The Ilead and The Oddities

U.S. news and World Report lists Hanover as one of six "Retirement Hot Spots in the U.S." and lists ILEAD as one of Hanover's top assets. ILEAD is the new Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth.

Since I subscribe to the Korean motto, When you stop learning, it's time to die, I think ILEAD is the best thing that's happened around here in a long time. Dedicated to learning in retirement, it was started by Steve Calvert '68 when he was director of Continuing Education at Dartmouth (he is now assistant vice president at Carnegie Mellon.)

The Elderhostel network sponsors ILEAD and similar programs at numerous colleges and universities; Harvard has had a chapter for 17 years. Nurtured by Dartmouth but run entirely by volunteers, ILEAD is a noncredit, peer-led and peertaught program offering exciting adventures in the life of the mind.

This term I am "teaching" (read organizing) an ILEAD course, Hamlet, theMona Lisa of Literature. For homework, I asked the class to translate one of Hamlet's soliloquies into the vernacular. Since ILEAD is broadminded, I gotmynephew, Thomas Summerall, Dartmouth '88, to do my homework. Thomas is well known on campus as a member of the improv comedy team Said and Done, along with roommate A1 Samuels '88. "I'm Said and he's Done."

The teacher gave Thomas an A-plus.