certain degree of resistance, attitudes reflective of the latter half of the 20th and 21st century.

In spite of this kind of nationalism which sprang out of the Cold War, and then to a greater extent after 9/11 and the capture of Osama Bin Laden, the country continues to draw international criticism for its foreign policy. But taxed Americans remain unconcerned. In wake of the prolonged recession, a lack of literary criticism exists within the American mainstream that once flourished during the time of Steinbeck and Sinclair. A recent article featured in Guernica, the international e-zine, captures this perfectly, as seen through the eyes of a female Pakistani author: [w]here were the novels that could be proffered to people who asked, [w]hy do they hate us?... [w]here is the American writer who looks on his or her country with two eyes, one shaped by the experience of living here, the other filled with the sad knowledge of what this country looks like when its not at home (Shamsie). This profile is perhaps an extension of that question, an invitation for change. If there is any place for Americas youth to become exposed to alternative issues, it is here within the universities. Quality academics concern themselves with the firsthand research of which they are so proud, less interested in gauging a demographic. As Dr. Morales and I sit in her small L-shaped office, parked in the small sitting space to the left of the shelves and shelves of books around me, I know that this is no Princeton fellow, recounting time at the reins of a government or a private corporation. This is a large, albeit average university, and we are sitting in an office identical to the hundreds of others here, where professors like Dr. Morales exclusively teach their field research badges of their accomplishments. If there is any place from which the next great
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Kara Solebello

Revolution in the Classroom

Sitting across the desk of my old professor, someone I had met before briefly in passing. She was shorter, with a rounded face; played with her nails lazily as I started to stutter out my reasons. You were the first professor here to show me some contradiction. was all I managed to say. What did that even mean? It was the truth, unclear as it was... Some introduction. I had to become coherent. Ive taken American government here, and loads of policy courses, research intensive stuff you were the first to show me South America what can happen when policy goes unchecked and youve been doing it for a very, very long time. Thirty years, really. She introduced revolution into the Central Florida curriculum. Why? She laughed, said I had come at the right time. This is a consultive farewell. **** Dr. Waltraud Morales has seen a population of students representative of Americas next generation. She watched the universitys population, and the expansion of its departments, a university over tripled in size in the past thirty years. At UCF, we are not the brightest or the most emblazoned students, but there are many of us, from very many places, and certainly we are an embodiment of the average American youth. So as a liberal professor teaching American policy and security issues in a conservative state, Dr. Morales faced a

American author can emerge, it is here, where people like Dr. Morales, who care so deeply for their job, can keep academic inquiry alive in the hearts of their students. American universities continue to grow, and better practices to manage such large classrooms come through downsized coursework and greater numbers of on-line classes. Dr. Morales can offer insight and warnings. She has seen Americas youth grow and transform. She is not a dissident and she is not a radical. But she is concerned. Her profession has the responsibility of molding future leaders and entrepreneurs that will keep the next generation afloat. For so long a high level of integrity has given Americas universities a certain prestige above all other university systems across the globe. Dr. Morales, humbly, would like to keep it that way. In the 1980s, Dr. Morales first began her work at UCF, where she introduced her students to a variety of topics: American Foreign Policy, Politics of the Developing World, Global Drug Policy, and her personal favorite, Contemporary Revolution in the Modern World. Revolution was her niche why did some endure oppression where others rejected it? She focused often on dictators, and used the classroom as a ground for open discussion on these issues: I've had students that would argue that Pinochet really wasn't that bad that he was really trying to protect his country from takeover by communists or socialists and that Allende was repressive ... [s]o you will sometimes get into these debates about what are the facts and what should these interpretations be but actually I think thats a good thing, you know, and it livens the discussion. Without prompt she eagerly continues, not to be written off as a sort of instigator. She had a right [t]here's a fine line between, you know, trying to influence students and

trying to tell them what you think are the facts, and how you would analyze the facts, and giving them a body of information so that they can be their own thinkers. But I always felt at the time that the media and our policy makers were already presenting their own point of view, very obviously available so I think another point of view that was a little bit critical was also needed. But Dr. Morales endured the backlash of this kind of class structure, the critical nature of it, uncommon for most of her students to hear. In the early 1980s an Orlando Sentinel article was published by one of her former students, calling her a communist. The Austrian born, Christian organ player was a full blown Bolshevik. She notes that this was her first insight into a trend, one which replayed through her years at UCF: And at that particular time I remember having had students in my class who were really upset that part of what they were doing in the class, based on the way I was having them read and look at this, was to criticize American foreign policy.. And this is probably the biggest dilemma in any democracy, because their feeling is, Well, we can't be loyal Americans and criticize American foreign policy somehow that makes me disloyal... And of course that makes no sense to me as a teacher or as an American citizen because thats, thats the purpose of democracy: within a legitimate way, certainly in discussion context, to be able to be critical of foreign policy ... [a]nd ultimately that policy turned out to be a failure and we backed out of our involvement in central America and it all became history. For years afterward she struggled as a professor [i]f I'm supposed to be the expert on a particular area, should I not let the students know what I think? Or should I play this neutral person and say well on the
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one hand there's this, on the other hand there's that okay, you figure it out?. After years of this reluctance from her students, the professor still keeps her good-hearted humor, I dont know, to me that latter seems to be a bit of a copout. So she immersed her students further, peppering her classes with firsthand accounts from third world countries, and more somber, immersive interpretations. I noticed some of these books in her office: The President, translated from Spanish and recounting the life of a Guatemalan dictator, it focused on aspects of perverted democracy, such as the election process; King Leopolds Ghost, brutally rehashing the colonization of the Belgian Congo and its permanent consequences; and Releasing the Rain, a series of essays from Bolivians who were cut off from their water supply for decades as the result of governmentcorporate partnership. But, Dr. Morales noted, there was always this recurring concern from students about security. National security and its representatives again and again seemed to voice their opinions within the students, this innate vagueness that, well, this was for the good of our safety. She noted that UCFs new doctoral program will focus strictly on security studies: [w]hen you start focusing on security you're probably going to see less criticism, and that's interesting because, you know, when you talk about security, criticism is often seen as a threat to security. If you look at dictatorial regimes in Latin America, or even weak democratic regimes in Latin America, if there was criticism against the regime there was usually repression. Her fear is perhaps corruption, amongst the academics of safer universities, with stable, esteemed reputations. She made it clear that she had not published anything earthshattering, nor had she been an

Ambassador or ex-military officer, a common occupation of Ivy League professors. But she had her research, she had factchecked and double fact-checked and could not just offer out anecdotes on her personal experiences: I'm not against instructors that may have had real world experience, and bring their anecdotes to the classroom, but sometimes what you have happening and this is my bias the course seems to focus more anecdotally and less academically ... a healthy mix of that is useful but I've noticed that in a number of, particularly programs that are very famous, will have ex-ambassadors, ex-people that have been highlights in some kind of a professional real world capacity which is fine, as long as they can also bring some of the academic credentials to bear. Hearing this Austrian born American go back and forth between her love of revolution and this desire to expose her youth to some of the countrys more reluctant truths, I couldnt help but see her as her very own unique type of revolutionary. So maybe it's not politically correct to view your teacher as an old, martyred Russian radical, but amongst a silenced group, she stands out. As I shut off the recorder, and turned to put my stuff away, she grabbed out at me, looking back and forth at my eyes and the window, I dont think teachers should cry foul play and make mockeries of the world we live. But I want the truth, she held my stare, we need to be honest when no one else will.

Shamsie, Kamila. The Storytellers of Empire. Guernia Mag. February 2012. < http://www.guernicamag.com/features/3458/shamsie_02_01_2012/>. Waltruad, Morales. Personal Interview. 1 Mar 2012.

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