Panel urges dialogue beyond 'culture wars'
Classroom discussion should challenge preexisting notions and stretch students' intellectual comfort zones, religion professors Cornel West GS '80, Eddie Glaude GS '97 and Jeffrey Stout GS '76 argued in a panel discussion last night in McCosh 10."If the students are not in some sense unsettled and unnerved, then I know I'm not doing my job," West said to the more than 100 students and community members who attended the discussion on the place of religion and civic values within academia.Responding to questions about the role of the educator in a secular classroom and the extent that religious ideas should be presented in the classroom, the panelists strove to define the boundaries and obligations of intellectual instruction."How can you get the discussion past the culture war zone?