The Learning Curve 'for the love of it'

It might sound like any college instructor's daydream, but it's the barest description of The Learning Curve, a five-year-old independent arts and humanities program.

Founder Susan Dick says she has worked with the arts community quite a bit since coming to Tucson in 1968.

After majoring in music and English literature at the University of Arizona, she eventually landed a job as fine arts director at Utterback Middle School.

From there, she coordinated the noncredit arts and humanities program for the UA's Extended University until the program's overhaul in 2000.

Former students and faculty encouraged her to strike out on her own with a new idea, which was to offer academic-style arts and humanities courses in a noncollege setting, where teachers teach for the love of it and students learn for the same reason.

In 2002, Dick launched her new venture, dubbed "The Learning Curve" to indicate it has no college affiliation but fosters the ongoing learning process. She had fewer than 200 students, and classes met at St. Philip's in the Hills Church at East River Road and North Campbell Avenue.

But The Learning Curve has grown, so last fall Dick moved the core classes to the University of Phoenix's River Road campus at 555 E. River Road. She's also set up partnerships with local establishments such as the Tucson Botanical Gardens and the Crizmac Art and Cultural Marketplace to host certain classes there.

The University of Phoenix is a perfect fit, Dick says, because the classrooms are already set up with all the appropriate equipment, and the university holds its classes mainly in the evenings while The Learning Curve meets primarily during the day.

"There's just an untapped gold mine" of people in Tucson who want to teach and learn, she says.

There are loads of retired instructors from the UA and other schools, and Dick says she loves lining them up with people who want to learn what they know.

"It's just a fun puzzle to put together," she says.

At rates ranging from $26 to $175, depending on the course and how many times it meets, adults can sign up for classes in watercolor painting, digital photography, literature, Native American basketry, astronomy and music.

Pat McKnight, who is retired, has sampled many of them since she began attending The Learning Curve more than three years ago.

"At my age, I don't need to take courses for credit, but I do like organized presentation. I just learn more each time," she says. "These are not ordinary adult education classes. They assume a level of interest and sophistication. The faculty don't talk down."

For example, McKnight says, people who attend the jazz classes are jazz aficionados who want to learn more.

"The people who come to these classes come for the love of it and because they know that the faculty are excellent."

McKnight is attending the first spring class, "Literary Road Trip," which began last week.

Ed Hecht also was there. He's become a fan of the class instructor, Bill Fry, who retired to Tucson after more than 30 years teaching literature and writing at a community college in Maryland.

Fry arrived in Tucson without a local following and became one of Dick's first instructors.

His first class session last week was filled to capacity, with some people wondering whether they would get seats.

Fry, says Hecht, knows how to work a room and ingratiate himself to people.

"They enjoy being in his company and hearing what he has to say. That's a great kind of teacher to have."

When Hecht first registered for one of Fry's classes four years ago, he was dubious about what he might learn because he had read many of the authors before, he says. But he came out of each class session saying to himself, "I learned something today."

"That is such a neat feeling," Hecht says. "It's not that you've never read these people before, but you learn something that you didn't know."

Fry says it's the ideal situation for him. "No quizzes, no final exam. I don't have to grade papers. This is what we do in retirement."

Love of knowledge is the secret behind The Learning Curve, Fry says.

"The instructors love what they're doing, and the students know that and respond accordingly."

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Find out more

For more information on available classes, cost and when they begin, go online to www.thelearningcurvetucson .com or call 777-5817.