More than 200 alumni will visit Hanover in mid-August to study the "Riddles of Creation" and "Great Literature" as part of this year's Alumni College.
The Alumni College, a program that allows alumni and parents to spend a week at Dartmouth studying a specific topic, is in its 31st year. It is the oldest program of its kind in the country, Director of Alumni Continuing Education and Alumni College Director Mardy High said.
This year, the Alumni College is offering two separate week-long programs, "Riddles of Creation" on August 7-12, and "Great Literature Reinterpreted" on August 14-19.
About 160 people will attend the first week's "mini-course" and 95 will attend the second week.
High said although most of those attending are retired, a wide range of classes will be represented from the "Classes of the '80s right through well into the [Classes] of the '30s."
Although predominately from New York and New England, there are alumni and parents coming from Florida, Texas, Oregon and the Midwest.
The College charges $800 for couples and $425 for individuals to attend a one-week session of the Alumni College. For young alumni, who have graduated in the last 10 years, the price is $533 for couples and $284 for individuals.
The alumni and parents also have the option of staying in the East Wheelock dormitory, the Lodge dormitory or in Massachusetts Hall for an extra fee.
There is also a $287 junior program for any children, ages 9-14, of the alumni that wish to attend. The program includes an overnight trip to Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and activities related to the topics that the adults will be studying.
High said the Alumni College represents the College's commitment to educating students, even after they have left Hanover.
"Just because you graduated from Dartmouth after 4 years doesn't mean your alma mater does not have an interest in educating you any more," High said.
"People can come back to campus and get reacquainted with the place doing what they came here to do in the first place -- use their brains," she said.
High said the Alumni College allows alumni both to learn new things from professor they never had but also to learn new interpretations on things they might have learned a few decades ago.
History Professor Richard Kremer is the Academic Director, responsible for developing the curriculum and recruiting professors, for "Riddles of Creation."
The "mini-course" deals with cosmology and creation myths.
Physics and Astronomy Professor Marcelo Gleiser will lecture on "Creation Myths," "Galileo, Newton and God," "Big Bang Theory," and "Modern Physics/Modern Cosmology."
Kremer will lecture on "Ordering Heavens and Society," "Measuring the Shape of the Universe," "Greeks/Origins of Western Science," and "Science, Religion and Creation."
History Professor Pamela Crossley will speak on "Cosmologies in China," Earth Sciences Professor Naomi Oreskes on "Did Modern Science Kill Nature," Biology Professor Ed Berger on "How Did Life Begin on Earth," and French and Italian Professor Walter Stephens, on "Witches, Demons, and Renaissance Cosmology."
The second week's session, "Great Literature Reinterpreted" is being run by English professor Peter Bien and will look at several great literary works and classical and modern interpretations of them.
The course will study "Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad "The Tempest," by William Shakespeare, "Antigone," by Sophocles, "Antigona Furiosa" a Latin American version of Antigone and "Death in Venice," by Thomas Mann.
Students can attend any of these programs if they contact the alumni relations office.