Terrorism course gains popularity

UNI professor Phil Mauceri figures he’ll get a good turnout for his class next term. Mauceri’s taught a course on terrorism for several years now, and says attendance varies with events in the news. After Oklahoma City, for instance, attendance went up.Mauceri says students from all disciplines, grad students and even people from the community come to sign up when the terrorism course is offered. After defining it, Professor Mauceri begins with a history of terrorism, which he says has been around for a long time.He says at least since the French Revolution groups have fought for ideology, economic ideas or religious beliefs, so he looks at the reasons behind terrorism. Psychology’s also part of the course, profiling the person who’s likely to be a terrorist and how terrorist organizations operate — he says Bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a new, “globalized” organization that operates worldwide and is sophisticated. Will there ever be an end, a “cure” for terrorism? Professor Mauceri says he wouldn’t bet on it.He says some people trace terrorism back to the Middle Ages, with different goals and forms, and perhaps the best we can do is, like in disease, to control it. He says that might include devising ways to limit the effects of terrorism, or prevent its spread. Mauceri has taught the terrorism course at UNI since 1994.