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Sept. 11 Events Spur Interest in New Special Topics Courses
By Elena Barbre, Robin
Herron, and Fran Rensbarger
Immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, students on the George Mason
campuses reacted with an intensified interest in topics related to the tragedy,
and faculty members responded by developing or adapting courses to address that
interest. Following the success of the Seminars and Special Topics in Community
and World Affairs presented during the summer session, some academic units have
continued in that vein with new offerings this fall.
Almost every course offered by the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
(ICAR) deals with topics that can be related to terrorism, its underlying causes,
and approaches to resolution. Continued interest in topics related to Sept. 11,
however, has led to a new course, Conflict Analysis and Global Terrorism, coordinated
by institute director Sara Cobb.
“The goal of the course is to expand our understanding of terrorism,”
says Cobb. “To do that, many topics related to conflict analysis and intervention
need to be re-thought, as terrorism changes the rules of engagement. We will examine
the history of terrorism, the role of social networks in supporting as well as
reducing terrorism, the role of narrative in response to terrorism, the role of
reconciliation and forgiveness, the relation between terrorism and development
in the context of post-conflict settings, the role of refugees and migration,
and asymetrical power relations in terrorism, just to name a few topics.”
The three-credit course will be taught by Cobb and other ICAR professors as
well as by Kevin Avruch, Sociology and Anthropology, and Peter Mandaville, Public
and International Affairs. “The faculty wanted to provide a forum for collective
learning—faculty learning from and with each other—so almost all the
ICAR faculty will teach a segment on an area of their interest. And all sessions
will be videotaped, so we will have an archive,” Cobb says.
Civil infrastructure security has long been a concern, but the events of Sept.
11 made it a higher priority. The Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering
Department (CEIE) has responded by offering graduates and undergraduates a new
course this fall called Introduction to Civil Infrastructure and Security Engineering.
The course will examine industry case studies and look at vulnerability assessment
and risk management in the context of a broad sampling of potential threats, including
terrorist acts. Civil infrastructure, which includes roads, bridges, dams, subway
systems, water supply systems, energy systems, and buildings that are part of
an infrastructure, is crucial to a nation’s welfare. Taught by Michael Goode,
a professional engineer who has his own consulting company, and Michael Bronzini,
Dewberry Chair in CEIE, the course was developed as a special topic, but will
likely be one of the cornerstones of a new initiative to establish a global infrastructure
and security engineering center in the department. Goode is slated to become managing
director, and Bronzini will also be involved in launching the new center.
“Terrorism has moved the infrastructure management awareness up. There
is a new risk set that is seen as a higher priority,” Goode says. The proposed
center would focus on research, education and training, and consulting in an effort
to improve infrastructure and management practice. Goode expects the center would
work closely with U.S. government agencies, private industry, and other organizations
concerned with security engineering, as well as other George Mason units.
In keeping with the increased interest in Islam spurred by last year’s
attacks, Stephen Ruth, School of Public Policy, will present a new graduate course
this fall, Islam and the Internet: Telecommunications and Technology in the Muslim
World. The course examines the diffusion of the Internet and other information
technologies in more than 50 countries where Islam is the predominant religion.
“It’s a very interesting body of knowledge,” says Ruth,
who has assembled a broad range of materials to be supplemented by guest speakers
with regional and technical expertise.
The course covers such topics as how increasing use of the Internet and electronic
commerce in delivering government services will change standards of living in
the Muslim world; how serious a problem the digital divide presents and what can
be done to alleviate its effects; what economic effects broadband proliferation
may have in Muslim nations; and what role telemedicine and other Internet interventions
will play in reducing death rates due to starvation in the world’s poorer
countries. Focusing on the public policy ramifications of the Internet Age, the
course is part of a series of semester-long seminars that examine problems in
coaxing profitability from information technology.
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