Living the Literary Life

By Reneé Weissenburger

My love affair with literature art began at an early age. As with most children, it began with fairy tales, and not those nice, sugary ones, either: I loved the tragic tales, mermaid foam and all. By the end of grade school, I had formed intimate alliances with Lewis Carroll, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott and Judy Blume.

As a teenager, I used these guides quite literally—such as the summer I lugged around a giant pot of basil trying to understand Keats’ Isabella and her tragic love of Lorenzo. I have always been interested in trying to crawl beneath the skin of such characters, to find out what makes them tick, what makes them endure.

While I still love dressing up as ill-fated heroines, I tend to use these texts and images a little more pragmatically these days. Tennessee Williams, for example, is the constant voice of compassion in my ear. Virginia Woolf reminds me how fragile and isolated we all are—even in a crowd. Toni Morrison makes me weep for the world, while Gabriel Garcia Marquez reminds me to marvel at it. To date, I have yet to encounter a situation—no matter how lovely or horrifying—that these great instructors have not helped me through.

Reneé Weissenburger, M.A., in Literature and Writing has worked as an artist for CoTA (Collaborations, Teachers, Artists), a non-profit program that seeks to integrate art into existing public school curricula, and as a literature & creative writing instructor at National University over the last six years. She is immensely interested in the relationship between literature and art. She is teaching two courses in Winter: Magical Realism: Where the Mythic Meets the Mundane and Beyond Image: Using Photography with Other Media.

UC San Diego Extension is also offering a course in Winter entitled Literature, Imagination, and the Sacred with Catherine Guthrie, who will also share view on the literary life in January.

A Road Trip through Photographs

By Carol McCusker

Looking at certain landscape photographs makes me want to take a road trip. I’ve driven the remote two-lane black tops that crisscross eastern California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico inspired by photographers Mark Klett, Terry Falke, Richard Misrach, and Philipp Scholz Rittermann. Driving out in that vast land and sky slows me down. I experience space, time and light differently. I also like the solitude (these days many people seem frightened to be alone). If, as artists, teachers, or simply as good citizens, we want to have something to say or to give back, we need to recharge ourselves regularly, alone. If I can’t get away, landscape photographs—good ones—can have that effect on me. They’re visual poetry as well as document, and carve out a space for thinking and feeling.

The beginnings of landscape photography were established with the inception of photography itself as a medium in the 1840s. William Henry Fox Talbot, the pioneer of photography, often mimicked the Romantic painters on either side of the Atlantic whose images reflected the philosophy of the Romantic and Transcendentalist writers and poets such as Emerson and Whitman. Some Civil War photographers became landscape photographers in the years right after the war, working for geological expeditions created by the government, which needed to know what resources lay west of the Mississippi to fuel America’s growing need for industrialization.

In the last 170-plus years, many photographers have taken up the environmental banner, replacing the pastoral landscapes of Talbot’s time with a dystopian eye and the inconvenient truths of Al Gore. Artists like Ansel Adams produced photographs that exaggerate the beauty and seemingly endless resource of America’s West, but the world has changed since Adams first traveled the country photographing the most remarkable spaces in our national parks. Rather than having access to unlimited raw materials and wilderness to play, we have seen natural resources depleted and overused, resulting in a dramatic change in the nature of landscape photography. These changes are acutely reflected in the call-to-action imagery of artists like Chris Jordan and Edward Burtynsky.

The key to understanding the amazing impact that landscape photography has on us all is evident in the work of a number of excellent contemporary landscape photographers. Among those talented landscape photography aficionados are Mitch Epstein, Nadav Kander and Benoit Aquin, who take their large format cameras to places you and I will never go, and show us what’s going on around our planet. The Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park currently has an exhibition showing through February 5, 2012, called Infinite Balance: Artists & the Environment showing the work of some of these outstanding photographers. If you’re not familiar with them, see the exhibition—you won’t regret it. Their images may inspire you to take a road trip…or, more likely, prepare us for a bitter, 21st century steam-punk revision of Romanticism’s sublime ruins.

Carol McCusker, Ph.D. in art and photo history from the University of New Mexico, is an independent curator, writer, and educator. For eight years, she was the Curator of Photography at the Museum of Photographic Arts. McCusker is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Diego. She is teaching From Manifest Destiny to ‘Inconvenient Truths’: A History of the Photographic Landscape starting in January.

Count on Accounting Careers

by Henry DeVries

Accountants are busy, if not loved.

“Our image is so horrible — the creepy, nervous guy who can’t talk to anyone,” says Dana Basney, a forensic accountant and director of CBIZ Nation Smith Hermes Diamond. “We’re by-and-large just the opposite. This profession is for people who like people. Our job is figuring out what we can do with our skills to best serve their needs.”

What people need these days is far more information and a better understanding of prospective investments and investment firms, Basney says. Investors large and small are doing lots more due diligence these days, so even if auditors aren’t the most popular people, they are in high demand.

The need for accountants is a job trend ripped from today’s headlines. Financial collapses and scandals in the last few years involving the banking and insurance industries means more companies are having the books scrutinized. Enter the financial examiners, the forensic accountants of the business world.

Even in a dismal economy there’s plenty of opportunity in accounting. Bankruptcy cases require accounting work, and the post-collapse examinations of banks and investment houses have turned into billable hour bonanzas for forensic accountants.

“In a 38-year career, I’ve been unemployed for the 20 minutes it took to drive from the old job to the new one,” says Basney. “I’ve never seen a time when a person with an accounting certification and three years experience who can fog a mirror couldn’t get three or four job offers in a week.”

Basney teaches about the accounting aspects and issues in corporate consolidations and mergers at UC San Diego Extension, where students earn a certificate after completing nine courses, including an auditing course.

Between expected increases in regulations for banking, mortgages and investments and the growing number of personal and business bankruptcies, there’s plenty of accounting for growth in the numbers business.

Aspiring financial examiners and internal auditors can expect continued job growth as a result of changes in financial laws, regulations, and requirements. In addition, jobs in this field will become available as financial examiners retire, move into other positions, or leave the field completely.

While about 2,400 of the estimated 1.3 million accountants were laid off in 2008 – mostly from big firms –the Bureau of Labor Statistics remains bullish on the profession, predicting an 18 percent growth by 2016, an impressive 80 percent more than the average job growth of 10 percent. The need for financial examiners is projected to grow by 41 percent.

“The best job prospects will be for accountants and auditors who have a college degree or any certification, but especially a CPA,” the Bureau predicts.

A 2007 survey by headhunting firm Robert Half International found that auditors and accountants with just a year of experience earn between $31,500 and $48,250 a year and that up to three years experience means earnings up to $60,000. Senior accountants and auditors earned between $43,250 and $79,250, and managers, partners and firm principals could earn up to $208,000.

Accounting and auditing skills have the benefit of being portable – the tax codes, certificate requirements and, most importantly, the work, are very similar in every city and state. And the hours can be as flexible as people desire. Though large firms tend to want 40-hour weeks, there are plenty of opportunities for part-time work with smaller firms, private companies and through home-based businesses.

Auditing is a great place to start a career, Basney says. “You really get an idea of how things work, you learn about taxes, and you get a first look at what happened when things didn’t work,” he explains. “It’s a great foundation for a career.”

Henry DeVries is the assistant dean for external affairs at UC San Diego Extension. He is co-author of the book “Closing America’s Job Gap” and can be contacted at henry.devries@sddt.com or followed on Twitter @goodjobs_forall

Aging and Dying in American Society

By Stan Walens

Almost 50 years ago, when today’s baby-boomers were still in elementary school, Jessica Mitford wrote The American Way of Death, a stunning exposé of the ways in which funeral directors take advantage of family members during a time of intense grief following the death of a loved one. Mitford carefully dissected the many ways in which American culture avoids thinking about or dealing with emotional, practical and ethical issues of aging, illness, dying and grief, making us vulnerable to manipulation and coercion at the time when we are most vulnerable ourselves.

Those same baby-boomers are now aging into senior citizens themselves, and their immense numbers have had and will continue to have overwhelming effects on every aspect of American society, its economy and its healthcare system. The fact that such a large proportion of Americans are now coming to end-of-life situations, that so many people may need extremely expensive medical procedures to prolong their lives, that so many are retiring from economic productivity and yet will require immense resources to sustain them for years and even decades to come, raises questions that few people have been willing to address. Is it still possible to have as an overarching value the idea that everyone’s life should be prolonged to its greatest possible length? And how will we decide who should be kept alive longer, and who not: family members; doctors; health insurers; the government? Should tax dollars be used to keep a burgeoning population of senior citizens in prolonged medical care? Or should they, and ethically can taxes, be used to support physician-assisted suicide?

After centuries of avoiding these critical issues and thereby being trapped in the rituals and outdated practices of the past, Americans are now beginning to discuss and confront this essential life issue. Should life be merely a journey between two medically-controlled procedures—birth and flatlining—or should there be some kind of new, spiritual dimension to end-of-life care? But we cannot proceed blindly, as we have done in the past. It is time now to reconsider and refashion the American way of dying. Just what are our ingrained concepts of aging and dying, and what can we learn from the wisdom traditions of other eras and other cultures?

That is what lies at the center of Extension’s probing new course on Aging and Dying in American Society, taught by Katherine Irene Pettus. Dr. Pettus is a graduate of the Metta Institute, which advocates for reclaiming the soul in caregiving and restoring a life-affirming and transformative relationship to dying. Intimacy with death, and our beliefs about death and the mystery beyond, affect the way we live and die.

Dr. Pettus writes: More Americans than ever are aging into a healthcare system that is unprepared for them; many are caregivers for family members. We say we want to die at home surrounded by our loved ones, yet most of us die in institutions. How can we gain more control over our aging and dying? Sickness, old age and death are inevitable, yet our society hides them and avoids the most important conversations families can have. Learn about the economics, politics, ethics, medicine, spirituality, and art of aging and dying in the 21st century, about advance care planning, the debate over physician-assisted suicide, and the philosophy of palliative care. Through directed readings, film, art, poetry, site visits, and conversations with each other and with experts in the field, we will learn to craft a compassionate vision of this important time of our lives. (The class offers 27 hours of CEU credit as well as 3 units of Extension credit.)

Katherine Irene Pettus (Ph.D., Political Science, Columbia U.) is also a graduate of the Metta Institute for Spirituality in End of Life Care, and a long-time hospice volunteer. She has published a book on the American penal system, currently is writing a book on citizenship and palliative care, and is studying health law at UCSD and California Western School of Law.

Going Mobile Good Career Move

By Henry DeVries

Looking for a hot career trend for the next ten years? Look no farther than the cell phone in your hand.

Today’s four billion mobile phone users outnumber both Internet users and land-line owners. Cell phones and other mobile devices are now multifunction devices that enable users to surf the Web, listen to music, download podcasts, use maps, access global positioning satellites, shoot and send photos and videos, and send text messages. With the countless new software applications, the number of ways to use smart phones is exploding.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, software engineers will see an increase of 32 percent, with an expected 295,000 new jobs created between 2008 and 2018—a much greater increase than predicted for other occupations. Massive growth is also expected in mobile video. The BLS predicts more than twenty-three thousand film- and video-editing jobs will be added through the year 2016.

Demand for software engineers will also continue to grow with the evolution of technologies such as the Internet, as well as the increasing number of websites, mobile-technology devices, and hand-held computers. These newer technologies, coupled with the expanding number of wireless-Internet regions, have created a demand for new products and mobile applications.

In the United States, 80 percent of adults have cell phones. Of those, 37 percent use their phones to access the Web. About 25 percent acquire some news via cell phone. People digest news and information received via cell phone differently than they do with knowledge acquired on the Web.

Cell phones and other mobile devices have evolved far beyond answering and sending voice calls. They are now multifunction devices that enable users to surf the Web, listen to music, download podcasts, use maps, access global-positioning satellites, shoot and send photos and videos, and send text messages. With the hundreds of new software applications for phones, the number of ways to use smart phones is exploding.

Every day, the Web is getting faster and easier to use, and is able to access more information. It provides more opportunities for news organizations, the entertainment industry, and advertisers to live stream directly to cell phones.Graphic designers, videographers, video editors, casual game/app developers, and software engineers are needed to design and develop websites and create video content, software applications, games, interfaces, mobile platforms, and more, as demand continues to increase for Web content and next-generation cell phones.

To help meet the need for app developers for cell phones and other wireless devices, UC San Diego Extension is now offering a Mobile Applications Certificate Program. Led by the Digital Arts Center, the one-year, two-night a week certificate is an advanced training program for smartphone application enthusiasts and industry professionals seeking opportunities to expand their design, programming and software development skills.

“Mobile applications are produced by thousands of mobile application companies across the world,” says Susan Varnum, director of the Digital Arts Center at UC San Diego Extension. “Our mobile apps program is a great compliment to our already successful casual gaming program and both curriculums address the booming mobile media industry.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, graphic designers also will see a projected increase of 13 percent between the years of 2008 and 2018. An increasing number of graphic designers are needed to develop material for Web pages, interactive media, and multimedia projects.

Employers usually want candidates to have a bachelor’s degree in graphic design for most entry-level and advanced graphic-design positions. They will also accept two-year degrees, associate degrees, and certificates in graphic design from continuing-education classes. Individuals who have experience with website design and animation will have the best job opportunities.

Henry DeVries is the assistant dean for external affairs at UC San Diego Extension. He is co-author of the book “Closing America’s Job Gap” and can be contacted at henry.devries@sddt.com or followed on Twitter @goodjobs_forall

Casual Games Are Big Business for Alumni

By Stephanie Stevens

We’ve all done it. Whether it’s playing a round of Solitaire, having fun with a buzz of Angry Birds, or engaging a bit of Bejeweled, casual games are now a part of our lives. What started with PacMan more than three decades ago has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. Mobile devices and cell phones took gaming to the next level, offering up instant access to a variety of casual games that invite us to take a moment (or twenty) out of our day just to play. These days, with mobile devices diversifying from phones into tablets, the variety of casual games available to consumers is increasing exponentially, and seems only to be limited by the bounds of human imagination.

One of the most lucrative ways to distribute a casual game is by way of the iTunes App Store (for the modest price of .99  cents per download to a mobile device, and $4.99 to the iPad). Angry Birds, alone, has been estimated to have been downloaded over 200 million times across all platforms as of May 2011 (Business Insider), which takes casual gaming from a distraction to an up-and-coming industry.

So how does someone learn how to create casual games? The Digital Arts Center at UC San Diego Extension offers a comprehensive, one-year Casual Game Development program that takes students from concept to completion. Recently, three alumni of the program have completed and posted games to the iTunes App Store:

• Nathan Mengel – Clockwork World Tour
• Paula Bruce – Hot Lava
• Michelle Fernandez – Willy Wiener and the Tunnel of Doom

In addition, Michelle Fernandez has gotten so amazing at game development that she’s written and published a textbook on the subject called the Corona Game Development Beginners Guide.

“We are exceedingly proud of our alumni’s accomplishments and successes, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what this year’s students will do with their newfound skills,” said program advisor Sam Shpigelman.

The Digital Arts Center at UC San Diego Extension offers one-year professional training in various digital media art fields such as game design, graphic design, mobile apps development, video production and web design. More information about their programs can be found at dac.ucsd.edu or by calling the program representative at (858) 534-6705.

Don’t Stop Believing: 3 Reasons to Job Search During the Holidays

By Elizabeth Gibson

Network during the holidays—professional organization parties, corporate events, neighborhood get-togethers—and find more opportunities to connect with key contacts.

A challenging job market, everyone on vacation, deadline-driven managers:  what do each of these have in common?  They’re all excuses that job seekers give to skip job hunting over the holidays.  Why bother, you ask?

• Reason #1:  Less Competition
  If everyone else believes you can’t get a job during the holidays, let everyone else stay home drinking eggnog.  Much like the early bird getting the worm, the job seeker who stays focused during the holidays maintains momentum, demonstrates commitment to employers, and is far more likely to encounter and take advantage of existing opportunities.  Job seekers who are prepared with their story, their motivation, and a plan can make a big impact on their target contacts at a time when the competition is focused on finding Zhiu Zhui pets at Toys ‘R Us.
• Reason #2:  More Opportunity
  Organizations often map their first quarter hiring needs during the last quarter of the calendar year, so opportunities may be evaluated, discussed, and/or posted in December and January.  Job seekers who continue to research key organizations and stay on task during the holidays are more likely to land on a hiring manager’s radar early in that process.
• Reason #3:  Better Connections
  Let’s face it, there are more opportunities to network during the holidays – professional organization parties, corporate events, neighborhood get-togethers – and people are typically a little more relaxed.  Job seekers who are strategic about networking may find more opportunities to connect with key contacts, or find that people are more inclined to help.  (A word of warning – while people are a bit more relaxed at this time, dancing around in a Santa hat and demonstrating how the alcohol in your breath can replicate a blowtorch probably won’t land you that dream job.)

Also, while administrative staff may take vacation during holidays, executives or managers in key areas will often work at least part of the time in order to meet deadlines and finish strategic projects.  Well prepared job seekers may be able to bypass a gatekeeper by calling key executives between Christmas and New Year’s.

If you’re looking to sharpen your job search skills, whether it’s resume-building, interviewing, or identifying your career passion, UC San Diego Extension’s Career Center courses can give you the guidance you need to stay focused and effective this winter.

A Career Center student creates a personal brochure to market his skills.

Elizabeth Gibson is director of UC San Diego Extension’s Career Transition & Development for Professionals Program.  She is a community leader with expertise in career development, HR, organizational development, and change management, and has presented to industry associations and Fortune 500s. She was VP of Business Development at Lee Hecht Harrison, where she consulted on career transition, leadership development, and workforce solutions. She is a Past President of the San Diego Society for Human Resource Management.

This winter quarter, Elizabeth Gibson will be teaching Career Management, which begins January 25^th.

Double Honors for English Language Institute

Who grades the graders?

When it comes to academic accolades, 2011 is turning out to be a very good year for the English Language Institute at UC San Diego Extension. The program made the grade when it was granted five-year accreditation by The Commission on English Language Program Accreditation (CEA).

The CEA accredits English language programs with a direct reporting line to administration in accredited universities and colleges and also accredits independent English language schools institutions. CEA accredits programs and institutions that offer English language instruction in the United States and worldwide.

The CEA site review summary said that the English Language Institute “is an exceptional program due to its institutional values: professionalism, communication, and collegiality, all made possible by a strong human infrastructure.”

Last year 3,635 international students from 60 different countries studied in residence at UC San Diego Extension. Over the years UC San Diego Extension has enthusiastically welcomed approximately 40,000 international students to its English language program.

To date less than 100 schools have made the CEA honor roll. The mission of the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation is to promote excellence in the field of English language teaching and administration through accreditation of English language programs and institutions worldwide. CEA achieves its mission by using widely held standards to foster continuous program development through a rigorous process of regular self-assessment and peer evaluation.

In September 2003, CEA was recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as a national accrediting agency for English language programs and institutions. This recognition gave CEA the distinction of being the only specialized accrediting agency for English language programs and institutions in the U.S. In December 2005, the Commission expanded its mission to include the accreditation of English language programs and schools outside the U.S.

English Language Institute staff. Pictured left to right: Stacy Warneke, Graciela Casas-Silva, Erika Wooler, Roxanne Nuhaily, Corey Carpenter, Katie Schmaltz, Kumi Obayashi-Ward, and Olga Piro.

Taught by talented instructors, UC San Diego Extension’s English Language Institute courses offer the most advanced knowledge and education formats available. Students quickly benefit from immediately applicable information, a wider network of peers, and a more insightful understanding of American culture. The institute offers English language, university credit, customized, and professional certificate programs for personal, academic, and professional development.

Additionally the programs for international students at UC San Diego Extension were also recognized by the Ryugaku Journal, one of the largest student recruitment agencies in Japan, as one the Top Ten Best Schools to Study in the World for 2011. The Top Ten list was selected from the feedback of 500 Ryugaki Journal clients who selected schools of choice based on the following criteria: teaching and administrative support, lessons, accommodations, facilities and environment.

“As a university concerned with world issues, UC San Diego continually strives to increase the global reach of the campus,” says Roxanne Nuhaily, the director of the English Language Institute at UC San Diego Extension. “Perhaps that is one of the reasons why various international authorities consistently rank UC San Diego as one of the top 50 universities in the world.”

Working with Photographic Subjects: The Mechanics of Making a Great Portrait

 By Rebecca Webb

Portraiture has a long and varied history throughout the centuries and in a variety of mediums. Trends, movements and societal preferences have helped to determine each artist’s aesthetic rendering of the human form.  So, just what makes a great portrait and what are the mechanics behind authoring one? And what are the inexplicable qualities that you need in order to create a good portrait?

Well-known portraiture photographer Timothy Archibald, notes the elusive nature of portraiture in the blog, Exposure Compensation: “Trying to really pinpoint what makes a great portrait is almost like trying to figure out why it feels good when someone smiles at you or why it is disturbing when someone yells at you.” As an example of great work, he references the work of photographer Judith Joy Ross. In Ross’s work, he says, “There is no filter, the viewer isn’t really aware of all the mechanical decisions that the photographer is making, it is simply a direct transference if emotion and information, going directly from the subject to the brain of the viewer. The photographer somehow was simply a conduit for this information to travel through.” Photography critic and blogger Jörg Colberg noted this conduit of creation when he interviewed Dutch portrait photographer, Helen Van Meene about her stunning work, “A portrait comes into being via the interaction between the photographer and the subject.”

I would consider myself a fine art portraitist. My most recent project is entitled Gentlemen’s Paintings (see video of the shoot below). It was a big step for me in terms of how I approached the people I wanted to include in this series (such as placing an ad in CraigsList) and actually working with people who were not in my family (I am however, still working on an ongoing series called Sutures: Stories with Seams, that mostly features family and friends).

Essentially, if you consider the following elements, learn the technical stuff (to get the look you want) and practice, practice, practice—you will put your subjects at ease and get a great portrait.

The following items are important points that I consider on my shoots (in no particular order):

• Let your personality shine through—learn to feel comfortable in your own skin! Engage in conversation with your subject. Your confidence will make your subject feel at ease.
• Guidance—Subjects often want to be directed and feel more confident when the photographer shares their intentions and expectations of how they want the subject to look, act, or what direction to look.
• Do your research—get to know something about your subjects. I think the best thing to do is meet them without your camera—have a coffee and get to know each other a little bit.
• Intentionality—Be clear to yourself what your project is about or what you want to achieve with your portrait, e.g., consider your audience – is your portrait for a magazine, gallery, commission, personal project, etc.?
• Access—How are you connected (if at all) to your subject? Be wary of objectifying your subject—that is, photographing “the other.” Subjects feel most at ease if you are from their “community.” For example, I am the same demographic and grapple with similar issues as my subjects from the Gentlemen’s Paintings project.
• Time—Spend time on your shoots; don’t rush your subject or your own process. Allow for plenty of time, and prepare your subjects by letting them know how long you expect to take. The Gentlemen’s Paintings project took about a year to complete. Each of the twenty-one portraits lasted about one and a half hours, and each woman came dressed in what they wanted to wear and were ready to be photographed (so that saved some time!)
• (On the) Set and Shoot—be prepared for the shoot with bottled water for your subjects, release forms, know your equipment (and prepare it in advance e.g., charged batteries, extra memory cards, etc.) and know the ins and out of your location. Make sure the time of day works with your intentioned lighting situation. It’s super great to have an assistant (or two!) so you can be free to engage with your subject and not worry about the equipment.

Happy shooting, and don’t forget to check out one of the photography classes in Winter.

Rebecca Webb, BFA from Tufts University. Her expertise is in fine art photography and film production, having studied with photographers Sage Sohier, Peter Laytin and Shelby Lee Adams while doing graduate work at Harvard University. Her work is exhibited in galleries in Boston, New York City and various museums nation-wide. By day, Rebecca is the ArtPower! Film Curator at UC San Diego. She is teaching Digital Camera Basics at UC San Diego Extension in Winter 2012, as well as a variety interesting and unique portraiture courses throughout the year.

Wouldn’t It Be Fun to Play?

By Stan Walens

They say that laughter is the best medicine, and they may just be right. A recent article by Carolyn Butler in The Washington Post noted that “There is a growing body of research indicating that a good guffaw may improve immune function, help lower blood pressure, boost mood and reduce stress and depression….Laughter triggers an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals that can help you feel good, distract you from pain.” Laughing may even improve one’s overall health…and there are some indications that it may help you lose weight! Evolutionary biologists have suggested that unforced laughter—real, spontaneous belly laughs—derive from the sounds other primates make when they want to signal playfulness and build social connectedness through play. And some scientists have proposed that laughter may be one of the most important methods for bonding between men and women, a mode of emotional connection, shared enjoyment and intimacy that is a key component of seduction.

Yet so many of us, as we mature, lose that sense of spontaneity and unfettered joy we had as children, and begin to feel that we have become disconnected from our authentic selves and from even our closest friends and family. Recent research even shows that this sense of disconnectedness affects women more than men, and that women, who may be as funny as men, stop feeling spontaneous in a higher percentage than do men, even though they may actually be better listeners and more supportive partners than are men.

And this is where taking a class in Improv 101 can really help. Improv isn’t about being funny (although funny can happen), or telling jokes: it is a set of techniques of playfulness that improve listening skills, enable you to learn to accept offers and ideas from others, and to work with partners so that each of you enhances the other’s actions. You can learn to share a spirit of camaraderie and absurdity, learn to let go of the strictures that tie you into emotional knots, learn to live more in the moment. Improv helps you sharpen your mind and free up your feelings.

UC San Diego Extension is fortunate to have an extraordinarily talented and experienced instructor teaching its Improv 101 class. David Tierney has performed comedy improvisation since 1996, starting with the renowned Chicago ComedySportz troupe, and is the former director of National Comedy Theatre in San Diego. He has performed throughout the United States, for our troops in the Middle East and Africa, and with Cygnet Theatre, the La Jolla Playhouse/Theatre de La Jeune Lune, and Sledgehammer Theatre.

Space in acting classes is extremely limited. Register early to secure a place in the class. Register before December 12 and get a $25 discount.

Stan Walens is the Program Representative for Humanities and Performing Arts at UC San Diego Extension. He takes the Improv 101 class every quarter, and enjoys it more and more every time.