Last week, I wrote about a new course that was supposedly going to be offered at Columbia University. The course, "Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequity, Social Movement," included fieldwork with Occupy Wall Street:
The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom.
The course offering was reported by CBS. Now, it is being reported that the Anthropology Department will not offer this course. The Columbia Daily Spectator reports that the course is not yet official based on an email from Columbia spokesperson Brian Connolly:
While the University was closed during the holidays, a few news outlets reported that Columbia would be offering a new undergraduate course regarding Occupy Wall Street. The study of contemporary political, economic and social issues is entirely appropriate and has a long history here. But the fact is that the proposal for a new anthropology course involving fieldwork on this topic had yet to be considered for approval by the faculty Committee on Instruction. A course does not appear in the official directory of classes and cannot be offered in advance of required approvals. News reports and some departmental postings regarding the spring semester were premature.
I wanted to update our readers on this. I hope the faculty will think a lot about the course before giving approval. For our college readers out there, are there any Occupy Wall Street courses offered at your school?