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As Metropolitan State College, the school offered a similar continued education program, Learning for Living, three decades ago. Mary Ann Watson, who is leading the LearnOn program, had taught classes for Learning for Living; she has been a psychology professor at Metro for 41 years.
The courses being offered in LearnOn were inspired by suggestions from a survey given to 30,637 MSU Denver graduates; twelve classes were created from the top twenty suggestions. Several focus on building life skills such as cooking, speaking another language, and launching a business. Others are much more specific, including an intro to rock climbing, wine and beer tasting, and Journey to Space, a class about how satellites work. "You'll see something from almost every area of the school," says Watson. "I kind of based it on different activities around Denver."
The new classes will be rolled out this month through the spring; they're divided into two sections, with two classes in each. The History of Denver class will likely involve a lot of walking tours, Watson notes, so teaching it in April seemed like a better choice than teaching it in January.
Tuitions may depending on whether extra materials are needed, but half the classes cost a flat $80 and are capped at 25 students. "We will run them if they have at least five people," Watson says.
Watson, whose area of study is mostly around gender, will not be teaching a class of her own in this first round of LearnOn, but she hasn't ruled it out. "Maybe in the future, but right now I just want to get this under way," she explains.
To find out more and register for classes, go to the Metro State University website.
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