MSU faculty members want students interested in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to know 18 courses related to the attacks await them this school year.
From freshman seminars to a course in plant pathology, MSU administrators have made an effort to make opportunities available to learning more about what occurred last year.
“One of the goals of undergraduate education is to make (students) knowledgeable of the world around them,” Provost Lou Anna Simon said. “It’s a mixture of courses and repositioned courses.”
Faculty, including President M. Peter McPherson who is co-teaching a freshman seminar on U.S. foreign policy and international politics with political science Professor Neil DeVotta, are joining the effort by educating the expected 500 students expected to enroll in three freshman seminars and nine classes this semester. There also will be six spring semester classes.
“We’re going to talk about everything from Columbia to the Middle East,” McPherson said. “(Students) will have a deeper appreciation for the U.S. and the world.”
McPherson has been teaching the seminar for several years, but this year the class will discuss the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Plant pathology Professor Ray Hammerschmidt is teaching a new class, “Plant Pathology 101, Issues in Plant Pathology,” and says he will devote a few weeks of the class connecting plant pathology with bioterrorism.
“What we’re dealing with are current topics of interest with plant biology and plant diseases,” he said. “It’s pretty much how plant pathogens, or diseases, can affect us.”
Hammerschmidt will teach his students about how foreign bioterrorism could be used to infect U.S. crops.
“It’s ways we can detect it, prevent it and do something about it if there’s an outbreak,” he said. “It could be bad news if we don’t detect it quick enough.”
In addition, the College of Arts and Letters is offering a class called Arts and Letters 192, “Israelis and Arabs: The Image of the Other.” Students in this class will explore the relationship between the two ethnic groups.
Marc Bernstein, assistant professor of Hebrew and Jewish cultural studies, teaches the first-year class, which focuses how to look at the relationship between the two cultures from a different angle.
“The impetus came because of Sept. 11, but it doesn’t deal directly with Sept. 11,” Bernstein said, adding many Americans were unaware of the Israeli and Palestinian relationship. It seemed like there was a lot of ignorance between Israelis and the Palestinians. As a freshman seminar, we’re trying to develop critical thinking skills.”
Music performance freshman Bill Robey joined the class because he felt it would be interesting.
“I definitely read the newspapers on the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, and America’s war on terrorism,” Robey said.
“This is headline news stuff we can learn about.”
