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September 7, 2008

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Sun Sep 07, 2008, 11:11 PM CDT

By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

A textbook won’t be the most important part of Dana Robison’s college classroom this fall.

His students will build their own long guns of choice in a gunsmithing course at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M; College in Miami.

It’s just one of several unconventional courses that area colleges are offering this year. Parents and other students might do a double take at the schedule, but instructors say it’s all in an attempt to produce well-rounded students who continue learning well after graduation.

Robison’s gunsmithing course at NEO falls into the continuing-education designation for college courses that offer a certificate of completion but not college credit applicable to a degree.

“I’ve had an awful lot of people that want to take this class,” Robison said of the gunsmithing course. “It runs the whole gamut. You’ve got your everyday Joe, then you’ve got your bankers, doctors and lawyers.”

Like most continuing-education courses, the gunsmithing class meets for more hours at a time but for fewer weeks than traditional college courses. Robison’s class meets for eight hours a day for eight consecutive Saturdays this fall. During that time, his students will learn how to use precision tools to make a custom firearm by hand.

For some of his students, Robison said, it’s the first step to a hobby they’ve always wanted to pursue. For others, it’s a pathway to a successful career. For all of them, it’s an area of knowledge they didn’t have before.

Despite teaching the gunsmithing class for several years, Robison said he still gets his share of strange looks.

“Yeah, people are surprised,” he said. “They say, ‘You mean, you’re gonna build a gun?’ With the attitude toward firearms on campuses these days, some people are taken back by that.”

Gene Hilgenberg, chairman of the agriculture division at Crowder College in Neosho, is used to that response by now. For years, he’s taught a meat science and production class in which students take a whole, slaughtered animal and break it down into retail meat cuts. The course is part of the academic requirements for several agriculture degrees at Crowder.

In a laboratory that would make David Letterman proud, Hilgenberg’s students are quizzed on cuts of meat for beef, pork, lamb, goat and deer.

“We wear smocks, but it can get a little messy,” Hilgenberg said.

Well-rounded students

Crowder also offers an unconventional course in makeup as part of its academic curriculum that invites students to “clown around” and pretend for college credit. The stage-makeup course is taught by a former professional Hollywood makeup artist and is part of the theater department’s curriculum, but J.P. Dickey, director of the theater department, said the class gets students from all over campus and the community.

“We have people who work on spook houses come and take the class so they can improve their costumes,” Dickey said, citing particularly the portion of the class that deals with horror films and wounds. “I think people are really surprised by how fun it is. We even had a student studying to be a forensic scientist who took it just because it really intrigued her.

“I’ve always been a very firm champion of liberal-arts education that exposes students to all these different areas of information,” he said.

TeNona Kuhn, director of American Indian studies at NEO, has devoted her teaching career to that idea. This year, the college is offering a course in the Cherokee language, which some say is slowly fading. But Kuhn sees value in teaching and learning about the language. It is a part of this area’s history, she said, and a part of its future as well.

“Part of the college experience should be a global experience,” Kuhn said. “And that applies no matter what career that student is looking at. A student might be looking at getting a business major, but they are going to be working with all kinds of people.”

Lifelong learning

Peggy Lierheimer, an art instructor at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, finished her secondary education later in life, so she understands the importance of keeping the mind active and never ending the learning process. Her class, metalsmithing and silversmithing, attracts a number of older students and is available for either continuing-education credit or academic college credit.

“My students are always telling me that they need to keep active, keep their brains going,” she said.

It’s a trend that stretches beyond Missouri Southern’s doors. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 7.3 million Americans 65 or older are taking adult-education courses. Higher levels of education are linked to better health, higher income, more wealth and a higher standard of living after retirement, the bureau says.

For two hours every Wednesday and Friday, Lierheimer’s students learn how to take sheet metals and turn them into fine jewelry and miniature sculptures. She also teaches the older wax-casting method. It’s not just for fine-art majors, and Lierheimer said it can provide a window into an industry that’s in need of professionals.

“This is actually a very practical skill,” she said. “Jewelry repair is a very needed skill, and good bench jewelers are hard to find.”

An equally practical skill with more delicious overtones is Crowder’s cake-decorating class. Michelle Nichols, Crowder continuing education administrative assistant, said that class also attracts a nontraditional group of students who want to continue growing stronger mentally as they get older.

“If you don’t use it, you can lose it,” Nichols said of mental faculties. “And it makes you a better person. Why not do it? There’s so much out there to learn.”

And as she watches those students grow in class each semester, it’s a prospect that’s sounding better and better to Nichols.

“It’s weird,” she said. “There are things that I wasn’t interested in before, but as I grow older, I want to take on other avenues.”

Unconventional courses at area colleges

Tai chi — Crowder College.

Rodeo — Northeastern Oklahoma A&M; College.

Fisheries management — Pittsburg State University.

Basic pilot training — Missouri Southern State University.

Know your cuts of meat — Crowder.

Bird-watching — PSU.

Wastewater treatment — Crowder.

History of costumes — MSSU.

Wildfire firefighting — NEO.

Metalsmithing — MSSU.

Stage makeup — Crowder.

Cherokee Indian language — NEO.

Interior design — PSU.

The Holocaust — MSSU.

Cake decorating — Crowder.