Thursday, January 10th, 2008 by Matt Thomas
Whew! Day one: immigration. Day two: gay marriage. Just call Gustavus a hotbed of political discussion this January!
Today I attended Dr. Kate Stenger’s class, The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage. The students in this class, and perhaps not surprisingly given the topic, are extremely engaged. In fact I would go as far as to say that I have never attended a class at Gustavus that had more student-started discussion with such minimal encouragement from the professor. Because of that, the two hours seemed to fly by. As I sat and listened to the class discussion, I started to ask myself why can’t all college classes be this way? What changes need to be made in college cirricula so that more classes could provide this type of educational environment and exchange of ideas?
Much of today’s class discussion centered around the many similarities and differences between the civil rights movement of the 60’s and the gay rights movement. The students did a remarkable job of approaching sensitive subjects with respect and yet at the same time had no trouble agreeing and disagreeing with one another when necessary.
