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New Vox Discipuli lecture series offers a student-voiced alternative
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Vox Discipuli (Latin for “Voice of the Students”), a student-run lecture series organized last summer, aims to enrich the educational experience of Boise State students and community members.
It aims to accomplish this by presenting lectures, panel discussions and debates on contemporary topics relevant to students.
Vox Discipuli was founded after two students researched how the university spent funds to bring speakers to campus.
“It started about a year ago now with Brandon Stoker and Jonathan Sawmiller. They put together research about a discrepancy with more left-liberal-leaning speakers to conservative speakers on campus,” Trevor Grigg, president of the Boise State College Republicans, said.
Sawmiller is currently deployed with the Idaho Air National Guard in Qatar.
Grigg said the two students found that roughly $310,000 had gone to pay politically-liberal lecturers, and no university funds were spent on conservative speakers.
“They took these findings to many people in the state legislature and President Kustra, and they were lucky to get a meeting with President Kustra,” Grigg said. “The formation of Vox Discipuli is the product of that.”
Vox Discipuli kicked off its events for the spring semester March 5 with the movie, “No End in Sight.”
The film was shown in the Special Events Center, located in the Student Union Building.
The documentary by Charles Ferguson traces, through interviews and chronologically-progressive recounting, the development of the Iraqi insurgency and its evolution into the problem it is today.
Vox Discipuli hopes to catalyze student involvement and education about the war through a pair of symposiums leading up to four-star Gen. John Abizaid’s keynote lecture, “Diplomacy, the Military, and the Future of the Middle East.”
Abizaid’s lecture starts at 7 p.m. April 9, and will be held in the Jordan Ballroom of the SUB.
Abizaid recently retired from the military after serving 34 years. He was the youngest four-star general in history.
He has an extensive background in dealing with the Middle East as commander of the United States Central Command, a military unit with a 27-country jurisdiction, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also advised the joint chiefs of staff and the secretary of defense after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The series of panel discussions will focus on different aspects of the war in Iraq.
The first symposium, scheduled for March 19, will feature five panelists from different educational fields who will discuss the political and social context surrounding the decision to go to war.
It will examine topics such as the administration’s decision-making process, press influence, congressional authorization and public support.
The second symposium will cover the international context of the war.
It will be held March 31.
“In the ’90s it became somewhat ambiguous what our policy was in the Clinton administration,” said Michael Reed, Vox Discipuli committee member and president of the Boise State Economics Association. “Are we going to still pursue weapons of mass destruction? Or has the Iraq war distracted us from that? What about Iran? What about Korea? What about human rights issues?”
The committee tries to remain politically neutral when choosing speakers and seeks to keep the organization student-run by avoiding outside influence on speaker selection.
“We are students representing students on campus and we are not being meddled with by faculty and administration figures to select [speakers] that we feel are relevant to us,” Reed said.
A March 7, 2007 university press release stated that funds previously allocated to the campus Distinguished Lecture Series now go to the Vox Discipuli series.
Each student is charged $2 per semester in lecture fees and Vox Discipuli receives this money.
The Distinguished Lecture Series must now look for funding from outside sources, sponsorships and private donations.
The voting panel that selects speakers consists of six students: Reed, Grigg, David Barry, incoming Editor-in-Chief of The Arbiter Shannon Morgan, ASBSU President Mark Getecha and Communication Graduate Student Association Chair Wayne Rysavy.
Vox Discipuli events:
March 19 Bishop Barnwell Room – Panel discussion ‘The Social and Political Context of the Decision to go to War’
March 31 SPEC – Panel discussion ‘The Cost of War’
April 9 Jordan Ballroom – Gen. John Abizaid speaks – ‘Diplomacy, the Military, and the Future of the Middle East’
MATT ALMEIDA
Lead BizTech Writer