The Two Big Programs of American Learning Vacations Have Increased Their Offerings This Coming Summer

Overcoming a slump in enrollment during the years of the recent financial crisis (2008 to 2010), the two major programs of summer vacation learning -- Cornell's Adult University and St. John's Summer Classics -- have now recovered their popularity to such an extent that their summer programs are more extensive than ever.
 
Cornell's Adult University, in Ithaca, New York, will be operating four successive, one-week sessions from early July to early August, and will be offering a choice of seven different weeklong classes (meeting morning and evening for five days a week) in each such summer week (more than ever before). Classes, presented by top members of the Cornell faculty, range from the fun topics (one five-day course is "The One-Hour Gourmet," teaching you how to prepare meals in less than 60 minutes; The Tennis Clinic; The Sailing Clinic; The Wines Course) to the seriously profound (like: The Bronte Sisters, 1847-48; The Dynamics of Human Attachment; Film Portrayals of Crises of Vocation; The Joys of Classical Music; and more).
 
I attended a weeklong session of Cornell's Adult University last summer, called Great Political Trials (it was taught by Glenn Altschuler, renowned professor of history at Cornell, and by Faust Rossi, an equally renowned professor at the Cornell Law School) and it was for me one of the most exciting intellectual adventures. I stayed at a nearby hotel, took my meals in a student dining room on the campus, and was able to participate as well in evening lectures and events that added entertainment to the heavy and heady thinking that the daytime classes entailed. Fellow students were a cross-section of American adults of all ages and professional backgrounds, and the discussion was of a level that matched anything I had experienced in previous summers at the adult summer courses at Oxford University in Great Britain.
 
You'll find a detailed listing of the Cornell program at www.cau.cornell.edu . Costs run as low as $1,631 per person for a full week of tuition, accommodations, three meals daily (the meals are copious and excellent), coffee breaks, hospitality hours, parking, and full access to all normal student facilities. For families attending Cornell's Adult University, the school offers a full-scale parallel program of courses for young children-to-teenagers, keeping the latter fully engaged while their parents go back to college.
 
The other important, U.S.-based program of summer learning vacations is at St. John's College, the "Great Books" school of American education. St. John's has two campuses, and the one in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has for several years been offering three successive, one-week sessions of reading and discussing two or more of the acknowledged great books of the western tradition. This summer, St. John's will be offering the same three weeks -- from July 9 until July 27 -- but with an unprecedented number of options, allowing vacationers to choose from several different themes, each presented under the supervision of the "tutors" (instructors) of St. John's. The program is described at www.stjohnscollege.edu .
 
And for the very first time, the program will also be offered, for one week (beginning June 4), at St. John's other campus in Annapolis, Maryland. There, adults of all ages -- without entrance requirements, tests, examinations or grades -- will choose to discuss such works as The Odyssey (in versions by Homer, Sophocles and Euripides), Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man, and various Greek tragedies, both ancient and modern (Sophocles and August Wilson). Costs are around the same as at Cornell. Go to St. John's website for details.
 
I have been to two of the St. John's programs, and can't sufficiently convey my enthusiasm for them; they are among the finest summer vacations that you might ever enjoy.