Since September 11, Americans have been informed on more than a few occasions that the nation is on heightened alert to threats of terrorism that could lead to physical danger. For certain cities and professions, it seems there has been no end to those alerts.
As any historian would point out, Americans have enjoyed decades of freedom and prosperity, with little concern of threat on its own shores and with even a detached interest in events occurring in other parts of the world. At home, generations have been growing up with little interest in politics and world affairs but instead, a selfish interest in their own security and success.
The most recent nationwide survey of entering college freshman (conducted before September 11, 2001) found young people surprisingly uninterested in politics. In its annual survey of entering freshman, UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (www.gseis.cla.edu/heri/heri.html) found that only 28.1 percent of freshmen entering American colleges and universities in fall 2000 said they were inclined to keep up to date with politics, compared to a high of 60.3 percent in 1966. This was especially noteworthy because 2000 was a presidential election year, when generally more interest than usual is generated. The same survey found that 16.4 percent of freshman—a record low—said they discussed politics frequently, lower than 16.9 percent in 1999, and greatly lower than the high of 33.6 percent in 1968. Meanwhile, freshmen’s interest in affluence was strong, with 73.4 percent interested in being very well off financially. The 2000 survey, which involved 404,667 students at 717 of the nation’s institutions of higher education, was the 35th the institute has conducted.
If the survey were to be taken today, the results might be, not surprisingly, quite different. In response to the events of September 11, students are asking questions and raising issues and concerns that were previously of little concern to them. Now, they are spurred by a desire for answers, trying to make some sense of what makes no sense in a world that has drastically changed. Politics is no longer a foreign concept, as the world has grown smaller for everyone. One wonders, Does it take a major catastrophe for people to become involved and become interested in events involving politics or our government?
Schools, to their credit, are offering students the opportunities to broaden their knowledge and understanding of different cultures and customs, religions and histories. They are offering views of terrorism and its psychology throughout history, lessons in languages that were not especially popular in other times, courses in the legal ramifications for citizens during war. What is happening at universities across the nation provides a living lesson in law-related education—simply that such unbridled opportunities for broadening one's knowledge, and possibly tolerance and understanding as well, are possible here as nowhere else.
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