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Welcome to OLLI at UMass Boston! > Courses & Programs > Other Programs > Winter Programs 2025

Winter Programs 2025   

The following winter events are open to both OLLI members and nonmembers. They are listed in chronological order by start date. For those that have an OLLI account, you can register for these programs by logging into your account and submitting your choices through the online registration process.

If you have never been a member with OLLI at UMass Boston, you can simply email the OLLI office with your winter course requests. At this time, nonmembers are not able to create an OLLI account.

Location details for Winter Film Series. People can watch OLLI's Winter Film Series in three locations: online via Zoom, in-person at UMass Boston, or in-person at Thayer Public Library (Braintree). There are three separate film series sections listed below, each one specific for a viewing location. So please select the right location when adding the event to your shopping cart!

Download Winter Programs Flyer (pdf document)

Note: Registration for OLLI's winter events and programs are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

  Back to Courses & Programs

 
  • Learning to Draw: Hands and Feet
  • Date: 2/12/2025
    Day: Wednesday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Kate Nordstrom
  • A common frustration for most student artists is drawing hands and feet in a realistic manner when portrait or gesture drawing. During this workshop, students will use their observational drawing skills to focus on creating studies of hands and feet using reference photographs as guides. Students have the flexibility to bring to the workshop any drawing materials that they would like to explore. All levels are welcome. This workshop is taught entirely online through the Zoom platform. Note: Kate’s courses are recorded for the purpose of encouraging her students to keep practicing. The recordings are sent to those participants actively participating in her class sessions.

    Zoom Details will be sent out the day prior to the event.

 

  • Virtual Walking Tour – Back Bay Part I: A Parisian Work of Art
  • Event is full.
    Date:
    2/13/2025
    Day: Thursday
    Time: 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Nancy White
  • Join me for the first of a two-part walk in this exquisitely planned neighborhood which was created for Boston’s upper class known as the Boston Brahmins. On this virtual tour, I will tell you about the Parisian design of the Back Bay created by architect Arthur Gilman. We will view some of Boston’s most treasured landmarks including homes of the rich and famous Boston Brahmins, the magnificent churches, and educational institutions they built. Tourists travel from all over the country and the world to visit this exquisite neighborhood, and perhaps as a follow up activity, you might plan your own trip to walk through the Back Bay and visiting some of the buildings. Of course, no walk is complete without stopping for a sip and a bite to eat.

    Zoom details will be sent out the day prior to the virtual walking tour.

 

  • Virtual Walking Tour – Back Bay Part II: Upper Boylston Street
  • Event is full.
    Date:
    2/19/2025
    Day: Wednesday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Nancy White
  • Join me on Part 2 of this Back Bay journey as we walk through the Upper Boylston Street Back Bay Neighborhood, a neighborhood once known as the New Boston. This virtual tour will recreate the 19th century Victorian neighborhood and contrast it to the 20thand 21stcentury neighborhood from Massachusetts Avenue to Dartmouth Street.  You will see the wonders of modern engineering and architectural designs that built a vibrant neighborhood over the Boston and Albany Railroad Yards beginning with the construction of the Prudential Center. We will look at both 19th century buildings that have been adapted to modern use as well as 20th and 21st century buildings including the recently renovated Christian Science Plaza, Saint Cecilia’s Church, the Boston Public Library, and the Boston Marathon Memorial. Finally, will we will visit the Lyrik Center built over the Mass Turnpike.

    Zoom details will be sent out the day prior to the virtual walking tour.

 

  • Author Talk/Book Reading: Out of the Crazywoods
  • Date: 2/19/2025
    Day: Wednesday
    Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Cheryl Savageau
  • Cheryl Savageau will read from her memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, the riveting and insightful story of her late-life diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Without sensationalizing, she takes the reader inside the experience of a rapid-cycling variant of the disorder, providing a lens through which to understand it and a road map for navigating the illness. The structure of her story—impressionistic, fragmented—is an embodiment of the bipolar experience and a way of perceiving the world.

    Zoom details will be sent out the day prior to this author talk and book reading.

 

  • How to Work with Anxiety
  • Date: 2/20/2025
    Day: Thursday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Katherine Robinson
  • We are living in the age of anxiety, a situation that often makes us feel as if we are locked into endless cycles of stress, sleeplessness and worry. But what if we had a way to leverage our anxiety to help us solve problems and fortify our well-being? What if instead of seeing anxiety as a curse, we could recognize it for the unique gift that it is? In this course we will be learning about ways to work with anxiety and see it as essential for our survival. This will be a combination of lecture, discussion and meditation, breathing exercises.

    Zoom Details will be sent out the day prior to the event.

 

  • The Art of Color Mixing
  • Date: 2/21/2025
    Day: Friday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Kate Nordstrom
  • Using watercolor, students will learn basic color theory in order to make and mix different vibrant and robust colors. This workshop will present a methodical way of organizing color mixes so that students can use what they create to guide future painting. The benefits of using this transparent medium to layer paint directly on the paper instead of mixing on the palette will be explained and explored. Color theory terms and vocabulary will be presented and used to guide questions and discussion. All levels of painting experience are welcome. This workshop will be taught entirely using the Zoom platform. A supply list will be provided in advance of the workshop. Note: Kate’s courses are recorded for the purpose of encouraging her students to keep practicing. The recordings are sent to those participants actively participating in her class sessions.

    Zoom Details will be sent out the day prior to the event.

 

  • Charles M. Schulz: An American Cartoonist
  • Date: 2/26/2025
    Day: Wednesday
    Time: 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Jessica Ruskin
  • Take a pictorial journey through Charles M. Schulz’s life and career and learn why Peanuts is one of the most popular and influential comic strips ever. This multi-disciplinary exploration of the creative process touches on history and visual arts and includes a hands-on, how-to-draw Snoopy workshop at the end.

    Zoom Details will be sent out the day prior to the event.

 

  • Author Talk - Oh No He Didn't!
  • Event is full.
    Date:
    2/27/2025
    Day: Thursday
    Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
    Number of Sessions: 1
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: Wendy Murphy
  • Wendy will discuss her new book and the inspiration behind her decision to write about women whose work was credited to men. In a book that spans generations and covers a range of disciplines from nuclear science to the invention of Monopoly and even baroque art, Oh No He Didn’t brings to life the incredible tales of twenty-six women, including Rosalind Franklin, Mileva Einstein, and Ava Harris, who were brilliant in their fields, but received little or no credit for their accomplishments. Despite their many differences, all the women experienced the same form of plagiaristic injustice because they were female, a problem that persists today.

    Zoom Details will be sent out the day prior to the event.

 

  • Monday Morning Coffee Chats
  • Dates: 1/6/2025 - 2/24/2025
    Day: Monday
    Time: 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
    Number of Sessions: 6
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: 
  • Here is your opportunity to connect with other people over your morning cup of coffee! Start your day off with chatting about what’s on your mind or what TV show you might have recently watched!  OLLI staff will also be joining in on the chat if folks have questions about our wonderful lifelong learning community! Every Monday in January and February (except Jan. 20 & Feb. 17).

    Zoom details will be sent out the day prior to the coffee chat. No chats on 1/20 and 2/17.

 

  • 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series
  • Dates: 1/7/2025 - 2/18/2025
    Day: Tuesday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM
    Number of Sessions: 7
     
    Location: ONLINE
    Room: Zoom
    Facilitator: 
  • CHANGE!
    Everything changes. Change is one of the only certainties we face every day, and as we grow older, we may face it more than once a day. We change our clothes, our mood, our hair, our ideas, our religion, our neighborhoods. Friendships and life’s plans change. The weather and political situations change. Sometime change happens to us; sometimes we affect the change. Change can be colossal or miniscule – earthshattering or barely noticeable. To survive and flourish we need to adapt and grow. But do we always have the right tools in our purses and backpacks?  The movies we have chosen this year, 2025, will present you, our splendid OLLI audience, with a variety of stories – all involve change of some sort. Hopefully, together we will learn a lot discussing this great big topic and will walk away – changed. 
     
    Film schedule:
    January 7: Pursuit of Happyness
    January 14: Erin Brockovich
    January 21: Billy Elliot
    January 28: Unbroken
    February 4: The Holiday
    February 11: Make Way for Tomorrow
    February 18: Up 

    This is online viewing (via Zoom) of the 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series.

    Zoom details will be sent out the day prior to the film screening and discussion.

 

  • 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series
  • Dates: 1/7/2025 - 2/18/2025
    Day: Tuesday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM
    Number of Sessions: 7
     
    Location: McCormack Hall
    Room: 617, 3rd Floor
    Facilitator: 
  • CHANGE!
    Everything changes. Change is one of the only certainties we face every day, and as we grow older, we may face it more than once a day. We change our clothes, our mood, our hair, our ideas, our religion, our neighborhoods. Friendships and life’s plans change. The weather and political situations change. Sometime change happens to us; sometimes we affect the change. Change can be colossal or miniscule – earthshattering or barely noticeable. To survive and flourish we need to adapt and grow. But do we always have the right tools in our purses and backpacks?  The movies we have chosen this year, 2025, will present you, our splendid OLLI audience, with a variety of stories – all involve change of some sort. Hopefully, together we will learn a lot discussing this great big topic and will walk away – changed. 
     
    Film schedule:
    January 7: Pursuit of Happyness
    January 14: Erin Brockovich
    January 21: Billy Elliot
    January 28: Unbroken
    February 4: The Holiday
    February 11: Make Way for Tomorrow
    February 18: Up 

    This is in-person viewing of the 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series at the UMass Boston campus.

    Participants will watch the film in-person and then join via Zoom for the online discussion following the film.

 

  • 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series
  • Dates: 1/7/2025 - 2/18/2025
    Day: Tuesday
    Time: 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM
    Number of Sessions: 7
     
    Location: Thayer Public Library, Braintree
    Room: Logan Auditorium
    Facilitator: 
  • CHANGE!
    Everything changes. Change is one of the only certainties we face every day, and as we grow older, we may face it more than once a day. We change our clothes, our mood, our hair, our ideas, our religion, our neighborhoods. Friendships and life’s plans change. The weather and political situations change. Sometime change happens to us; sometimes we affect the change. Change can be colossal or miniscule – earthshattering or barely noticeable. To survive and flourish we need to adapt and grow. But do we always have the right tools in our purses and backpacks?  The movies we have chosen this year, 2025, will present you, our splendid OLLI audience, with a variety of stories – all involve change of some sort. Hopefully, together we will learn a lot discussing this great big topic and will walk away – changed. 
     
    Film schedule:
    January 7: Pursuit of Happyness
    January 14: Erin Brockovich
    January 21: Billy Elliot
    January 28: Unbroken
    February 4: The Holiday
    February 11: Make Way for Tomorrow
    February 18: Up 

    This is in-person viewing of the 2025 OLLI Winter Film Series at the Thayer Public Library in Braintree.

    Participants will watch the film in-person and then join via Zoom for the online discussion following the film.

 

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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI)
McCormack Hall, 3rd Floor, Room 003
UMass Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125-3393