Osama bin Laden wasn't part of the curriculum at Southeast Missouri State University a year ago.

But his al-Qaida terrorist network's hijacked airliner attacks on America's East Coast last year have turned terrorism into an academic subject on the Cape Girardeau campus this fall, with 29 students crowding into a second-floor classroom in Carnahan Hall in an effort to understand the meaning of the mayhem.

The focus of assistant political science professor Alynna Lyon's new class isn't confined to Islamic militants but to political violence and terrorism worldwide. Students are assigned terrorist groups to research.

The devastating attacks last September sparked the university to offer the course at the urging of Lyon, an expert on terrorism.

Heightened interest

The goal, she said, is to educate students on terrorism worldwide rather than narrowly focus on bin Laden's group.

"We kind of turn the light on them," she said of terrorist groups. "It helps create understanding."

But that understanding doesn't come easily. At the start of the fall semester, Lyon brought a student into the class who had traveled in the Middle East. She came to class dressed in a burqa, the long garment worn by traditional Muslim women.

The appearance created a stir. "Some of them thought she was a suicide bomber," said Lyon. "Some were afraid. Some were curious."

Joe Baczewski, a sophomore from Belleville, Ill., said she made some students uneasy. "You could only see her eyes," he said.

"Some people said they were scared to sit next to her, which I was kind of appalled by. I just think it is kind of ridiculous," said Baczewski who was friends with several Muslims in high school.

"I can't see someone attending the university here, attending classes, who would blow up the place," he said.

Classmate Kevin Hill, a sophomore from Cape Girardeau, said last year's attacks on the East Coast made him more aware of terrorism and heightened interest in the class.

"You get a more personal feeling since it did happen to us," he said.

Personal attachment

That's part of Lyon's lesson plan: Terrorism didn't originate with the attack on the World Trade Center towers. Countries such as India and Turkey have long been plagued by terrorism.

Over the past 100 years, terrorism has killed 190 million people worldwide, Lyon said.

"The United States is becoming a target more and more," she said.

Part of the problem in dealing with terrorism is defining it in the first place. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," Lyon said.

The FBI, CIA, the State Department and the United Nations all have different definitions of terrorism, she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123