Report on Southwest Minnesota State University Teach-In

We completed the teach-in as scheduled on the flyer and more than 220 students, staff, administrators, faculty, and community members attended in all. Our largest session had 45 people and the smallest 9. It got good coverage in the local paper, though the student newspaper did not cover it. The Teach-in will be highlighted in the second annual College of Arts Letters and Sciences retreat in January.

Several sessions were attended by veterans of the Iraq War and by the staff person for our Veteran’s Center. This led to some heated discussions in which panelists or speakers were politely challenged or questioned and where veterans engaged each other in discourse.

Marshall, a town of not quite 13,000 continues to maintain a vigil on Tuesday evenings that began before the war and has not missed a week since. No matter the weather (and it is often bad) somewhere between 5 and 25 people stand on the corner of Main and East College Drive from 5:30 PM until 6:00 PM. Organized by the Marshall Area Peace Seekers, members of the peace community sponsor speakers and help families of soldiers in Iraq with household chores, by buying phone cards, and what ever else we can do.

Jeff Kolnick, Kolnick@southwestmsu.edu