Midcoast Senior College expands in Brunswick, emphasizes two-way learning

Midcoast Senior College has signed a lease on a larger space next door to its current office on Middle Street, adding room for administration and a multipurpose room for meetings and smaller classes as it prepares for registration opening March 9, 2026 for the second spring term. Donna Marshall, the college’s executive director, said, “About 250 students register every term.”

Founded in 2000, Midcoast Senior College serves area residents age 50 and older and is one of 17 senior colleges in Maine. The college runs four terms a year and typically offers more than a dozen courses each term, spanning subjects from Shakespeare and the poetry of Robert Frost to Information Technology and U.S. national security.

Courses at MSC have included a winter offering titled U.S. National Security Structure and Processes taught by Dan Possumato, a former director of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security for the U.S. Army who currently works for the U.S. Department of State as a special investigator. Possumato’s classroom style has been described as balancing lively debate with thoughtful questions; in a recent session he quipped, “My therapist tells me that with a lot of work, I may recover [from teaching this class],” and the room broke out in laughter.

The college’s teaching model relies on volunteers and an internal vetting process. All teachers work on a volunteer basis, and a curriculum committee interviews potential instructors and helps them build syllabi. Committee members include retired high school English teacher John Haile and retired English teacher Leona Dufour. Haile contrasted the dynamic at MSC with his former classroom, saying, “Unlike the teenagers I spent my life teaching who think they know everything but don’t really know much, the seniors bring so much life experience.” Dufour, who teaches and takes courses, said students can focus on enjoyment rather than grades: “We don’t have to write papers; we don’t even have to answer questions in class. We can sneak by not having read the assignment but get what we need from the lecture or from the discussion, and then go back and read what we should have. It’s just purely enjoyable.” She added that, without tests or papers, students can focus on the “joy of learning.”

Students report the program keeps them engaged after retirement. Ginny Hopcroft, who managed the government publications collection at Bowdoin for 20 years and began taking classes at MSC after retiring from Bowdoin in 2012, said, “[I take classes] just to keep my mind fresh and learning new things. It’s always good to learn, and the teachers here are wonderful.”

Location details in public reporting point to both Brunswick Landing and a Middle Street office for Midcoast Senior College. One account identifies MSC as located at the Brunswick Landing where courses such as Possumato’s have been held, while other reporting describes the Middle Street office and the newly leased space next door for administration and small classes. The materials do not state explicitly how those sites relate to each other.

Prospective students age 50 and older should note that course registration for the second spring term opens March 9, 2026. The college’s expansion and volunteer-driven curriculum committee aim to accommodate steady enrollment of roughly 250 registrants per term and to sustain the discussion-driven, low-pressure learning environment that instructors and students describe.