PP&D 132 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Damascus University
12 May 2018
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Our this week’s lecture started off by a guest speaker, former professor of a Syrian
university Aleppo, Dr. Amal Alachkar. “Lecture for Refugee Awareness Week” started
with Dr. Alachkar telling her story of Syria and the troubled medical students of Aleppo
through a very moving presentation. We learned that what started as a peaceful protest,
soon became a ferocious civil war leaving the country in chaos. What was even more
saddening and disturbing was the stories of each and every one of the brave medical
students who were beaten in their classrooms, taken away, tortured, and some of them
even burned, and the only reason was that they had first aid kits for helping injured
people during the Syrian revolution. We also heard about some of her bright students
who had the opportunity to leave the country, and despite all the difficulties, succeeded
in the U.S. as well as in other countries in European and middle East. Hearing these
stories encouraged me to spread awareness in order to make a positive difference in
the lives of the people who are suffering the harsh consequences of the Syrian
revolution, and give the promising students the opportunity to pursue their education in
a safe environment. The fact that Dr. Alachkar, as well as many others who have been
through so much still have hope and believe that “tomorrow is always better than today”
is quite astonishing.
Later, during our class lecture, Professor Matthews described Sustainability as
extracting faster than replenishment rate and loading faster than absorption rate. Based
on the calculations presented by Professor Matthews, if the education cost keeps
increasing the way it did since our parents’ generation, in a few years it would cost
about 750,000 per student. This indicates that the continually increasing cost of
education is not sustainable which is very concerning because when education
improves, so do health care and other services.
Professor Matthews also talked about the impact of war and natural disasters on the
environment. Although war is not always bad in every way, it mostly affects our
environment negatively. We learned that natural disasters create conditions that result
to war and wars create conditions that result to natural disasters, both of which cost a
lot and harm our environment at the same time. A solution to this problem would be
higher levels of politic transparency and sustainable behaviors because it reduces the
need to go to war and makes our world a more peaceful and sustainable place.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Our this week"s lecture started off by a guest speaker, former professor of a syrian university aleppo, dr. amal alachkar. Lecture for refugee awareness week started with dr. alachkar telling her story of syria and the troubled medical students of aleppo through a very moving presentation. We learned that what started as a peaceful protest, soon became a ferocious civil war leaving the country in chaos. We also heard about some of her bright students who had the opportunity to leave the country, and despite all the difficulties, succeeded in the u. s. as well as in other countries in european and middle east. The fact that dr. alachkar, as well as many others who have been through so much still have hope and believe that tomorrow is always better than today is quite astonishing. Later, during our class lecture, professor matthews described sustainability as extracting faster than replenishment rate and loading faster than absorption rate.
