2005
John Weiss
Associate Professor of History
Establishing the Service Learning Component of a course on International Humanitarianism
Biography
Like the donkey who starved to death between two haystacks in the psychology textbooks’ illustration of an approach-approach conflict, John Weiss has bounced back and forth between research/teaching and civic activism for most of his adult life. While picking up degrees from Princeton and Harvard, and a commission in the United States Army, he played a small role in founding the Peace Corps, badgered Princeton into beginning its first serious teaching and research about African history and politics, and headed a task force for Ralph Nader that produced in 1971 the first comprehensive study of American Small Claims Courts.
Arriving at the Cornell History Department in 1974, he has taught 21 different
courses about twentieth-century Europe. He has served twice as director of Cornell’s
Institute for European Studies and is currently coordinator of the French studies
program and chair of the University-ROTC relations committee. In 1988 he helped
to found the Friendship Center, Ithaca’s drop-in center for the homeless and disadvantaged,
and served as the president of its board for five years. During the war and genocide
in Bosnia he delivered medical supplies, computer parts, and other aid items to
the cities of Bihac and Tuzla. He continues to work with the Ghostbusters, a group
of Bosnian teachers, conducting research on the construction of the public memory
of the war.
Professor Weiss appears regularly on the local “Morning Report” talk show as
guest commentator on international affairs. In May 2004 he and his wife Elaine
launched a weekly half-hour television series on the public access channel which
produced its 41st program last week. During that initiation to television production
he became aware of the disaster in Darfur. He and Elaine then completed STOPPING
GENOCIDE: DARFUR (SUDAN) 2004, which remains the most widely distributed video
on that subject produced in America.
Project Abstract
History 279, “Humanitarianism” will be taught for the first time in the fall
of 2005. Expected enrollment: 15-40. It will be taught in a lecture/discussion
format. A crucial component of the course, however, will be the “term paper”
option that will entail service to refugee communities and refugee-assisting communities.
In particular, enrolled students will be expected to participate in several ways
in the Darfur Culture Video Documentation Project. Other humanitarian service
learning options will be added later. Students may complete this part of the
course, by previous arrangement with the instructor, in the summer before the
lectures begin as well as during the period of lectures-reading-discussions.
A field service journal, a paper critically evaluating what was learned and attendance
at evaluation/revision/feedback workshops in the late fall will also be required.
