Grant supports education on non-proliferation issues

By Carol Angus, special to the Chronicle

he Ploughshares Fund has awarded Five Colleges, Inc. a two-year, $40,000 grant to assist the Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS) Program in updating curricula in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

     Established in 1984 to promote undergraduate education in the field of peace and security studies, PAWSS is today regarded as a national resource and clearinghouse for peace studies. Through this new project, PAWSS aims to reinvigorate the study of nuclear munitions and the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the context of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. It will include the development of a model syllabus as well as forums to furnish faculty, students, and others with the most current information about issues that have a profound bearing on global security.

     "We're seeing a heightened concern on college campuses about global violence and the proliferation of WMD after September 11," observes Michael Klare, director of PAWSS and Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies. An internationally known expert on conventional arms trafficking, Klare has published extensively on a wide range of issues involving international security. His most recent publications include "Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws" (1995) and "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" (2001).

     "More and more students are signing up for courses on everything from arms control to international security," observes Klare. "The startling thing for most faculty who teach these courses now, or would like to," he points out, "is that most of the existing textbooks and curricular materials in the WMD field date from the early to mid 1990s." Alluding to "the changed circumstances" since 9/11, Klare adds that "this deficiency will significantly impair the educational process on college campuses," unless efforts are begun now to develop more current materials and update existing ones.

     During the early years of the program in the late 1980s, PAWSS was among the first educational programs of its kind and one of the first to develop curricular materials on U.S.-Soviet relations and the nuclear arms race. After the Cold War, PAWSS pioneered the creation of teaching materials and career information on some of the emerging issues of that period, including the in-creased racial and ethnic strife that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union. Its textbook, "World Security" (now in its third edition), and a curriculum guide called "Peace and World Security Studies" are widely used by colleges and universities in this country.

     "After the events of September 11," Klare says, "it is painfully evident that the new global realities will require us to recast and revise these and other documents. That's the principal aim of this new two-year project. And we're grateful to the Ploughshares Fund for their generous and vital support of our efforts."