So today we had the big teach-in that I've been writing about and preparing for for the past month and a half. Overall, I'd say things went fairly well. I number of people stopped by to get their tshirts spray painted (the stencils, of which, as I stated earlier, I made), Jomari, the GMC student band gathered a large group with their fantastic music, and the speakers were very interesting (I learned A LOT). Though it looked like it was going to rain for a little while there, the skies stayed clear and GMC got a chance to really discuss the context of the war in Iraq, including many of the political aspects that the average Joe doesn't really know about, as well as the realities of Iran vs the stereotypes usually associated with Iranians.
Here's a picture of the speakers we had. Left to right: Mary Brownlow, representative from Building Bridges-Middle East-U.S; Dr. Tom O’Donnell, Prof. of Physics and faculty of Center for Middle East and North African Studies at U. of Michigan; and Dr. Mansour Farhang, Prof. of International Studies at Bennington College and former Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Here's a picture of Joe, a member of the band Jomari, jamming with some GMC students before their set.
And here's a picture of just some of the people who showed up to learn. Note the banner in the background that we put up the night before!
To everyone who worked on this (I'll cite Beth Donovan, Paul Hancock, Alan Marwine, Stefanie Wickstrom, Christina-Alexa Liakos, Aurora Lenz-Watson, Brett Dugan, Annie Mauhs-Pugh and Joseph Karr, but there were also many volunteers and people from other organizations who contributed) thank you for a great job! Also thank you Mary Brownlow, Dr. Tom O’Donnell, and and Dr. Mansour Farhang for coming to discuss these issues with us!
Comments (1)
Nicole, congratulations! This was a lot of work. Prof. Farhang spoke here a few years ago and was very impressive. Please continue with things like this. It's great for campus dialogue.
Posted by Stephen | May 2, 2007 1:58 PM
Posted on May 2, 2007 13:58