As cabin fever begins to reach its height, area residents have a unique tool in their arsenal to ward off those mid-winter blahs.

For a mere $25, people can break out of their homes and spend Sunday afternoons in February learning about Celtic Spirituality, A History of Angels, The Modern Civil Rights Movement, Increasing Your Intuition, Conversational Italian, Spanish and French, Tai Chi, Georgia O'Keefe, Egyptology, Psychology of Film or one of  31 other topics at this year's CommUniversity.

CommUniversity is a non-profit project, presented by a volunteer committee of representatives from various local educational and community groups. The public event has been held every February for 31 years with more than 600 people attending last year. Classes last four weeks, held from 2 - 4 p.m. every Sunday in February.

Classes are held at St. Ambrose University and will be kicked off February 6 with a keynote presentation at 1 p.m. in the university's Galvin Fine Arts Center.

This year's keynote speaker is Stephen Bloom, professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa and author of Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America and The Oxford Project which won the prestigious 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association.

Bloom's presentation will be on storytelling and why it is still important to us today, even though the platforms used to bring news to people may be changing.

Following the keynote, students will move to their chosen classes.

Classes are informal, taught by experts in their field and, best of all, there are no tests. Other classes this year include : Exploring the Book of Genesis, Irish Poetry, Beginning Photography, Yoga, Tennessee Williams and Songwriting.

Participants can sign up as an individual and use the opportunity to meet others who share an interest or, in many cases, groups of friends or entire families enroll together. Either way, anyone wanting to fight off the winter chill has 42 different classes from which to choose.

People are invited to attend Bloom's keynote address free of charge. Class registration is accepted at the door on February 6, however everyone is encouraged to register in advance. This helps to insure that there is room in the class for them, as well as makes sure the class isn't cancelled due to low enrollment.

A full listing of all the available classes and registration information is available online at www.communiversity.org

CommUniversity is made possible in part through grants from Humanities Iowa, (state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities) and the Scott County Regional Authority.

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