Ashland Courses   

A Pickleball Round-Robin FUNdamentals Collective is designed for round-robin-style pickleball. This fun and active class is for pickleball players who understand and play the game. Because it is a rotation, all levels are welcome. There will be three classes of three hours each at Lithia Park pickleball courts. The round-robin is a structured form of play, with rotation at the end of each game. Players will learn format, partnering, stacking (when and how to), hand signals, types of scoring, byes and types of pickleballs. Timing and numbering of rotations will be taught in addition to safety during play. Players will experience a minimum of six timed games, and we will break for rest periods frequently. You will be an active participant and connect with your rotating partners to strategize play. This course will be taught by experienced players from Ashland Oregon Pickleball Club who volunteer their time and expertise. 

NOTE If you have mobility issues this course may not be for you. A waiver must be signed on the first day of class. There is a $3 charge for pickleballs on the first day of class. You will need a hydrating drink, a paddle, court shoes and a hat or visor. Eye protection is recommended. 

This course is designed for students who have taken the Absolute Beginners Pickleball course or who have a rudimentary knowledge of the game. It will be taught by seasoned instructors who have taught before. Expect to build on the basic game to include advanced strategy in play. We will meet at Lithia Park pickleball courts every day for five consecutive days for 1½ hours. There will be an emphasis on safety and sportsmanship. This skills-building class will focus on different types of serves; lobs; third-shot drops or “drop shots” drives; partner communication; stacking; types of scoring; and identifying Bert, Ernie and Nasty Nelson! The last day will be a fun round-robin in which players will rotate play with all other players. There will be an instructor/Ashland Oregon Pickleball Club member at each court who will be ensuring no faults and providing feedback. A waiver must be signed prior to the first class. 

NOTE: Students are expected to have their own paddle and know the basic game, such as rules/usapickleball.org, court position, basic serve, return of serve, NVZ, calling “out” balls, safety and sportsmanship. Players will need court shoes, a hat or visor, snacks and a hydrating drink. Eye protection is recommended. 

In this course, Pat O’Scannell, a performer of Irish traditional music who has attended Irish sessions in the U.S., Canada and Ireland for over 40 years, will introduce students to the Irish session. No previous musical knowledge is required, and questions are welcome. The first meeting includes a full description of the session and a discussion of its history, cultural importance, function and place in the modern world. The second meeting concentrates on the instruments and the details of their history, construction and technique. It will go into more depth on two vocal traditions, ballad singing and sean nós, that one might find at play in an Irish session. The meeting will conclude with a mini-session. A brief bibliography will be made available to the students, as well as supplemental resource material with an extended bibliography, lists of players, singers, festivals, periodicals and other items of interest to those who wish to explore this subject matter more fully on their own.

NOTE: The class includes an optional three-hour lab consisting of visits to Irish sessions at Dunbar Winery, 2881 Hillcrest Road, Medford, on Thursdays from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and at the Copper Plank at the Elks Lodge, 202 N. Central Ave., Medford, Saturdays from 5 to 8 p.m.

Playing the harmonica can bring joy to you, to other musicians with whom you play and to those who enjoy listening to music. In class, we’ll listen to recordings to become familiar with the typical chord progressions one hears when listening to the blues. Then we’ll improvise harmonica “riffs” (strings of notes that sound good) that complement them. We will let our ears guide us, playing the notes that our hearts and gut-sense tell us sound right. We will not be reading music or expecting to play a given song in exactly the same way twice. As with any skill, it takes practice to be a good harmonica player, so you will be expected to practice on your own between classes. The instructor will direct you to recordings and online resources that provide background music with which to practice. Having access to a CD player, the internet and a computer with speakers will be essential.  

NOTED: A $15 fee is due at the first class meeting for materials. The instructor will provide each student with two Blues Band harmonicas in different keys, printed materials and audio recordings (on CD). Each class session builds on the one before, so it is important that students attend all sessions. Students who know they will miss a class are asked to take the class during another term.  

What tickled the theatrical fancies of our early American ancestors? Stories about George Washington and his soldiers, Pocahontas, the Salem witches, Indian chiefs, poor but honest yeoman farmers and social climbers aping the latest fashions from London and Paris were all grist for our playwrights in the early days of our republic. The two best-known plays of the era, “The Contrast” and “Fashion,” will be presented, along with others I’m sure you have never heard of. As part of the tale, you will learn how show business moved from London to the Colonies and how one of the bloodiest riots in our history was started by a performance of “Macbeth.” No text is required. No prior knowledge is assumed.

NOTE: Be aware that some of these plays would not be considered “politically correct.” They reflect the attitudes and language of the late-18th and early-19th centuries.

This course will examine Oregon’s legal options for a humane and dignified death at life’s end. The instructor is a physician and a MAID provider and consultant. Viewpoints of students who have moral reservations about MAID will be considered. In two 90-minute classroom sessions, lecture time will be minimized. Active student participation and questions will be encouraged. Vignettes of actual anonymous patients and death situations will be presented. Situations in which requests for MAID were unsuccessful will be mentioned, along with changes to the Oregon Death With Dignity Act to be proposed to the 2025 Legislature. Related topics will include elder suicide, why MAID is not legally a suicide, overlap with hospice care and the right to refuse unwanted treatments. The voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED) may be discussed. Suggestions on how to find out if your doctor, clinic or health-care facility will support your request for MAID will be offered.  

NOTE:  A wide range of experiences and knowledge among students is anticipated. Reading materials will be offered before each session along with other optional resources.

This is a previously taught course with new content. This course aims to broaden a student’s vocabulary and understanding of the day-to-day German spoken today. The etymology of certain words will be discussed, and the rules of grammar will be explained on request. This term we will read the instructor’s memoirs referring to the events in 1992 and later.

 

This four-week course will help you understand your digital camera and improve your photography skills. It is designed for people who enjoy photography and want to improve their understanding and skills. You’ll learn how to use your camera to create more interesting photographs. Course topics include: composition techniques; creating more engaging photographs; digital camera operation; understanding your camera’s features and settings; the exposure triangle; working with aperture, shutter speed and ISO; post-processing and enhancing your photos for greater impact. Each week you will be asked to send the instructor a photo, based on a theme, that will be shared with the class the following week. The class is designed for people who use cameras with adjustable controls, not phone cameras. To prepare, review your camera’s manual before the first class. You may need to download it from the camera manufacturer’s website. Familiarizing yourself with your camera’s basic controls and menu system will help you get the most from this course. 

 

Chaos can take many forms — whether with personal struggles or global uncertainties. Yet, peace is always within us. Inspired by the transformative teachings of Sydney Banks’ Three Principles, this understanding offers us a lens to uncover our innate resilience and well-being regardless of our external circumstances. Join this engaging journey, where we will blend insightful discussions with short, impactful videos featuring thought leaders like Syd Banks, Michael Neill and George and Linda Pransky. In watching these videos, we often receive our own deeper insights that can guide us to more clarity, peace and an empowered life. In a world yearning for peace, those of us who have embraced the wisdom of the Three Principles understand that raising our consciousness is the ultimate answer. As we live fully in our own peace, contentment and well-being, we affect all around us, at a personal, community and global level. Join this exploration toward the profound healing of the universal mind.

NOTE: There are many other wonderful Three Principles teachers. To watch other teachers, search on YouTube.

This highly interactive, informal class will give you a chance to improve your Russian. We will use a minimum of English and repeat and contextualize Russian so that everyone understands and can respond in Russian. Grammar will be discussed only as needed, as our focus will be on using Russian. The free online textbook “Mezhdu Nami” provides some materials, along with a selection of short readings, songs and poems. 
 
NOTE: We don’t expect students with fluent Russian. Experience shows that some students struggle with pronunciation, some with cases and some with the Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian From Scratch course is not a prerequisite but could help many students.

This course is designed for anyone with little or no knowledge of maintaining and repairing a home. Class members will learn how water, gas and electricity come into a home and how to shut them off, how to change the filter in a furnace and clean the coils on a refrigerator, and why you should. We’ll talk about paint, how to replace a light switch or plug, fix a stuck door, what is a good set of tools and what you should watch for outside the home, such as clogged gutters, water leaks, siding damage, invasive vegetation and more. We’ll talk about the advantages and disadvantages of buying through big-box stores versus independent merchants and how to choose a contractor. Above all, we’ll talk about what class members want to know about maintenance and repairs to the building that keeps them safe and comfortable. Don’t hesitate to ask questions. You will learn to take care of your home, so your home can take care of you!

NOTE: Each term of this previously taught course is different, as there are new issues brought to class. If you have taken the class before, you will likely gain knowledge in something not previously discussed or that you didn’t quite understand the first time.

Many adults think of picture books as simple and simplistic, designed and suitable only for the limited minds of children. Untrue! We will read three picture books that will challenge such conventional ways of thinking about the genre: Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and Verna Aardema and Leo and Diane Dillon’s “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears.” I will try to convince you in this course that these books are highly complex texts worth studying seriously, and we will work on developing a keen eye for details and consideration for how verbal and visual texts work together to create the book as an artistic whole. We will also consider what the texts imply about child readers and their overall views of childhood. Please come to class having read the books beforehand, including reading “Where the Wild Things Are” for the first week. No prior knowledge of the topic is needed, just a general interest.

NOTE: These books are all widely available in libraries and new and used book stores. Digital copies are fine for outside class reading, but in-class discussion will focus on the books as artistic artifacts deliberately and carefully designed by their artists.

This course is designed to promote self-discovery and personal growth. It serves as a “personal incubator” to explore authentic self-awareness and unbiased truths, aiming to prepare participants for a deeper understanding of life. Key topics include balancing emotional and spiritual dimensions, living life with integrity and understanding the interconnected aspects of the psyche. The course will incorporate facilitated discussions inspired by short video clips from renowned personal exploration authors Brené Brown, Wayne Dyer and Don Miguel Ruiz alongside the instructor’s own metaphysical beliefs. Participants engage in open discussions to interpret the videos, with no definitive right or wrong answers. The class emphasizes active participation and provides access to supplementary materials online at JourneyBetween.org for further reflection outside the sessions.

 

The newest treatment for pain is one of the oldest, most effective strategies for pain-free living: mindfulness. Learn how to retrain your relationship to pain through traditional meditation practices. Through five step-by-step techniques taught in plain language, you’ll learn how to overcome your internal resistance to pain by observing and opening to it — the key to transforming physical suffering into a flow of pure energy. With regular practice, you can tap into your mind’s own power to overcome pain. You will learn how to deconstruct pain into manageable pieces, experience how pain naturally transforms into energy, how to allow pain to dissipate into space and free up your energy to heal and begin living fully again. This course relies on “Natural Pain Relief” by meditation teacher Shinzen Young. As a close student of Shinzen’s for over 20 years, the instructor has taught his methods, integrated with her own practice of restorative hypnotherapy, with much success.

NOTE: Please acquire the book “Natural Pain Relief — How to Soothe & Dissolve Physical Pain With Mindfulness” by Shinzen Young, and read as much of it as you care to before class begins. No previous experience with meditation is required.

The 2025 Ashland Independent Film Festival returns to the Varsity Theatre April 24-27 with another outstanding slate of fine films from international and domestic filmmakers. OLLI members will view six films over the four-day festival weekend. During the week following the festival, OLLI members will meet three times to discuss the films. The films are a mix of documentary and narrative that have recently premiered at U.S. and international film festivals. The discussions will focus on the cinematic qualities of the films, with particular emphasis on the choices made by the filmmakers; the effectiveness of those choices; and the cultural, sociological and artistic content of the films.  

NOTE: Class members will purchase tickets at the theater. It is expected the ticket price will be $12 per film. 

We often take plants for granted. The goal of this course is to foster an appreciation for the importance of plants in our daily lives. We will examine how plants contribute to our lives and well-being, including such basics as oxygen to breathe, food, shelter and clothing. We will also discuss the role of plant compounds as medicines and psychoactive/stimulating agents. Using coffee as an example, we will answer such questions as: What species of coffee are grown? Where did they originate? How does caffeine work in the body? The course will introduce scientific concepts and terminology relating to plant structures and functions and economic and historical aspects of plant use. The format will be interactive lectures. Plant material will be brought in periodically to demonstrate particular concepts.  

From wolf reintroduction to controlling invasive species, wildlife has influenced our lives throughout history. This course will examine some of the world’s most challenging and often controversial historic and current wildlife management issues, and it will explore possible solutions. The instructor will start with an overview of the history of human and wildlife interactions throughout the world and look at unique aspects of wildlife management in the United States. Efforts to protect critically endangered species and to implement species recovery and reintroduction programs will be discussed. The impact of introduced species on native wildlife will be covered. Topics will include threatened salmon runs in Alaska, endangered wildlife in Africa, wolf reintroduction in Colorado, invasive pythons in Florida and much more. Classes will be discussion-based, and your input encouraged. The course is open to anyone who appreciates wildlife. No prior knowledge is necessary.

NOTE: Participants are encouraged (but not required) to read “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold prior to the first class.

Students who want to start learning Russian or want to brush up on what they know of it will profit from this class. Using the free online textbook “Mezhdu Nami,” we will move at a student-set pace through its conversation-based introduction to Russian. More advanced students who would like to fill in gaps in their command of Russian are welcome, providing they are willing to join in encouraging everyone to participate in an active class.

This course will present 10 classic comedy films starting with the silent film “The General” (1926), starring Buster Keaton, and concluding with “Groundhog Day” (1993), starring Bill Murray and Andie McDowell. The other eight are “It Happened One Night,” “The Lady Vanishes,” “Meet John Doe,” “Adam’s Rib,” “Some Like It Hot,” “The Producers,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Life of Brian.” A handout for each film will be made available the week before the showing of the film, except for the first film, for which the handout will be made available on the first day. The instructor will mention anything special to be noticed about each film just before it is shown, and students may offer comments or questions at that time. A guided discussion will follow after the end of each film. Students need bring nothing more than a desire to see these comedy classics.

This course will present 10 classic musical films starting with “Bells Are Ringing” (1960), starring Judy Holliday and Dean Martin, and concluding with “Funny Girl” (1968), starring Barbra Streisand. The other eight are “West Side Story,” “The Music Man,” “Mary Poppins,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Young Girls of Rochefort” and “Oliver!” A handout for each film will be made available the week before the showing of the film, except for the first film, for which the handout will be made available on the first day. The instructor will mention anything special to be noticed about each film just before it is shown, and students may offer comments or questions at that time. A guided discussion will follow the end of the film. Students need bring nothing more than a desire to see these musical classics.

 

NOTE: There is no class session on Monday, May 26, in observance of Memorial Day.

Our lives do not come with an instruction booklet for living our life fully! This discussion course will explore the nature of reality and the purpose of life. What is reality? What are its patterns and how can we live a happier life? The course utilizes the instructor’s latest book, available free of charge. He will highlight selected portions from each chapter of his book. All of the instructor’s ideas aim toward making life better.

Oregon has been the site of rich literary offerings by lesbians. Starting in the 1970s, lesbians here began to gather and record their lives, their spirituality, their erotic experiences and their politics. In WomanSpirit magazine, Ruth and Jean Mountaingrove offered years of meditations, rituals and spiritual insights that touched women around the world. A group called the Southern Oregon Women Writers’ Group, Gourmet Eating Society and Chorus helped writers create and publish dozens of lesbian books. The “We’Moon Calendar” has showcased global women’s art and writings annually for over 40 years. Tee Corrine made lesbian sex a literary and visible celebration from her home in Oregon. Come out and enjoy discovering lesbian writing, art and publication in Oregon. There will be books to read and art to view. The course will be taught from the perspective of preserving lesbian herstory as part of the LGB cultural mosaic. No background knowledge is needed.  

NOTE: Most materials will be excerpted, scanned and distributed to the class. Full versions may be available online.

This course will provide a learning environment for understanding war culture. We will consider ways to promote critical consciousness and intellectual curiosity, and we will craft ideas for moving toward a democratic culture of peace. Students should be prepared to discuss all aspects of a war culture including strong anti-war endeavors such as “Howard Zinn on War.” “Waging peace” means learning to live with diversity instead of combating it. This course will be based on “After Empire: Myth, Rhetoric, and Democratic Revival” by Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner, 2024. Lecture slides will cover content from the book. Discussion questions will be provided ahead of each class session, and students will be encouraged to highlight portions of the book they would like to discuss in class. It’s a rich text. Within each chapter we will choose what we discuss as a class. Students are also welcome to arrive to class with no preparation! 

NOTE: Students should acquire “After Empire: Myth, Rhetoric, and Democratic Revival” by Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner.

Human language is unique and ubiquitous. Only humans speak a language (although AI is changing that), and every human learns at least one. How might language have evolved, and what is it that we know when we know a language? How do the thousands of languages in the world vary, and what features do they have in common? Does your language influence your thoughts and perceptions? Linguists don’t have full answers to these questions, but we’ll survey what the scientific study of language has uncovered so far. We’ll see what animal communication systems might reveal about the origins of human language and discuss what makes it special, examining its structure at the level of sounds, words and sentences. Next, we’ll delve into the controversial topic of how language might influence thought. Finally, we’ll consider the uncertain prospects of languages that are dying out, and what can be done to revitalize them. Video, audio, short readings and activities will supplement the presentations. 
 
NOTE: This class has been taught previously, but this one will incorporate a bit of new material on AI systems that use language.

This course is for fiction writers who wish to add screenplays to their arsenal. Screenplay writing is more than formatting; it is using our imagination — especially a writer’s visual and dialogue sense — in different ways than we are accustomed to in prose or poetry. Every story in history uses elements that go back to Homer; a screenplay merely uses a different shuffle of the same. A screenplay will be deconstructed each week, story elements illuminated and discussed. Short in-class writing exercises will be included most weeks. This is a course for fiction writers who have an idea for a story they wish to explore further or are in the process of writing. Creating an environment that supports writers is an important part of this endeavor. Join if you think screenplay format can boost your storytelling skills. 

NOTE: A successful download of any screenplay application is required before class begins, and laptops are welcome in class. There are many online sources for free screenplay software. All are good because the format is industrywide. Selecting one that can convert to PDF is best. (Final Draft is best if you are looking to purchase).