Participants will explore Chinese textile traditions through lecture, storytelling, and hands-on creative activities. Each session introduces cultural practices and symbolism in decorative arts. Week 1 will explore Chinese women’s sewing traditions and members will create a folded origami case. Week 2 will examine flowers, particularly the lotus, as important symbols in Chinese art and culture. Week 3 will introduce the Linglong Pillow, a traditional Chinese textile object known for creative structure and craftmanship. Participants will create a miniature version. The lectures and workshops are designed to be welcoming and beginner friendly. 

Dr. Chongyan Gao is an OLLI member and an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and a volunteer docent at the Ethnic Costume Museum of the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, where she received seven years of systematic training in traditional Chinese costume making. Her work seeks to build cross-cultural and interdisciplinary bridges among traditional costume craftsmanship, brand storytelling, and contemporary design education. 

Pack a lunch and meet OLLI hiking instructor Melissa Sokulski at Mingo Shelter in Settler's Cabin Park. We'll welcome spring with a beautiful 2+ mile hike loop where we'll see a waterfall. Afterwards, we can all have lunch together outdoors, so bring your lunch and dress accordingly! This will be a moderate level hike with a few steep inclines (up and down) at about a 30-minute per mile pace. Hiking poles are helpful but not required.

Melissa Sokulski, MAC, is an herbalist, wild food educator, avid hiker, and licensed acupuncturist with a master's degree from the New England School of Acupuncture. She writes personal essays and has won grants and residencies for memoir writing. She has taught many popular classes for OLLI at Pitt, including a variety of hiking classes, Wild Edibles Walks, and Fantastic and Ferocious Fungi.

Controlled nuclear fusion is presented in the press as a clean, safe, unlimited source of electricity if we can just solve the technical problems blocking its fulfillment. Vast sums are being spent on solving these problems with each new headline heralding another "breakthrough." Nuclear fusion powers the Sun but conditions in the center of the Sun are vastly different from any achievable location on Earth. This is why controlling nuclear fusion is so much harder than controlling nuclear fission, which has been producing commercial electricity since the 1950s. In this 90-minute lecture, I will describe the science that explains why fusion power has not been realized after decades of work.

Donald Ellison, PhD, is professor emeritus in physics at North Carolina State University. He obtained a PhD from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He has taught physics and astrophysics at the university level, and since 2019, has taught OLLI classes at NCSU, Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh.