Midcoast Senior College

The 2026 MSC Members Luncheon is a wrap! What a wonderful day with music and friends!

The MSC Singers put on a great show for a full house today at St. Paul's Maine - Episcopal Church - Brunswick—and the singers had surprises for their beloved teacher and leader, Stuart Gillespie. Music, fun, food, community, and love all around on this beautiful day.

Our Senior Scribblers Writing Group has an adjusted Summer schedule. Check out the dates and prompts and JOIN US for good company and flash fiction fun!

https://midcoastseniorcollege.org/senior-scribblers-writing-group/?fbclid=IwY2xjawSTsdVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe9RLRUN29fG0sp-Er5AzQI0anTupSFVuZIoR4RseuAt8gCo6TRoL2xOQztd0_aem_8f45Fp7WjppafWF8NskrRg

It was a full house at today’s MSC Summer Wisdom Speaker Series event featuring Dr. Andrew Rudalevige on the topic: The New, New Imperial Presidency. Big thanks to Thornton Oaks Retirement Community, Brunswick, Maine for their generous support of this series. Didn’t make it to the event? You can watch it, here!

Dr Andrew Rudalevige - The New, New Imperial Presidency Midcoast Senior College Summer Wisdom May 26 2026

What implications for present and future governance lie in the post-Watergate efforts to reboot the “imperial Presidency”? Will we see a renewed effort to rein in executive authority, or the permanent expansion of presidential power?

Dr. Andrew Rudalevige has been the Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government at Bowdoin College since 2012, and a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and at University College London’s Centre on U.S. Politics. He studies American political institutions, with an emphasis on the modern presidency, and is the former chair of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section. His books include By Executive Order, Managing the President’s Program, and The New Imperial Presidency.

Cheryl Hamilton, a native of Lewiston, is an award-winning storyteller and the founder and executive director of Stellar Story Company, which she founded after directing programs for local, national and international non-profits that focused on employment, education, and migration. She has coached more than 1,500 people from 80 countries. For Cheryl, her storytelling work has deep local roots and we are fortunate that she will share with us the impact on her professional storytelling work of living and working in Lewiston in 2001 during the beginning of Somali migration. JOIN US!🌟

The entrance to Midcoast Senior College is beautiful right now with daffodils of many varieties in bloom. And, thanks to the green thumbs of volunteers Bonnie Studdiford (l) and Judy Loranger (r), our planter, which was donated to MSC by Coastal Enterprises Inc., will burst with color and life! Grateful for the contributions of so many!

Today, members of Midcoast Senior College traveled to the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine - HHRC at University of Maine at Augusta— and it was an experience that will stay with us for a long time.

Through powerful exhibits, personal stories, and thoughtful discussion, we were reminded that history is not just something to study — it is something we are called to remember, and learn from.

We are grateful to the HHRC staff for creating such an impactful experience—and give special thanks to MSC Board Member, Freda Bernotavicz for organizing this memorable MSC Summer Excursion.

Today is the last class of our popular "Brain Repair" course taught by Donald Stein. An excellent course and a big shout-out to Michael Koleda (left) who brought in his digital projector each week allowing students to get a better picture of the class slides. Not pictured is another class helper, Betty Robinson. Betty put out the class name cards and collected them each week. MSC students are the best!

Join us, TODAY for our Summer Wisdom Speaker Series!

Ambassador Larry Butler spent 40 years in diplomatic service, working in twelve countries including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Finland, Iraq, Kosova and Serbia. Prior to serving as President Clinton’s National Security Council staff lead on securing the Northern Irish peace accord in 1995, he was the lead at the American Embassy in Belgrade (then in Yugoslavia) supporting Richard Holbrooke’s achievement of the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the war in Bosnia.

The talk will deal with international conflict management, using the speaker’s personal experience and citing case examples from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Libya, and now Venezuela. Intervention from the United States led to perversely unexpected outcomes, such as boatloads of refugees from those countries coming to our shores, massive expenditure of human and financial resources, and loss of American influence overseas.