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Dear WISE Members,
Fall Courses: As I write this, we’ve completed our A-session courses for the fall and are about half-way through our B-session courses. I’ve heard wonderful things from many of you about how great our A-session courses were, with a fine mix of new Group Leaders and many returning favorite instructors. Jane Gilligan, who receives all your course evaluation forms and writes the reviews for our Group Leaders, reported one “superb" course after another. As a reminder, all of your evaluation forms are carefully reviewed and we value your opinions. We want to hear from you when you have something great to say about a course or a Group Leader, and when you provide valuable feedback to help make them better. If you have ideas for other courses, the Curriculum Committee, chaired by Jeanne Tolomeo, wants to hear about that too.
We're off to a great start with our B-session courses for 2016, and we're coming up on the 4th week of those courses. As a reminder, our Class Assistants pass out the course evaluation forms during the 4th week and will collect them during the 4th or 5th week of class.
Special Events: We have a couple of Special Events upcoming in November and December. On November 17th, we're having a Brown Bag luncheon starting at 11:45 am in the La Maison Française Auditorium. Jan Parent, a Docent at Preservation Worcester, will present the talk "God's Acre: Deed Rock and the Hermitage." Be sure to contact the WISE office if you'd like to attend. Bring your own lunch; refreshments and desserts will be provided!
Our Annual Holiday Luncheon will be on December 8th, starting at 11:30am in the atrium of the Testa Science Center. This will be a special event, as we're honoring our longtime and loyal Office Manager Pat Masiello and our other Office Manager Eileen Robinson. Pat has been with WISE since our founding twenty-three years ago.
When I first joined WISE in 2010, other than my wife and a few of her friends, I didn't know anyone else in WISE -- except Pat. For a long time, Pat was always my "go-to" person for a whole host of questions: How do I join WISE and pay my membership dues? How do I get a parking sticker? How do I register for courses? What do I do if I need to drop a course? How do I get into a Special Event? And a whole host of other questions. I'm sure many of you also saw Pat as the lifeline to WISE -- the problem solver who always made everything right! For the last couple of years, Eileen was there for us as well. We will miss them both, but Jill Lagana, our new Office Manager, is rapidly learning the many tasks we all require of our Office Manager to keep things running smoothly and efficiently. I'm sure we'll all soon come to value Jill and rely on her many skills as we have for Pat and Eileen.
Unfortunately, I have a prior commitment, which forces me to miss this year's Holiday Luncheon. So, I want to use this space to especially thank Pat for her many years of dedicated service to WISE.
WISE sayings, and other stuff: I am a big fan of Scott Adams and his cartoon character Dilbert. When I was still working as an engineer, I used to assert that Scott didn’t come up with anything original – he just followed me around all day, taking notes. I think many engineers thought the same way. Anyway, there were a couple of recent Dilbert cartoons that I thought were apropos to some of our subjects. One relates to our Brown Bag luncheons:
The other Dilbert cartoon relates to the duties of being your President. I find the job both challenging and rewarding, and I hope, in some small way, I can make the WISE organization better for all of our members. Dilbert had something to say about leadership too:
There are others who have some sage advice as well:
- Wisdom comes not from age, but from education and learning. Anton Chekhov
- Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi
I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who is a member of WISE, as a student, Group Leader, contributor, or volunteer. You make WISE the great organization it has become. And I hope and expect it will continue to grow and become even better in the future.
Until next month!
Joe Corn, President
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Mission Statement
The Worcester Institute for Senior Education (WISE) at Assumption College is a member-directed organization providing lifelong learning opportunities for older adults.
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