a morning or afternoon topic; a nonrefundable registration fee of $150 is required for each seminar and the balance must be paid in full by June 1. You can register after June 1, but you must pay in full. As in past years, there's a discount if you want to register for two seminars -- take $100 off. Take $250 off if you register for three or more seminars. Keep in mind there is a lot of reading required if you want to register for both the morning and afternoon seminars in any given week. Limited housing is available on campus, but room and board (which includes meals Sunday evening through Saturday breakfast) costs $510 per person per week. You can also stay at Hotel Santa Fe in the city's historic district -- ask for the St. John's summer classics rate.
Indiana University runs a mini-university (tel. 800/824-3044; https://alumni.indiana.edu/events/miniu) on its Bloomington campus June 17-22 and it is open to anyone interested -- not just alum of IU. You take up to fifteen different noncredit classes, taught by school faculty; most classes are held in the Indiana Memorial Union. When classes are finished for the day, enjoy the Brown County Playhouse for summer theater, watch films, or engage in other social activities. Registration is $215 through June 1; after then, it's $240. Accommodations are available at the Indiana Memorial Union (www.imu.indiana.edu/hotel/index.shtml), the on-campus hotel, where a block of rooms is reserved for participants. If you're not sure whether or not you want to attend, you can even download some podcasts that contain interviews on topics ranging from creativity to evolution to the Supreme Court. The reading list will be posted soon; classes this summer take place in eight different subject areas and include a workshop on Shakespeare, jazz, emerging global markets, Mexican immigration to the U.S., urban studies, stress and the human brain, self-help books, and my personal favorite, "The Daily Show as a Source of Political Information."
If you are a jazz musician and you would love the opportunity to work one-on-one in a picturesque setting with ,say, the likes of saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, then Moravian College Music Institute's July Jazz Getaway (tel. 610/861-1650; www.julyjazzgetaway.org) is perfect for you. From July 8-14, you can spend time honing your chops in clinics and classes, and performing in a concert at the end of the week. You can choose from commuter status from $700 or resident from $900 (including three meals day). They even make it easy if you want to bring a friend or spouse -- the cost includes lodging and three meals and costs $525. Past guest artists have ranged from Ellis Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon and Clark Terry. Bethlehem is located about an hour north of Philadelphia and an hour and a half west of New York City. You can download the registration form right from the website and it's due May 25.
If you hate the heat and love a good book, think about heading to the Colby Wach Summer Institute at Colby College in Waterville, Maine (www.greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org/GBDPColby.html), part of Great Books Discussion Programs. Colby's group celebrates its 50th anniversary this August 5-11, and the program itself provides a forum for reading and discussing books that you never thought you'd get around to reading, but always wanted to. This summer's chosen texts are related to the theme "Thresholds of Science" and include Thoreau's Walden, Darwin's Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, The End of Nature by Bill McKibbin, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn and The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. The registration fee of $525 includes accommodations in a dorm (single or double), meals, discussions and books, social activities and an authentic Maine lobster bake. The registration deadline is July 1; a deposit of $250 is required upon submitting your application, which can be downloaded from the web site. You are assigned to a discussion group with a discussion leader throughout the week.
The Adventures in Ideas program (tel. 919/962-1544; www.adventuresinideas.unc.edu) at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is all about the humanities -- with one and two-day seminars that take place during the weekends and which encourage the exchange of ideas and development of intellectual discourse for working adults. Summer seminars include "Friends, Foes and Fiction: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein" on June 23; "Leonardo da Vinci Decoded: Genius in Art, Design and Invention" on June 30; and "Commerce and Culture in Contemporary China" on July 13-14. All three of these seminars (there are more on the web site) cost $120 with a discount of $105 if you pay before June 6. Some have optional meal fees. The Adventures in Ideas program is offering a 50 percent discount on tuition for first-time attendees, and if you register for three or more seminars you can take $20 off. UNC recommends making reservations at nearby hotels and does not have on-campus lodging available.
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