As the war in Iraq winds down professors of many disciplines are finding ways to incorporate discussions on the war and current events into their classrooms.
Some professors have held discussions in lieu of participating in the boycott on classes that was held on Mar. 24. Professor John Rogers, currently teaching "Gandhi and Mandela" and "Gender and Imperialism in South Asia," had his classes read war stories and drew parallels between the British-dominated world of the past and the American-dominated world of the present.
"When current events are relevant, I try to bring them in only briefly," Rogers said. "In extraordinary times like this, we go further."
Some professors have found recent events to be an even easier fit with their curriculum, such as political science Professor Jeffrey Berry. Berry devoted a period of his class "Congress, Bureaucracy, and Public Policy" to students' responses to a number of questions about the war.
Professors from disciplines with less obvious ties to the war and its political impacts have also found ways to incorporate discussion into their curriculums. Though philosophy Professor Jeffrey McConnell said he often uses examples from current events in class, he is considering adding more material on the war to one of his fall courses. "In times of war, it's very difficult to be conducting classes in a vacuum," he said.
Some classes have undergone more drastic changes to their classes as a result of the war, such as English Lecturer Ronna Johnson's class "American Fiction from 1950 to the Present." After consulting with her students, Johnson decided to change the last book of the course to The Things They Carry, a 1990 memoir written by Tim O'Brien, a student who was drafted to fight in Vietnam.
Johnson made sure to fit her change with the chronology of the course, she said, but wanted to share the perspective of her generation with students. "As an educator, and as someone who has lived through domestic war [the war with Vietnam], I have information that I can share with students," Johnson said.
But not all students have gained the benefit of this type of teaching, nor do all of them think it is appropriate. "While discussion is very important, I don't think an engineering class or math class or economics class is really the proper venue," freshman engineering student Aaron Held said. "People are paying for their educations, class time is valuable, and classes are already behind."
Another engineering student, freshman Daniel Trichon, agreed. "I'm here to learn, I'm not here to discuss the war. [People should] do it on their own time, not when I'm paying for it," he said.
According to Berry, however, most students are very appreciative for the chance to have classroom discussions about current world issues. "What struck me is that students weren't on one side or the other," Berry said. "For the most part, they acknowledged that this is an issue of real complexity and there aren't simple, easy answers to problems on terrorism."
But Rogers was surprised by the lack of opposing viewpoints manifested in his discussions. "I was surprised that I wasn't able to get any students to defend the war," he said.
Many students have been pleased that professors have taken time to address current events, though. "I find taking real-life events and applying them to class to be relevant and to be very important to the goal of the class," freshman Jos?© Vazquez said about his "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy" class.
Freshman Patrick Mahoney, who takes both "American Fiction from 1950 to the Present" and "Gandhi and Mandela," said the war was relevant to both disciplines. "If there's a connection to be made, it should be made," he said. "Why are you learning anything if you're not going to apply it to your life?"
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