Teachers at SF State are using the nation’s current financial crisis as a teaching tool, helping students understand the different aspects of the state of the economy.

Joel Kassiola, dean of behavioral and social sciences, said faculty are referring to the financial crisis and discussing it in classes within his department.

“It is incumbent on us in BSS to try and educate the community on what is going on,” he said.

Professor Bruce Paton said he was able to coordinate his seminar on his environment of business class perfectly with the crisis.

He said he asked his students to read a group of articles concerning the “financial system in crisis” on a Thursday and by the time the class met on the following Tuesday, “there had been three more crises and Congress had started to talk seriously about a bailout,” he said.

Paton said that teachers, like students, are trying as best as they can to make sense of the crisis.

“My job is to choreograph learning situations and help my students figure out ways of thinking about messy problems,” he said.

Kassiola, who teaches classes in philosophy and political science, said it would be beneficial if the university could hold a gathering every Friday between teachers and students where they can exchange ideas about current affairs.

“It would be a good thing for this campus,” he said. “A lot of dramatic things are happening and it takes a keen eye and intellect to be able to explain what is going on.”

“The average person is confused and fearful,” Kassiola added. “I think it is dumbfounding for experts as well. There were a lot of surprises even for so-called experts.”

Kassiola cited a recent report released by the National Intelligence Council predicting that there will be a new world order by 2025. According to the NIC, the new world order or “the whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized.”

“We may be seeing a change in a world dominated by the U.S. and, instead, by India, Brazil and China,” Kassiola said.

Dr. Brenda Fellows, an industrial/organizational psychologist, teaches a human resource management class at SF State.

She tells students that you don’t have to appear desperate to get a job just because of the poor economy.

“You have to go in with your own agenda, because you will be interviewing them just as they are interviewing you,” she added.

Fellows advises her students to make strategic alliances with people two to three levels above them. “We go through mock interviews and role play and it helps them to prepare,” she said.

Dr. Humaira Mahi says she incorporates the current crisis into her international business class discussions about the global foreign exchange market and the international monetary system.

The crisis allowed her to explain “its global repercussions and how the interdependence among countries now connects and affects very diverse entities in various countries.”

Mahi discussed the impact the Irish and German banks had on the Wisconsin school system and how Iceland’s financial policies impacted Britain.

“We are all so inter-dependent,” she said. “When a crisis like this hits, you are more vulnerable as a country.”

Graeme Boushey, an assistant professor of political science has incorporated the current crisis into a couple of classes for his California politics and research methods class.

Boushey said that he has a series of discussions with his class concerning what the government is doing, how we [as a country] arrived here, why people are so scared and how to relate the current financial crisis to the state and local crisis.

“It is so challenging for government to overcome this problem,” Boushey said.

“I spend 10 minutes of every class and try to relate the current crisis to what we are learning,” said Sudip Chattopadhyay, economics chair and microeconomics instructor at SF State.

“Because of the U.S. economy, the international economy is collapsing,” he said. “The faculty, university, the whole country and the world is affected,” he said.

Chattopadhyay said it started with the housing market when prices started falling, then the meltdown with investment companies such as Merrill Lynch.

Then other investment companies started to fall one after another and the government had to bail them out, he said.

“It affected the economy in a big way,” he said. “People will get poorer and not be able to buy stock, cars, houses or other big-ticket items or go on vacation.”

SF State students said the current financial situation is a popular topic in their various classes.

Carlos Del Gaddillo, a history and Spanish major said his teachers talk about the budget cuts and how there are fewer classes available for undergraduates.

“My teachers ask us how we feel about the crisis and the bailout. We have just accepted that it’s happening,” said Thi Tran, a sociology major.

Stephanie Harris, a recreation tourism graduate student says that the crisis is “going to really affect tourism as a whole because people have less and less money to go on trips.”

Kathleen Merrell a graduating communications major said that her teacher, Dr. Larry Medcalf, keeps his speech class up to date with the economy.

“A lot of our discussions are about current issues and he incorporates that into our class,” Merrell said.

“My history teacher tells us we’re screwed,” Jessica Ahmadia said. “He incorporates the current crisis in a lot of what we’re learning and how economic crises have already happened in history but the current one is more extreme.”