The next Cafe Society’s session on Dec. 20 will review this past year’s discussion topics and decide what issues and subject matter to consider in the coming year. Undoubtedly launch of the Trump Administration will provide much food for thought in addition to continued analysis of the recent elections. Suggestions are welcome from the Shepherdstown community and other Chronicle readers in the Eastern Panhandle.

Cafe Society discussions are held from 8:30 to 10 a.m. each Tuesday morning in the Rumsey Room of the Shepherd University (SU) Student Center. They are an integral part of the SU Life Long Learning Program and are intended to facilitate a dialog on current issues between the students and older members of our community. There are no fees or registration requirements

Cafe Society facilitator, Mike Austin explained, “We continue to try to make our discussions as objective and productive as possible drawing upon the impressive intellectual ferment in our community. This past year we had sustained active participation of a number of well informed men and women, many of them retirees with significant experience in government, academia and a wide range of other professions. We continue to hope that more Shepherd University students will participate when their schedules permit and that professors will see our discussion forum as a helpful resource as well. One of our objectives is to increase the dialog between students and older community residents, many of whom have relevant career experience.”

Austin concluded, saying, “In looking over the 40 or so topics covered this past year, we have spent a lot of time on local, state, national and international politics; however none of them have proven to be mutually exclusive. The old adage that ‘all politics are local’ is certainly borne out during the active dialog in our sessions. Our discussions are clearly enriched by the easy and comprehensive access that we have to information on almost any topic via internet. One of the positive outcomes is that we learn to be more selective in finding balanced and credible information. We hope that members of the community who do not actively attend our discussions will still follow the dialog and inject their views when they feel strongly about something, or think that we are missing important considerations.”