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Universities Add Courses About Sept. 11
Wednesday, January 2, 2002
By Dana Hull & Becky Bartindale
Mercury News

“It brings home in a personal way everything we want students to understand about the world today,” said Richard Harris, a professor of global learning at California State University-Monterey Bay.

Universities across the country scrambled to organize teach-ins and seminars after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and interest in Arabic language and Islamic studies courses skyrocketed.

But the upcoming winter quarter and spring semester mark the first time California students can enroll in such classes as Bin Laden and Terrorism Outside the U.S.: The Case of Uzbekistan, or Film After 9/11.

Bay Area professors say the terrorist attacks have provided a “teachable moment” unrivaled since the campus activism of the Vietnam War. College students who grew up in peace and prosperity suddenly crave information about international affairs as they attempt to understand recent events. Across academic disciplines, university teachers have retooled old courses and quickly created new ones, with an eye toward producing better-informed global citizens.

“We didn't do it because we expect a huge influx of enrollment,” said San Jose State University political science Chairman Terry Christensen, whose department will offer several Sept. 11-related courses this spring. “We did it because it's the right thing to do.”

University of California-Berkeley has taken the rare step of opening two new classes to alumni and the public without charge. Issues in U.S. Foreign Policy After 9/11 and Afghanistan and Its Neighbors will be offered in the evenings in January. University of California-Los Angeles had 50 post-attack seminars ready to roll by October; an additional 30 will be offered this winter.
(More: MercuryCenter.com News Source)
2001 © The San Jose Mercury News.

Dan