Curriculum
The Fromm Institute features college level, non-credit courses in fine arts, humanities and sciences.  Three times a year, in eight-week sessions, such varied subjects as anthropology, architecture, art history, creative writing, history, law, literature, music, natural science, philosophy, political science and theology are represented by classes such as: “The Victorians,” “The Path from Pythagoras to Einstein,” “America on Stage & Screen,” “The Anthropology of Death & Dying,” “Novels Without Heroes,” “Famous Trials & Trial Lawyers,” “India & the British Raj,” “Motive & Meaning in African Art,” “The Romantic Poets,” “Living in a Digital World,” “Back to Bach,” “Cities Through the Ages,” “Awash in a Sea of Faith,” and “Traditions & Politics in Asia.”

Presented at either 10 a.m. or 1 p.m., classes meet for 90 minutes on a scheduled day of the week, Monday through Thursday.  For example, the class, “Shakespeare and His Contemporaries” might be placed in the Winter Session on Wednesday at 1 p.m.  Having been scheduled then, it would meet for eight consecutive Wednesdays at one in the afternoon during January, February and early March.

The Fromm Institute’s curriculum is created by asking our faculty of talented emeriti, “What would you like to teach?” With that question as its genesis, each session’s courses are both distinctive and diverse.

The variety of the topics presented is one of the hallmarks of the Fromm Institute program.  Accordingly, our professors are never assigned to teach a particular topic and their classes are seldom repeated. 

Faculty
Drawing on a lifetime of teaching experience, the Fromm Institute faculty is composed of retired professors from colleges/universities across the Bay Area and around the nation.  It also includes some who are recognized experts in their given field.  All are age peers with our students.  

Freed from assigning grades and reading papers, these women and men find great satisfaction in teaching people interested in learning just for learning’s sake.  Furthermore, because our professors are encouraged to develop new courses that are of personal interest to them, the curriculum experience becomes dynamically stimulating for both teachers and their students.

After an administrative review in late Spring, offers of employment are made once a year for all three sessions in our upcoming academic year to those returning professors who have submitted accepted proposals.  As independent contractors, a generous honorarium is paid for their teaching services midway though each session.  After those offers are accepted, proposals are considered from uninitiated instructors.  Interested persons who meet the criteria for teaching college level courses at the Fromm Institute in the fine arts, humanities and sciences and who are age peers with our students are encouraged to forward their statement of interest, accompanied by their resume/cv, and a sample proposal that would illustrate a course they might present.  Such materials can be sent to the Executive Director at fordham@usfca.edu.