There’s teaching and then there’s teaching. “When I taught university underclassmen, there was generally a little intimidation factor, that is, the students being intimidated by the professor. When I teach seniors, I find that I am often the one a little intimidated!” says Mark Stern, with a humble grin.
He currently teaches classes to seniors through Minderful Center, which meets at Temple Chai in northeast Phoenix. “The students are so sharp. It really keeps me on my toes. I thoroughly enjoy it,” he admits.
Mark feels fortunate to have discovered The Minderful Center shortly after he settled in Scottsdale in July of 2013. He had retired from academia after serving as vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science at Shepherd University, a 130-year-old liberal arts institution near Washington, D.C., in historic Sheperdstown, WV, in the Shenandoah Valley. Prior to that, he was a professor at the University of Central Florida, where he founded the UCF honors and scholars program in addition to teaching political science.
Like so many seniors today, Mark knows that life and learning do not stop with retirement. He welcomes the opportunity to keep his mind sharp, and with the students in these classes, he knows he has to be ever alert. “These older, mature students really know their stuff,” he explains. “Rather than the empty vessel metaphor of the traditional college student, these people are bright, energetic and ask good questions.”The current students were eager to receive lecture outlines and a syllabus, much as you would find in a for-credit course, “But of course they don’t get tested!”
Mark looks forward to each weekly class. In January and February he taught a class entitled “The Tea Party and Party Conflict in U.S. Politics.” It’s a natural course for him to teach, since his doctoral dissertation examined “Local Politics: Parties and Participation.” He received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1970. Since then, he has written volumes of papers on the political parties, the modern presidents and the Holocaust. He also authored Calculating Visions: Kennedy, Johnson and Civil Rights (Rutgers University Press, 1992). In March, Mark taught a class for Minderful called “The Modern Presidency: From FDR through JFK.”
Mark also taught a session at the recent Arizona Educators’ Conference on the Holocaust, which was held in Scottsdale. “The Holocaust is a particular interest area for me,” he says. His talk dealt with Vichy France and the French participation in the Holocaust. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in both 2001 and 2005. In 2013 he presented a paper entitled “Human Rights in the Age of Genocide” at the 43rd Annual Conference on the Holocaust at American Jewish University in Los Angeles.
Though Mark grew up in an Orthodox family in Brooklyn, over the years he moved to a Reform point of view. He was president of the Congregation of Liberal Judaism in Orlando, a temple with nearly 800 family members. (In 2005, the temple changed its name to Congregation of Reform Judaism.) He and his wife, Barbara, are now members of Temple Solel in Paradise Valley, where Barbara sings in the choir. They appreciate the “good sense of Jewish traditions” they have found at Solel.
Barbara is also an educator. She received her Ed.D. from the University of Central Florida and was a professor at James Madison University in Virginia. She is a Brandeis Life Member and is thrilled to be in an area with such an active Brandeis group. The couple has two sons, Benjamin, a physical therapist who lives in Fountain Hills, and Jeffrey, a lawyer who lives in Washington, D.C., and has two children.
Minderful is open to all, but because classes are taught during the day, the privately run school attracts mostly retirees or snowbirds. The school bills itself as offering “Thoughtful Classes for Intelligent Lifelong Learners.” A great many of them are Jewish, perhaps because classes are held at Temple Chai, or perhaps because Jewish tradition teaches us that learning is of the utmost importance at all ages. John Thaxton, director of the school, confides that “A number of my Jewish students take me to lunch regularly at a local deli, in hopes of increasing my Jewish knowledge through food!”
John says he is happy to have Mark on the faculty because he embodies both scholarship and warmth, two key ingredients in working with the students. Minderful offers a wide variety of classes in the areas of arts and culture, history and politics, cinema, health and wellness, writing and other disciplines.
