Wheaton College Plans Daylong Moratorium on 'Classes as Usual' to Discuss Iraq War - March 26

NORTON, Mass., March 21 (AScribe Newswire) -- With the U.S. strike on Iraq underway, Wheaton professors are calling a one-day moratorium on ''classes as usual'' to help students understand the conflict and its aftermath.

The Wheaton faculty will hold a daylong, campus-wide discussion of the implications and ramifications of the war on Wednesday, March 26, examining the issues from political, cultural, psychological, artistic, environmental, and health-related perspectives.

''War will affect our students' lives in a number of ways, ways that they cannot know,'' said political science professor Darlene Boroviak, who proposed the motion on behalf of a campus group of faculty and students. ''We may be able to help them begin their process of questioning and exploration about the war and its effects on their lives by providing various community forums as venues for learning and exploration.''

The moratorium is not meant to espouse a particular point of view about the war. ''We don't see this as an antiwar day or a support-the-war day,'' Boroviak said on behalf of the Wheaton College Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which is organizing the moratorium. Several faculty members spoke out about the need to make individuals who support the war feel comfortable in expressing their viewpoints.

The faculty's plan calls for compiling a list of courses from all disciplines that will be open to the campus at large, offering a daylong viewing of war-related films and documentaries, and planning a campus-wide meeting at which students, faculty and staff of the college will be encouraged to express their viewpoints.

Faculty voted to approve the plan on Friday, March 7. Later during that same meeting, the faculty later approved a resolution opposing war in Iraq without UN support. A schedule of offerings for the entire day is expected to be available late on Monday, March 24. Wheaton has been on spring break during the week of March 17.

''If students are not paying attention to current events, then this moratorium would be a perfect teaching moment,'' said sociology professor Hyun Kim. Students said residence hall discussions are dominated by talk of the impending war, and activism on the Wheaton campus has been on the increase. The moratorium builds upon a series of protests, teach-ins, panel discussions and lectures that have been staged on campus since the start of the school year.

''Whatever our views, those of us who have experienced other war situations, even the modern version with smart bombs and surgical strikes, know that war is a catastrophic event,'' Boroviak said. ''It takes lives and leads people to kill; it maims people, alters and disrupts societies and cultures, increases suffering, harms the environment, erodes morals.''