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LINEC Steering Committee Members 2022-23

Nola Jordan, Chair

Nola is a retired high school French teacher.  Born and raised in Kentucky, she spent her working life in Connecticut.  When retirement brought her to New Hampshire, she began seeking ways to become part of the community.  She worked part-time in a small independent bookstore – a dream job for a lifelong reader – and began volunteering with several organizations:  Concord Hospital, the Concord Cold Weather Shelter, Kearsarge Food Pantry, and the Friendly Kitchen.  She served three terms as a trustee of her local library, the final four years as Treasurer.

In 2010 friends introduced her to LINEC.  Taking courses through LINEC has enabled Nola to pursue on going interests as well as explore new ones.  An added benefit has been the opportunity to get to know and connect with so many interesting fellow learners.

Throughout her life, learning about the world through travel has been Nola’s great passion, albeit one drastically curtailed at the moment.  Closer to home, she loves being outdoors, whether hiking, skiing, golfing or birding.  When Mother Nature keeps her inside, she enjoys reading, knitting and learning to play the recorder.

Bob Anderson, Vice-Chair & Nominating Committee Member

My first contact with LINEC was through a course offered a few years ago at the Mt. Kearsage Indian Museum. Since the COVID lockdown I have delved into a variety of courses to foster new learning. LINEC is a goldmine.

My interests include day sailing, veggie gardening, getting outside, some sketching and watercolor. The Kent Street Coalition and voting rights action is a commitment as well as serving on other community boards and committees. Hannah and I enjoy our life together in Concord, finding ways to stay in touch with family across the country.

Before retirement I was a hospital chaplain and clinical educator of chaplaincy, serving seven different hospitals in the Northeast over 45 years. My last fulltime position was in New York City where I grew up. I valued the challenges of ministering, teaching and writing in multi-cultural/faith metropolitan settings with a focus on clinical learning. I stepped into retirement seven years ago and continue as a group facilitator in UCC (United Church of Christ) monthly clergy support groups.

Lee deBell, Treasurer

Lee has been an active member and Treasurer of LINEC since 2011.

Prior to retiring from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2010, Lee spent the final eighteen years of his career as a national training specialist, developing implementation and training plans for the nationwide rollout of multiple large strategic computer systems in the agency. He also served as the lead instructor for many of the training courses offered and led a team that developed and implemented a “Train-the-Trainer” program to develop additional instructor teams throughout the United States.

Lee is also a volunteer Instructor, Deputy State Director, and Data Manager for the AARP Driver Safety Program in New Hampshire and enjoys teaching the AARP Smart Driver classroom training course.

Lee enjoys photographing nature and finding ways to use technology to improve how we manage and carry out our daily lives. He and his wife, Charlotte, also enjoy their family and friends, reading, international travel (prior to Covid), and spending time enjoying nature.

Chris Hague, Publicity and Marketing, Catalogue

As I set out in life, I had no expectations of becoming a librarian. I taught fifth grade at the school I had attended, under the same beloved principal who was there when I was a child, then moved on to Hatfield, Massachusetts, where I taught fifth and sixth grade language arts while earning my PhT (Put Husband Through) at UMass. When he graduated, we moved to New Hampshire, where I taught in Bow and held various positions in the Bow Education Association, which I thoroughly enjoyed. But I left, and spent some years at a scattering of part-time jobs as well as the full-time job of being a young parent.
Quite by chance, I was recruited to the evening shift at the Weare Public Library. From there my responsibilities and work hours expanded until I retired in 2016 after 17 years as director. The bridge between classroom teaching and library services is short. Today’s library is more than a repository for books. It’s an institution that fosters lifelong learning and personal development.

With this vocational history, there was a natural attraction to LINEC, where people share a common interest in the topics LINEC presents and the personal contacts it fosters. Besides enjoying LINEC classes, I am Vice President of the Eleanor Campbell Charitable Fund and Co-Chair of its Scholarship Committee. I’m a longtime member of Kitchen Table Writers, a spinoff from the writers’ group I started at the library. Other interests include knitting, sewing, reading, and spending time exploring outdoors with the family.

Paul Hague, Curriculum Committee Member, Mailings

Paul Hague is a retired geologist who spent many years conducting geophysical surveys to illuminate what lies beneath. An avid reader, he always has a book going, sometimes two or three. He first joined LINEC back in the early 2000s and, believe it or not, taught a course on Joyce’s Ulysses. After departing for several years to teach school, he returned a few years ago to enjoy the courses offered and to present a few on geology. Always eager to learn something new and to satisfy a curious and skeptical mind, he will stick around to see what develops.

Anne McCausland, Nominating Committee Chair

Anne is serving her second term on the Steering Committee. She works on the catalog and chairs the Nominating Committee…always looking for new volunteers! A transplant from the Chicago area, having lived 20 plus years in New Hampshire, she now considers herself a resident.

After teaching Latin and Greek she made a career switch and went to Social Work School, lifelong learning! She worked in Concord as a psychotherapist for 15 years before retiring. For Anne, the hardest part of LINEC is choosing which courses to take. She has forced herself to a limit of three per term. Her enjoyment of courses led her to agree to serve on the Steering Committee. She also enjoys walking, gardening and practicing tai chi.

Don Melander, Curriculum Committee Chair

Don Melander is a Professor of Literature and Humanities emeritus at New England College where he taught literature, writing, and humanities courses and served in several administrative positions for over 50 years. In the early 1980s he served on the board of the New Hampshire Humanities Council, for whom he led book discussions for over 20 years at libraries around the state, and for over a decade at the end of his career he served as dramaturge for the Open Door Theatre. He holds a BA in English and history from Northern Illinois University, and an MA and PhD in English and American Literature from Syracuse University. Don has been leading seminars on American poetry for over ten years and on movies for about half that time. Don is joining the Steering Committee in his capacity as the new Chair of the Curriculum Committee.

Fran Philippe, Curriculum Committee Member, Mailings

Mindy Fitterman, Curriculum Committee Member

Mindy Fitterman is a retired public health nutritionist who also studied textile design. She started her career in Colorado, her home state, with the Migrant Health Program and WIC Program. After moving east, she worked 30 years in the NH Bureau of Health Promotion, where most of her projects centered on the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables. Specializing in making complex health information easy to understand, she developed educational materials for worksites, communities, schools, and health educators across the State and also as part of several national projects.

In retirement she finally has more time to continue her lifelong Jewish studies and art explorations using fiber, paper and color.

Early in retirement, Mindy found her way to LINEC, enjoying diverse courses and new friendships. She taught a course on abstract expressionist painter Mindy Weisel, and has served on several committees and ad hoc groups (curriculum, catalog, proofreading, website) and often facilitates Zoom classes.

Richard A. Hesse

Prof. Hesse graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and served as a community lawyer in Philadelphia on a fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania. He headed a police community relations project in Philadelphia before moving to Boston where he headed a national project focused on the constitutional rights of consumers. In 1974 he joined the faculty of Franklin Pierce Law Center [now University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law) where he concentrated on state and federal constitutional law and international human rights. Prof. Hesse has been an active advocate for civil and human rights for more than 50 years and was twice awarded the Bill of Rights Award by the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. He has served as Humanities Council speaker since the early1980’s presenting programs on Civil Liberties and National Security, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, the United States Supreme Court, The Founding Fathers, Daniel Webster, John Winant and John Marshall. In the late 1990’s he became active in LINEC as a student, a member of the Steering Committee and Curriculum Committee and as a presenter of courses including “1776: the Year That Changed The World,” “Daniel Webster and John Winant,” “Founding Fathers: What Were They Thinking,” “Music As A Mirror of History,” “The Freedom Riders of 1961” and several others.