In the minds of most beer-drinking, Terrace-going, Midwestern-bred Badgers running around campus, the vast majority of the world's conflict and change is witnessed through sporadic run-ins with a news anchor or camera lens.
The attacks on the World Trade Center five years ago could be the puzzling, tragic story of another world—the aftermath a disaster to be dealt with by the seas of faceless, nameless victims a thousand miles away from Bascom Hill, Terrace chairs and any slice of Wisconsin reality.
However, the effects did hit home.
The Daily Cardinal examines some of the consequences of Sept. 11, 2001.
Surge of interest
UW-Madison's Languages and Cultures of Asia department experienced a dramatic spike in interest post-9/11—especially in Arabic courses.
According to UW-Madison African languages and literature professor Dustin Cowell, a first-semester 2001 Arabic class had about 35 students.
Now there are 80 with a waiting list of 10. Advanced classes have jumped from four or five to 16 or 17.
Cowell said he sees three reasons for this increase. First, personal interest: ""because they see it in the newspaper all the time."" Second, ""heritage learners"" beginning to view their heritage language as a viable enough base of knowledge to build on. Third, job placement—because critical language skills are more in demand than ever.
For UW-Madison junior Claire-Marie Hefner, who has spent much of her life in Indonesia—the most populous Muslim country in the world—there is a fourth reason.
""After 9/11, I became a lot more aware of how much people didn't know about Islam,"" she said. ""I really want to study it more so I can be more educated when I talk to people about it and try to tell them that it's not exactly about killing Americans or about jihad and wars. There's another whole side to it, a whole human aspect.""
These skills are becoming more heavily emphasized in military and government agencies, and are also ""an important thing for people interested in going into journalism or social sciences [with] a Middle East focus,"" Cowell said.
As for journalism, ""the student [with] international travel—I think there is more interest, all things being equal, in that journalism student than at any other time,"" said John Ullmann, executive director of the St. Paul, Minn.-based World Press Institute.
Demographic shift
To accommodate growing enrollment, most Arabic classes taught by professors in pre-9/11 fashion have since been introduced to teaching assistants. Not only that, but the undergraduate-to-graduate-student ratio in the courses has also changed dramatically.
""Before, half our students were grad students. Now it might be two graduates and 15 undergrads,"" Cowell said.
Another new occurrence, he added, are soldiers who return from Iraq and enlist in courses.
New lesson plan
These shifting demographics post-9/11 also led to changes in teaching methods—in this case, a greater focus on current events and less on traditional language texts.
""We'll look at different articles reported in the paper,"" Cowell said. ""We don't have to comment on it necessarily, it just depends upon the class.""
Increasing appeal
In the midst of a post-9/11 interest boom on par with the Arabic department, UW-Madison's Military Science program will commission more lieutenants this year than it has in the past 12.
John Bechtol, a lieutenant colonel in the Military Science/ROTC department, said in a decade the average has jumped from between 13 and 15 to 22 this year—and they're arriving with a different mentality than in the past, he said.
""There isn't that ‘Well, hey, I need tuition money.' It's game on right now, it's for real. They recognize that ... you'd have to be pretty naA_ve to come in thinking you won't deploy anywhere.""
New inspiration
""It used to be we would get a lot of parents kind of dragging their kids in,"" Bechtol said of the interest in the program pre-9/11. ""Now that whole scenario has flip-flopped. When I meet with parents it's because the students are dragging the parents in.""
Due to the current world situation, ""parents will naturally want to safeguard their kids,"" he said. ""But at the same time I think a lot of students that in the past maybe wouldn't have really thought about doing it say, ‘You know, I want to do something at this point in time.'""
Updated curriculum
In stride with these shifts, the military science curriculums were also revamped. Some of the most major modifications: working with non-governmental and international organizations, classes on cultural sensitivity, language training and a stronger emphasis on flexibility and problem-solving skills—""less on just demonstrating a rigid tactical battle drill, [more on] being able to adapt,"" Bechtol said. ""Not just, ‘Go out and find an enemy and shoot.'""
""I got an envelope from the U.S. Army and it said in Arabic, ‘If you can read this, we want you,'"" Cowell said.
Though the U.S. Army may be a driving force in the emphasis on campus recruitment during wartime, efforts do not stop with the military.
In the wake of a 2004 presidential mandate to increase CIA workforces by 50 percent, the agency's recruiting department is functioning in overdrive, experiencing ""the largest increase in our population since we were created,"" according to Michelle Neff, media spokesperson for the CIA.
The agency—responsible for intelligence related to national security—received 53,000 resumAcs in 2001. In 2005 there were 120,000.
This increased recruitment effort also emphasizes the same Arabic language skills that are increasingly popular at UW-Madison.
""Language has always been an important factor, but since 9/11, our Arab language program has skyrocketed and we have put a great deal of effort into recruiting Arab linguists, and have hired more than in our history,"" Neff said.
Part of this added effort includes the institution of a monetary bonus—up to $35,000—for joining the agency proficient in a ""hard target language""—a classification including Arabic, Mandarin and Korean, among others.
At the National Security Agency—which deals primarily with information assurance and foreign signals intelligence—the story is similar.
However, they also emphasize ""technology-centric professionals in the areas of computer science and mathematics,"" according to Ken White, NSA public affairs specialist.
""For each one of those skill sets we have a very active program that goes out and visits universities to try to identify people who might have a predisposition to [it],"" he said.
Though no monetary bonus exists at the NSA, the agency's needs demand a similar level of expertise.
""You have to be at a level where all the nuances of the language are understood,"" White said. ""You're not talking about millions of people in the United States who have these language skills, so you're looking at a fairly small population set when you're looking at recruitment.""
University initiatives
""Historically, there has been a certain level of distrust between universities and the nation's defense, law enforcement and intelligence establishment,"" Penn State University president Graham Spanier wrote in an editorial to the Harrisburg Patriot-News last spring.
His reference is to the often-conflicting values—of free inquiry in universities and of regulation in national defense agencies—that tend to become points of contention in areas where the institutions overlap—research security, Visa regulations and technology, for example.
Enter: the FBI-appointed National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which Spanier now chairs, joined by UW-Madison's Chancellor John Wiley and 15 others in September 2005.
""The idea was to get [them] in a room together so they could share information and find out what people needed from each other,"" said John Lucas, spokesperson for UW-Madison's University Communications.
For UW, this does not involve any sort of surveillance on students or faculty. ""It was just a good faith effort for our culture to understand their culture and work closely together,"" Lucas said.
International changes
For UW's pool of prospective international students, many a security challenge must be faced from overseas as they fill out admissions applications and prepare for life here.
Implementation of the Student Exchange Visitor System, a government tracking system started before 9/11, was expedited after the attacks and shifted from a paper-based to electronic system, making it easier for the government to access information on students and prevent fraud.
However, ""there were many, many kinks in the system,"" said Sara Thurston-Gonzalez, director of International Student Services at UW-Madison. ""At the time, students were very leery of it, but now it's just a fact of life.""
Additional security checks also provide ample inconvenience for students seeking Visas.
""A check might be based on citizenship,"" Thurston-Gonzalez said, ""it might be based on what the person studies""—studying nuclear engineering, for example, might mean Visa delays.
UW-Madison grad student Hester Leung came to the United States from Hong Kong two weeks before 9/11.
""At that time it was pretty easy to get the Visa. I just had to go in and it was done in the same day,"" she said. ""But now my Visa is expired. When I go back this year, I will have to [be] interviewed to renew it,"" a process that may or may not result in additional delays, depending on her answers.
""What I've heard is just to say something that is easier for them to understand, because now [if] they suspect you to do something that is not quite right then they will have to send the file to be looked at more and that process may take from a month to three months,"" she said.
