Meet the Curriculum Committee
July 8, 2021
In a previous posting, the Banner began publication of segments from an upcoming directory of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and committees, in which many members will have the opportunity to participate. Additional information on this new initiative will be coming soon, but here’s another sample of what’s to come: profiles of members of BOLLI’s Curriculum Committee, which solicits and vets course proposals, and assembles a program of courses each fall and spring semester. Committee members work with the proposers to ensure that a course meets BOLLI standards, and that the course catalog will attract potential students while setting accurate expectations (“truth in advertising”). The committee also creates the course schedule which, along with the catalog content, is passed to BOLLI staff for publication. Once this is completed, the Study Group Support Committee follows up with the Study Group Leaders.
Sheila Brachfeld grew up in Brooklyn (Midwood High School), came to the Boston area to attend Tufts (Jackson College for Women) and later did her doctoral work in developmental psychology at Brandeis. She spent 35 years at Wellesley College, teaching in the Psychology Department and, for nearly half those years, simultaneously serving as the director of the college’s advising program for pre-medical students. She has been a BOLLI member since spring 2018, where she has focused on history, literature and art history courses. In addition to being on the Curriculum Committee, Sheila is a member of the New Yorker Fiction Salon. She has enjoyed not only the content of the classes and leadership of excellent SGLs, but also the opportunity to learn from, and alongside, so many remarkable peers who come from a wide variety of fields. She also deeply values the friends she has made — and continues to make — at BOLLI.
After earning her master's in Architecture, committee co-chair Sarah Carter spent her career working in facility planning, first for Fidelity and then for Novartis in Cambridge. She joined BOLLI following her 2016 retirement. Sarah enjoys taking courses, particularly in literature. She and her husband, Mark, like to travel, and spend time in Puerto Rico in the winter.
Peggy Creese joined BOLLI in the fall of 2017 and has marveled at the courses in music, art and especially literature. Peggy lived abroad for most of her career. She worked as an English teacher in community colleges in England and also in Malawi and Ghana. After training as an information specialist, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland where she worked for the United Nations, at UNICEF and the World Health Organization. Peggy has become an admirer of Boston since she moved here thirteen years ago and enjoys the lively music scene and the wonderful museums. BOLLI has enabled her to make new friends and participate in an enriching community.
Aaron Goldberg has been a BOLLI member since the fall of 2016, after working as an electrical engineer in the federal government and several companies along Route 128. For many years he also taught technical subjects at Boston University, Northeastern University, and the University of Lowell as an adjunct professor. At BOLLI, Aaron has taken courses on many different topics, including photography, history, physics, ethics, and politics. He is co-host of the New Yorker Fiction Salon, which has opened new worlds to him, and also participates in the Writer’s Guild.
Barbara Gordon joined BOLLI soon after retiring three years ago. She spent her professional career as owner/director of a speech/language pathology private practice, working with in-patients at an acute care hospital, with children and parents at her clinic, and supervising and mentoring students and young professionals. BOLLI has fulfilled her love of learning, but as importantly has broadened her understanding and perspective regarding social, political, and racial issues, especially in the areas she is so passionate about, racial justice and equal opportunity. Barbara was very excited to become an active member of BOLLI through the Curriculum Committee, where she can give back to an organization that is giving her so much. She lives in Belmont and gets ultimate pleasure from her family, especially her five grandchildren.
Roberta Kozinn (not pictured) moved to the Boston area from Long Island five years ago and is delighted that the intellectual stimulation and friendships she has found at BOLLI have provided a meaningful anchor for her new life. A music major and European languages minor at Barnard, Roberta received a Master’s Degree in musicology from Columbia, and for twelve years led study groups for the Brandeis National Women’s Committee, covering a wide range of musical subjects. Combining her academic training with a desire to communicate her passion for classical music, she worked for two decades in New York as a publicist for internationally renowned artists and institutions. She has been an avid choral singer since her teens and is a lifelong opera buff. After enjoying many thought-provoking literature, art and music courses at BOLLI, she is looking forward to her first semester as an SGL this fall, when she will lead a course on the rise of Romanticism in music.
Committee co-chair, Carl Lazarus, joined BOLLI in spring 2013 upon retiring from a career in computer software, networks, and running online services. He has been an SGL since fall 2015 on a variety of topics: the history of the digital computer, the internet, Frank Lloyd Wright and, most recently, prospects and possibilities for avoiding climate disaster. Carl has taken courses in almost every BOLLI category. His outside interests include travel, international folk dancing, hiking and reading. He enjoys most genres of music and occasionally dabbles on the piano.
David Rattner has been a BOLLI member since 2019. Prior to discovering BOLLI, David enjoyed a forty-year stint at Massachusetts General Hospital as a busy surgeon, medical innovator, and physician-leader. His career highlights include taking minimally invasive surgery concepts from bench to bedside, extensive international travel, and being on the inside of the transformation of healthcare delivery systems in Massachusetts. Since joining BOLLI, David has enjoyed courses in a broad range of topics and has also taught a course on health care policy. Outside the classroom he is an avid golfer, skier, and mischievous grandpa!
David Reisen joined the Curriculum Committee in the spring of 2021. After majoring in French History and Literature in college he attended medical school at Columbia. He had a long career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and especially enjoyed his role as the Medical Director of the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy, a post he held for twenty years. He is married to Ann, who also enjoys BOLLI, and has children and grandchildren in New York and California (too far away!). Both he and Ann began classical piano lessons eight years ago, and also enjoy theater, concerts, travel and reading. BOLLI has offered them a rich, new community, and at the time of writing they are delighting in both the Western Musical Tradition course given by Gil Harel and the museum tours led by Ruth Ezra.