Syracuse University professor Mark Rupert is a red-blooded conspiracy enthusiast. To Rupert, conspiracy theories are fun to talk about. They are also important to analyze, no matter how rabid or ludicrous they sound.

This semester, Rupert is crash-testing a new course on the subject, titled PSC 300:

“The Politics of Populism and Conspiracy Culture.”

The course examines how the bellicose rhetoric and participants in populist movements are chameleonic, but the holistic theme is perpetual: “the people” are being dominated or exploited by “elites,” Rupert said. In turn, conspiracy theories paint elites as “a deceitful cabal of evil-doers who manipulate our political lives to pursue a hidden agenda.”

The course is Rupert’s brainchild. By bringing a relevant subject into an academic light, he’s taking advantage of the creative freedom offered by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

In doing so, forward-thinkers like Rupert compel students to do the same.

Throughout its history, Maxwell has cultivated this learning environment.

In 1924, Maxwell became the first school in the country to offer a graduate degree in public administration. In 2014, the school will add its 10th specialty area of study with a new program in citizenship and civic engagement, which was created by associate professor Paul Hagenloh.

Even though Maxwell is a graduate school, its thinkers have extended their ideas to undergraduates.

Every semester, the political science department green lights multiple “Selected Topics” courses based on new ideas of Maxwell professors.

In the early 1990s, professor Robert McClure introduced the innovative MAX courses for undergraduates contemplating a major in the social sciences. They were the first resource-intensive introductory courses about social sciences in the country.

Social studies are predominantly subjective. Social thinkers have more interpretative freedom than their colleagues in more objective fields like hard sciences and math.

But in recent years at SU, the Maxwell paradigm has reverberated across campus.

At the upcoming February meeting of the University Senate, 95 new courses are expected to be approved for the 2013 fall semester: 58 in the College of Arts and Sciences, 26 in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and 11 in the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Even in traditionally stodgy fields like biology, economics and foreign languages, professors now have creative freedom to cultivate 21^st-century evolution.

BIO 310: “Evolutionary Biology, Religion & Society” will examine evolutionary biology and its timeless, philosophical clash with religious discourse. ECN 313: “The Economics of Happiness” will explore how economic matters affect personal happiness; and RUS 422: “Business Russian” will be a crash course on Russian business terminology.

These are all higher-level classes that students will take because they are interested. When teachers are passionate, students reciprocate, especially about a fresh topic they both chose to undertake. It’s the nirvana of higher education.

It also magnifies the fundamental problem of secondary education.

Grade school students are often described as “doing school” instead of “learning in school.” Students feel immense pressure to get into college, teachers are enslaved to stringent curriculums, and all that matters are the letters on a piece of paper.

In college, students learn how to learn.

With fungible curriculums and limited red tape, major institutions like SU allow their educators to foster an environment that’s worth the pocket-burning fires it creates in the wallets of our parents.

At SU, the trend is rapidly ascending in the right direction, which motivates its idealistic professors.

“It’s what I love most about my job,” said Rupert, “You get to explore a subject and show students that it matters.”

Like a prolific artist, Rupert is always creating.

“Eventually,” he said, “I might like to teach a course about the U.S. as a global empire or about the rise and decline of the American dream.”

Jarrad Saffren is a junior political science and television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jdsaffre@syr.edu. 

Published on February 6, 2013 at 2:05 am