War has returning students subdued

Jennifer Knight

Tuesday, March 25, 2003 | 9:28 a.m.

The courtyard outside UNLV's student union was so subdued Monday, it could have been a churchyard.

Although students were back from a weeklong spring break, the mood was quiet throughout the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. Students either sat studying quietly or gathered in groups to talk about what they did during the week off.

Somewhere on the periphery, perhaps, was mention of the war in Iraq.

"I worked over spring break. Hung out with my friends. I went tanning and got burnt and I went to a lot of parties," said Danielle Thompson, 19, who is majoring in education. As far as the war, she said, "I really kind of agree with it."

Matt Blado, a 23-year-old political science major, also said the war wasn't his primary concern over spring break. He said he learned that the war had begun while he was traveling to Rosarita, Mexico.

"We started watching CNN," he said. "You walked by all the rooms and everyone had all of their TVs on.

"Then we went and partied."

Blado also said he was in favor of the war, as did five other students sitting with him. Nationwide public opinion polls show that about 70 percent of Americans support the war.

Absent from UNLV's campus were anti-war fliers, banners, protesters -- or even pro-war signs. The mood stood in stark contrast to other college campuses across the nation, where demonstrations, both for and against the war, were in full swing.

In President Bush's home state, hundreds of students at the University of Texas marched in the state capital of Austin last week shouting slogans such as "No more blood for oil."

Police arrested 39 protesters demonstrating at Ohio University just hours before the first missiles struck Baghdad last week.

Students from Ivy League universities converged in Boston last week to form a large protest that drew an estimated 4,000 demonstrators.

But the most recent protest at UNLV took place three weeks before the war began and drew only about 20 people. Campus security moved ROTC practices from one side of the campus to another to avoid a potential conflict.

"Actually, I think we had a pretty good turnout because I didn't think that many people would be that interested in politics," said Kyle Sims, 24, a graduate student who is a member of the UNLV Peace Coalition, which arranged the protest.

Each day this week the Peace Coalition plans to march with anti-war protesters at New York-New York on the Strip. The coalition has also scheduled a peace forum Thursday on campus.

A separate student protest is scheduled for noon Wednesday to highlight a student health issue.

"Yes, there is a protest, but ironically it's not about the war. It's about a student issue," Mary Hausch, an associate professor who teaches journalism, said.

Nick Mohave, a UNLV student and opinion editor for the Rebel Yell campus newspaper, said students don't feel much of a connection to the war in Iraq.

"Generally, however, it seems as though most students are in favor of the war, or simply don't see how it affects their lives," Mohave said. "I think I've noticed more debate in the Rebel Yell's opinion pages about whether or not we should boycott the French than whether or not we should actually go into Iraq."

An invitation to talk about the war in Alan Zundel's political science classroom Monday generated just one response from a class of about 50 students, he said.

"It doesn't seem to be the hotbed of protest over here," Zundel said. "I don't know how to explain it, except that it is a commuter campus and Las Vegas sometimes feels divorced from the rest of the world."

The one student who did respond simply asked: "It's about oil, isn't it?"