Posted on 12/03/2014 6:08:04 AM PST by Loyalist
With drums, posters and a cause, 70 Dalhousie University students threaded through Halifax’s core late last month protesting rights abuses in North Korea. It was not a controversial cause — not the way abortion or any of the other hot topics of the day might be, organizer Robert Huish acknowledges.
Their biggest challenge, he said, was figuring out how to keep candles lit in sub-zero temperatures. The turnout was great — perfect, even — quite likely because the participants’ academic success depended on it.
Mr. Huish, a Dalhousie professor, is perhaps the first university instructor in Canada to award 20% of his students’ grade on “active protest” — showing up and playing part in an organized protest; the kind generations of students have done in their own time and for the good of the cause, not their academic transcript.
“The beauty of bringing credit into it is this is something where we can actually say it’s worthwhile discussing, it’s worthwhile learning about it in a way that allows the students to figure out what goes right, what goes wrong,” he said Tuesday. “A lot of protest movements don’t offer that educational experience — they’re kind of doing it on their own time, they may not be able to fully appreciate the complexity of the organization.”
The goal is to “use the university space” to study the role of protest in society — is it a way to “advance citizenship?” he asked, or more “peripheral” in Canadian society?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
I applaud them for pointing out the fact that North Korea is perhaps the #1 human rights abuser on the planet.
But class credit? No way.
Always my first instinct when I see these clueless student protesters....how many credits or extra credit are they getting for this? The leftist professors put them up to it.
And one wonders why the vast majority of lib arts degrees are worth little more than a cereal box top.
Dal. When you can’t get into Bishop’s.
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