Features

Michael Goldberg, Economics
Class: Introduction to Economics

The irony of presidential elections is that the incumbent party often wins or loses based on how the economy has performed, and yet the president has little to do with how the economy performs. Of course, politicians will tell you otherwise. The Republicans will argue that the supply-side policies of Reagan and Bush led to the longest peacetime expansion of the economy (at that time) in U.S. history, with a growth rate of 3.6 percent from 1983 to 1989. One of the important lessons I emphasize is that statistics can be very misleading when you lack a basic understanding of the situation. Why do Republicans begin with 1983 instead of 1981, when Reagan took office, and why do they end with 1989 instead of 1992 when Bush left office? It turns out that 1983 was the first year after the worst recessionary period (1980-82) since the Great Depression, and at the end of 1989, the economy was at the top of its expansion. Capitalist economies always generate business cycles involving periods of expansion followed by periods of contraction, and so on. If you measure economic growth from the bottom of a contraction to the top of an expansion, you will always find high growth rates. George Bush lost the presidential election of 1992 largely because of the bad economy of the early 1990s. Was Bush to blame? Not really. The culprit was mainly the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who started raising interest rates at the end of 1989. The Democrats want you to believe that Clinton's brilliant policies have led to the economic expansion we are still enjoying. Is this true? Not really. Clinton was extremely fortunate to begin his term exactly when the recession of the early 1990s bottomed out. Politicians will tell you what you want to hear, but it's really important to have economic literacy to make sense of what they're telling you.

Drew Christie, Philosophy
Class: Philosophy of Law

To discuss the impeachment of Clinton, I started with the language of the Constitution. What are "high crimes and misdemeanors?" Who decides? Is it purely a political decision or is there another, non-political way of interpreting the Constitution? Philosophers refer to theories of how to interpret texts as hermeneutics. In the West, the Bible was the first book to provoke hermeneutical debate. Are the events described in the Bible allegories or are they literally true? The reader brings a lot to the text—I don't think there's just one way to interpret texts. The Clinton impeachment revolved around relatively few sentences. We looked at ways of interpreting the Constitution. The class had eloquent spokespeople on both sides, and it split the same way the public does, but it was a good, respectful debate.

Penny Webster, Communication Disorders
Class: The Acquisition of Language

We focus on language acquisition and language disorders to help students understand basic aspects of language. I often take something in the media as an example. Clinton handled his denials through speeches and statements using verbal and non-verbal communication. In an interview early on, he used tense to manipulate his denial. He is very, very good at using language. The interviewer asked something like, 'Are you having a relationship?' And he answered 'There is no relationship.' Good liars have excellent linguistic skills and metacognitive awareness—knowing what your face looks like. We discussed a press conference where he used finger wagging and looked directly at people and denied the relationship. We learned that the media later reported that Clinton had been coached by a Hollywood friend.

Joshua Meyrowitz, Communication
Class: Analysis of News

It's important to look at where the news comes from. Most U.S. journalists are not given the time or freedom to report on events they themselves have witnessed or researched in depth. Instead, journalists are usually encouraged to rely on "sources." News organizations generally prefer the most "authoritative" sources, which means the persons in the highest positions of authority, or their spokespeople. The relationship between sources and journalists is mutually beneficial: journalists are able to file stories on deadline, and sources get their versions of events into the news. We now know, for example, that much of the coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was driven by behind-the-scenes relationships between the independent counsel's office and journalists. The symbiotic relationship between sources and journalists can be dangerous for the public. Authoritative sources are not always the most knowledgeable on the topic. Sources typically select, shape and distort information for their own purposes, and they usually time the withholding and release of news to suit their own needs. What happens locally, nationally and internationally--and when it happens--may have very little to do with the content and rhythm of the news. During a war, in particular, U.S. journalism tends to be an unofficial mouthpiece for what often turns out to be official government propaganda. We're already seeing major "corrections," for example, in what we were told during the recent Kosovo conflict.

Tom Trout, Political Science
Class: Introduction to Political Science

In the past, political scandals of one sort or another have had an effect on the making of foreign policy. So, for example, I talk about the Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandals and how they shifted the relative balance between the Congress and the President . . . but only temporarily. With Clinton the obvious parallel is the Lewinsky affair. There were lots of assertions in the media, and some in Congress, that Clinton bombed Iraq as a distraction from the Lewinsky scandal, the "Wag the Dog" plot line. What students need to know is that foreign policy is far more complex than that. It would be highly unlikely that all of the elements needed to conduct a bombing campaign against Iraq could be assembled and engaged just to create a distraction. Talking about the assertion that the Iraq bombing was contrived provides an opportunity to show students several things: first, just how complex foreign policy is; second, that the effects of a political scandal really are short-lived; and third, how the President continues to dominate Congress in the making of foreign policy.

On Global Warming

Barry Rock, Natural Resources
Class: Wood Technology

Everyone recognizes that global warming has occurred, and is occurring. The last two decades are the hottest on record, and based on tree ring data, we can push that record back to say they're the hottest in the millennium. My personal belief is that the current warming trend has to do, in part, with greenhouse gases like CO2. In class, we debate the role forests play in mediating carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere: trees take CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it as wood. Forests are our strongest allies. With the changing climate in spring, the maple syrup industry is moving out of New Hampshire--the industry is now centered in the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada. In 1928, it was centered in Garrett County, Maryland. When we think of the impact of global warming, we often don't think of the subtle things that change the lifestyle and flavor of New England.

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