KU to host seventh annual Mini College

For Robert Rowland, a Kansas University professor of communications studies, nothing is more exciting than ideas.

For the past six years, Rowland has spent a few days each summer lecturing and sharing that excitement with students, alumni and community members at KU’s Mini College.

“It’s a wonderful experience,” he said. “The people who come are very eager to hear a lecture on an academic topic, and they’re excited about the ideas. It’s everything a public lecture at its best can be.”

Mini College is a weeklong opportunity for adults to find themselves back in the college scene and attend classes focused on a wide variety of different topics, said Jessica Beeson, director of alumni and community engagement for KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Classes run from June 1 to 4, Beeson said. Registration starts at $250 and can be completed online at minicollege.ku.edu.

“You can come and take classes and gear them toward your interests,” she said. “It’s a ton of fun, and people come from all over the country. We’ve had people from nearly every state, even Germany and Canada. They come from everywhere.”

At first, classes and lectures were primarily centered around the college of liberal arts, Beeson said, but in recent years the Mini College has expanded to include the business, education, law, social welfare and engineering to name a few.

Rowland said he typically gives lectures on rhetoric, focusing on Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, as well as the rhetoric of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.

“Two people who are masters of rhetoric with different ideologies and then the repellant rhetoric of terroristic groups,” he said.

Rowland said his lectures garner a lot of interest and interaction from those in attendance. Some people even come back year after year to sit in his class, he said.

“They’re a very appreciative audience,” he said. “They’re engaged, and they get my jokes. All these things make it a great experience.”

Typically, Mini College students range from 40 to 80 years old, Beeson said, but it’s not uncommon for a few recent graduates to attend as well.

“They come and they get to meet the faculty, be treated like VIPs, meet high level administrators, and revisit their old stomping grounds,” Beeson said. “You come and you meet people and feel so connected not only to the university, but to each other.”