Lifelong Learning Institute

FEE: $50 for all lectures listed below.

Lectures take place from 1:00pm-3:00pm on the dates listed below.

• Donte Woods-Spikes – Unfinished Goodbyes with the Children of COVID-19 (March 19, 2024)
• Jane Hoffelt – The Artist and the Anthropologist (March 26, 2024)
• Kate LaLonde – A Brief History of Worthington (April 2, 2024)
• Shiloh Todorov – Families Flourish: Building Inclusive Communities and Empowering Families to Create a Successful Future (April 9, 2024)
• William Faust – Antique Cornets: The Electric Guitar of the Victorian Age (April 16, 2024)
• Mansee Singhi and Maneel Singhal – Movement & Breath – Dance and Yoga (April 23, 2024)
• Paul Beck – The 2024 Election: Current and Prospective (April 30, 2024)
• Betsy Goldstein – Silicon Heartland & The Regional Impact: How Intel, Starlab, and Honda LG will transform Ohio & Our Communities (May 7, 2023)

FEE: $10

Week 1 (Tuesday, March 19)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Donte Woods-Spikes – Unfinished Goodbyes with the Children of COVID-19

When the pandemic took place, schools were forced to close down and teach students virtually. Donte Woods-Spikes made the difficult decision to leave his job as an educator and write a book about meaningful moments and lessons learned from children pre-Covid, in hopes of creating dialogue to prepare for post-Covid education and child advocacy. Join Donte Wood-Spikes as he shares different moments from the book and his vision to create change within the education system.

Donte Woods-Spikes is known for various forms of work, such as professional speaking, which landed him on the TEDx Stage and for his film, As a Matter of Black, which took him to the Sundance Film Festival. In 2021, Donte became an author, writing his first book, So. Long.: Unfinished Good-byes with the Children of COVID-19, which revisits powerful lessons children taught him during his time working in Columbus City Schools before the pandemic. His book has been highlighted in the Ohioana Book Festival, The Thurber House, and Buckeye Book Festival. Donte is an advocate for storytelling of all forms. His contributions to encouraging authentic storytelling include working alongside The Columbus Foundation as a Big Table ambassador and a TEDx organizer. He started his own storytelling workshop titled Voices of Empathy, which walks people through organizing stories and presenting in front of crowds. Donte is also the creator of the social movement Empathize With Me. EWM’s goal is to provide genuine lessons, relationships, and empathy through storytelling. Donte’s overall goal is to educate and connect the world beyond perceptions and stereotypes with authentic experiences through storytelling and documentation.

FEE: $10

Week 2 (Tuesday, March 26)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Jane Hoffelt – The Artist and the Anthropologist

Join us for a fascinating documentary showcasing the lives of Paul and Erika Bourguignon, an extraordinary groundbreaking couple. Paul was a talented visual artist, a prolific writer and journalist, a skillful photographer and an avid observer of the human condition. His paintings are in museums and collections throughout the world. Erika was an Anthropology professor and department chair at The Ohio State University. She was considered the foremost anthropological authority on trance, possession and altered states of consciousness. Jane Hoffelt, Trustee of the Bourguignon Charitable Trust, will answer questions after the presentation.

Jane Hoffelt earned a degree in illustration from Columbus College of Art and Design in 1977. After serving as art director at several ad agencies and Columbus Monthly Magazine, she managed departments at Zaner-Bloser and McGraw-Hill. She also taught classes at Columbus College of Art and Design and operated her own graphic design business. After retiring from publishing, she became the sole trustee for the Erika Bourguignon Charitable Trust, responsible for marketing and selling paintings of the artist Paul-Henri Bourguignon. She curated (alone or with Erika Bourguignon, who died in 2015) 40 separate solo Bourguignon exhibitions in more than a dozen different galleries and museums, including at the Columbus Museum of Art, Richard M. Ross Museum of Art, and Springfield Museum of Art.

FEE: $10

Week 3 (Tuesday, April 2)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Kate LaLonde – A Brief History of Worthington

Worthington was founded in 1803 by a group of people with big dreams and aspirations for their new town and the families they brought from hundreds of miles away to start anew. For the last 200 years, Worthington has been home to settlers who braved the frontier, students who were educated at institutions of learning, leaders in political, social and commercial endeavors, and everyday people who have created the community. Streets are lined with buildings spanning eras from the town’s founding to more recent, and the architecture too has stories to tell. In this class, Historical Society Director Kate LaLonde will share Worthington’s stories, both infamous and lesser told, through pictures.

Kate LaLonde is in her tenth year as the Executive Director at the Worthington Historical Society, where she enjoys researching and sharing the stories of the community. Originally from Westerville, she attended the University of Michigan before coming back to the Columbus area where she lives with her husband and son.

FEE: $10

Week 4 (Tuesday, April 9)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Shiloh Todorov – Building Inclusive Communities and Empowering Families to Create a Successful Future

Bessie Jackson was once a home health aide making around $26,000 a year. After graduating from Families Flourish, a unique non-profit founded in Central Ohio in 2016, Bessie was able to secure a job making $75,000 a year, thereby tripling her income thanks to the program. Families Flourish is an initiative that serves 17 communities in Central Ohio and provides support and opportunities to low-wage families. This program empowers families to address their total needs over a 3-year period, reversing historic barriers by fostering greater inclusivity, equality, opportunity and access to housing, education, and family wellness. Families enrolled in the program receive monthly skill-building programming and coaching, including career training, educational opportunities, financial guidance, and personal wellness training. Families Flourish helps communities create and embrace housing that is accessible to all. In this class, Todorov will discuss this unique non-profit and how it works to help people like Bessie achieve economic stability.

Shiloh Todorov joined Families Flourish (formerly Move to PROSPER) as a volunteer in September 2020 and then joined the staff in June 2021. She has over a decade of nonprofit experience, including her previous roles as fundraiser for The Matriots PAC, as Executive Director of the German Village Society, and as the Marketing/PR Director for The Wellington School. Prior to her career in nonprofit and development, Shiloh was a television journalist, most recently serving as a Managing Editor for KETV.COM. Shiloh was born and raised in rural Nebraska and holds a Masters degree in Broadcast and Public Policy from American University in Washington, DC, where she also covered the White House.

FEE: $10

Week 5 (Tuesday, April 16)

1:00pm-3:00pm

William Faust – Antique Cornets: The Electric Guitar of the Victorian Age

William Faust will discuss the history of the cornet and its place in musical and cultural history. This brass instrument was so pervasive between about 1850-1900 that it held a similar status to today’s electric guitar in rock and popular music. Mr. Faust will share the brief history of the instrument and several examples of antique cornets from his personal collection of over 100 examples dating as far back as the 1830s, as well as some relevant ephemera.

William Faust is Managing Partner of Ologie – a nationally known marketing agency focused on helping colleges and universities recruit students, raise money, and build their brands. He has been collecting and playing antique cornets for over 30 years and has a collection of over 100 instruments dating back to the 1830s. He lives in Columbus and Baltimore with his wife Wendy and has 3 grown children and one grandchild. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from The Ohio State University.

FEE: $10

Week 6 (Tuesday, April 23)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Mansee Singhi and Maneel Singhal — Movement & Breath – Dance and Yoga

Mansee Singhi and Meenal Singhal will lead this session exploring movement with hand and facial gestures. Students will experience the benefits of yoga for body and mind wellness.

Mansee Singhi is a Columbus, Ohio-based Indian classical dance performer, choreographer, and teacher. She has been a member of the United Nations Dance Council since 2012 and more recently joined the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster.

Meenal Singhal is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with Yoga Alliance, which acknowledges the completion of a yoga teacher training with a Registered Yoga School (RYS).

FEE: $10

Week 7 (Tuesday, April 30)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Paul Beck – The 2024 Election: Current and Prospective

With control of the presidency and Congress at stake in a deeply polarized electorate, and the integrity of the electoral process itself under challenge, 2024 is shaping up as one of the most important elections in American history. By the end of April, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees should have been decided, pending ratification by their summer national conventions. Many of the parties’ candidates for all 435 House seats and the one-third of Senate seats on the ballot in 2024 also will have been chosen. The class will review the outcomes of these nomination contests and how the different rules by party and by state have governed them. Attention then will turn to the prospective general elections for both the presidency and the Congress, including how a third party or independent candidate might affect the presidential outcome. Presidential winners are determined by which candidate wins a majority of votes in the Electoral College, leaving the popular votes in only about a dozen “battleground” states to determine of the outcome. The contrast between the Electoral College and popular votes will be highlighted. By contract, congressional winners typically are determined by popular vote “pluralities.” Finally, how much the challenges to the electoral process and the violence that may accompany them will influence the outcomes and the very state of electoral democracy in America also will be discussed.

Paul A. Beck (1971 PhD, University of Michigan) is currently Professor Emeritus and Academy Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University and international co-coordinator of the Comparative National Elections Project (u.osu.edu/cnep), which now includes almost 70 national election surveys conducted since 1990 in 31 different countries. He has been the primary investigator of dozens of public opinion polls during his career. Most recently, he co-directed multiple surveys of voters: for Britain and France in their 2017 elections; for the U.S. in its 2020 election, for Ohio in its 2022 primary, and for Brazil in its 2022 election. Over the course his career, Beck has published 9 books and numerous articles in leading professional journals on voting behavior, political parties, and public opinion; has received 5 research grants from the National Science Foundation; and has been a regular commentator on politics in the media and before community and professional groups. He is recipient of the Distinguished Scholar and Distinguished Service awards from Ohio State University and the American Political Science Association’s Goodnow and Eldersveld awards for distinguished service to the profession and career professional contributions to the field of political organizations and parties, respectively. He served as the political science department chair for 19 years at two different universities, 13 at Ohio State, and as dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Ohio State.

FEE: $10

Week 8 (Tuesday, May 7)

1:00pm-3:00pm

Michael Yonchak – You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me: A Motown Retrospective

Motown played an integral role in American music during the late 1950s into the 1960s. Join Michael Yonchak as he discusses the unique “one stop shop” business model of this independently owned family business. Learn about one of the powerhouse studio bands of the time. Experience legendary Motown artists in action through historical footage and listen to an overview of this golden era of American music with a specially curated playlist. Come enjoy the unforgettable sounds of Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and more!

Dr. Michael Yonchak is an Associate Professor of Music at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, where he directs the wind ensemble and oversees the newly revamped commercial music area. Dr. Yonchak earned the Bachelor of Music in Education (percussion emphasis) and Master of Music in Instrumental Conducting degrees from the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, and later completed the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Wind Conducting from the University of Kentucky. His dissertation monograph focused on the wind ensemble compositions of American composer Frank Zappa, which has subsequently led to the publication of journal articles and presentations on this composer, ongoing research into American popular music and culture, and development of academic courses related to the history of rock and roll and current protest music. Prior to his time in Kentucky, Dr. Yonchak taught for five and a half years in the public schools of northeast Ohio. In addition to maintaining an active performance schedule in the greater Columbus area, he is a clinician on innovative educational pedagogy that integrates popular music styles into various teaching disciplines, presenting sessions for the Ohio Music Education Association’s State Conference and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Summer Teacher Institute.