Bio and Statement from Ron Gross:
Do you use your mind to the utmost in your own way: as a thinker, writer, researcher, intellectual, activist, creator, speaker, teacher, artist, naturalist, lifelong learner — or otherwise?
Such “independent thinkers” will share their enthusiasms at a Celebration at the Great Neck Library on Sept. 20 at 3 p.m.
“These mental adventurers use their minds to the utmost because it’s their joy, not their job,” Ron Gross said, the event convenor and long-time host of the Library’s Socrates Salon.
Gross is the author of several guides to the field, including The Lifelong Learner, Peak Learning, The New Professionals, and Socrates’ Way.
“Independent thinkers have forged our intellectual heritage,” Gross said. “Think of Darwin, Marx, Freud, Thomas Jefferson – and in our era, Edmund Wilson, Buckminster Fuller, Susan Sontag, Betty Friedan, James Baldwin, Robert Caro, and Greta Thunberg. All have immensely deepened our knowledge and wisdom.”
Participants will be invited to upcoming offerings by local organizations which warmly welcome new members who value Independent Thinking, such as weekly discussions at World in Depth and Womanspace at the Great Neck Social Center, creative workshops at the Gold Coast Arts Center, Civic Health outreach by Northwell Health — and other life-enhancing offerings at the Library.
“Our community is brimming with opportunities to grow – intellectually, creatively and civically,” Gross said.
He will evoke the spirits of the ‘Independents’ he has profiled in his books and articles and share principles and practices that make for success.
“I’ll highlight two Great Neck women, Emily Taitz and Sondra Henry, who partnered to bring back to life Jewish women who were ‘written out of history,’” Gross said. “These co-authors said: ‘Each of our subjects had her own story to tell, sometimes in their own words, sometimes only in documents left by others. These women began to haunt us as though
demanding, finally, to be recognized.’”
Among other independents whose work Gross has supported are William Draves, who advocated for “free universities;” Eric Hoffer, who earned his living as a long-shoreman but achieved notability as a philosophical author; Coy Eklund, president of one of the nation’s largest insurance companies, who produced a Chippewa Language Workbooks so that this threatened Native American language would not be lost; Reinhold Aman, who left academe to become a publisher of scholarly works about filthy language; and John Walter, whose researches on Civil War military engagements command premium prices from historical societies.
Participants will have the opportunity to share their own experiences, and to download a new how-to manual inspired by Gross’ work, created by the National Coalition of Independent Scholars.
They will also be invited to join the monthly on-line Socrates Salon, to discuss provocative topics with independent thinkers from Great Neck and throughout the world.
Gross has been honored with Columbia University’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Service, and by election to the Lifelong Learning Hall of Fame of the International Association for Adult and Continuing Education. He has supported lifelong learning initiatives in Europe, the Far East, Israel, Canada, and Mexico, sponsored by the European Foundation for Management Development, the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Ford and Rothschild Foundations.
He has proposed a national program of sabbaticals to enable Independent Thinkers to pursue projects of “Practical Scholarship” — intellectual inquiries that address societal problems and enhance health, well- being, and equity.
RSVP to reserve a place and receive updates prior to the meeting to Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/independent-thinkers-celebration-with-ron-gross-tickets-942185651647
The event will take place in the Main Library at 159 Bayview Avenue, Great Neck, 11023, on Friday, Sept. 20, from 3-4:30 p.m.
For more information, please contact Great Neck Library at (516) 466-8055 or email adultprogramming@greatnecklibrary.org.
