Susan Pike, the program specialist for UW-Green Bay's Lifelong Learning Institute, explains the background of the institute to attendees at an introductory event Tuesday at UW-Green Bay Marinette Campus.
Robert Cook, one of the volunteer instructors for UW-Green Bay’s Lifelong Learning Institute, gives a lecture on World War II nurses as a sample of what the institute has to offer at an introductory event Tuesday at UW-Green Bay, Marinette Campus.
Susan Pike, the program specialist for UW-Green Bay's Lifelong Learning Institute, explains the background of the institute to attendees at an introductory event Tuesday at UW-Green Bay Marinette Campus.
Robert Cook, one of the volunteer instructors for UW-Green Bay’s Lifelong Learning Institute, gives a lecture on World War II nurses as a sample of what the institute has to offer at an introductory event Tuesday at UW-Green Bay, Marinette Campus.
MARINETTE—During the COVID lockdown, Eileen Beyer was looking for educational opportunities to keep her active while she wasn’t able to see people. She came across UW-Green Bay’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI), and after looking through the different courses available, decided to become a member and start taking some online classes. Meanwhile, Susan Pike, the institute’s program specialist and only paid employee of the program, had been trying to find a way to bring LLI to the Marinette area. She saw Beyer’s name on a roster for a class she was moderating and noticed Beyer was attending from her home in Menominee.
“It was like one of those things meant to be,” Pike said.
Pike said LLI has been around for 30 years in the Green Bay area, as well as the Manitowoc area as of 2019. She said most of the classes are offered during the day, usually between 10 and 11 a.m. or 1 and 2 p.m. This time frame lends itself more to retirees, who make up the bulk of the membership. However, Pike said there are some members who are still working but have enough flexibility in their schedules to take a class here and there.
Pike said most of the classes are single-session classes that only meet one time. “Some of them can go for up to six sessions, and a good example of that would be the Continuing Issues class, which has been running continuously for 20 years,” she said.
“What’s going to strike you most is the variety of classes and topics that we offer,” Pike said.
Course topics range from politics and history to tours at home and abroad to bike riding and Zentangle, a drawing technique that only uses specific structured patterns. One of the more popular courses, entitled “From Bedpan Commandos to Cadet Nurses: WWII Nurses” was presented Tuesday morning at UW-Green Bay, Marinette Campus by Robert Cook, one of the volunteer instructors for LLI.
Beyer said that she and Pike began to chat sometime in late January or early February. Pike told Beyer that she had been looking for volunteers to bring LLI to the area since late 2019, without much luck, and Beyer said she had been looking for more educational opportunities to bring to the area. Beyer is currently the chair of the GFWC Menominee Woman’s Club’s education committee, so this sort of thing fits right into her wheelhouse.
“GFWC has an initiative for adult education, and this is the first time they had that type of initiative,” Beyer said, “so that got me thinking, ‘Do we have anything around here?’ Well, we don’t have anything around here.”
Usually, LLI requires a yearly registration fee of about $140, but to attract members over the lockdown, Pike said they decided to offer a smaller semester-by-semester registration cost of $65. Beyer had offered a scholarship through the GFWC education committee to members of the Woman’s Club to participate, but nobody seemed interested. “So I said, ‘I’m going to do this,’ and that’s when I registered. But I would have done it even with the full $140 fee; the money did not matter. It’s such a joy. I love those classes. I love learning,” she said.
Beyer had then told Pike that she was connected with several people through GFWC and could start a curriculum committee to bring LLI to the area. Pike told her that the committee would have to be separate from the club, though, since UW-Green Bay is its own entity. So Beyer said she found others who weren’t necessarily connected with the Woman’s Club who were interested in helping out, including Diane Shepard, a former librarian for Menominee Area Public Schools, and former City Engineer Val Mellon. “And nobody told me no,” Beyer said, “except one person, but that was more of a ‘maybe later.’”
Beyer said the $140 registration fee covers two semesters, with the ability to register for up to 15 classes per semester. She said this averages about $5 or so per class, and even less for the ones that meet several times during the semester.
Beyer’s committee was able to come up with 20 classes for the fall to be offered locally, however one of them ultimately dropped out for the upcoming semester with the possibility of returning for the spring. She also said the deadline for her committee to add their spring courses is coming up in September.
Shepard said the class on thrift shopping was one she was particularly excited about. “I think that will be just so fun. A lady who really has embraced thrift shopping is very enthusiastic about it, and so I’m really hoping I get into her class,” she said.
“Those are the types of classes that, you know, where else are you going to get to partake in a class like that? So that’s part of what’s kept this organization going. It’s people like this who think, ‘what would I enjoy taking a class on?’” Pike said.
Registration for the fall semester begins Aug. 9. Some classes will only be offered in Green Bay, so people who register for those will have to travel a little.
