Simulation : The National Security Council

In: News for Teachers of Political Science, Band 47, S. 3-4

Abstract

In the spring of 1981 I designed and taught what I considered, at the time, a "high risk" seminar for seventeen junior and senior political science majors. There were to be no textbooks, no lectures, no examinations and no term papers, those hallmarks of the traditional college course. Nevertheless, when the thirteen week course was over, the students were exhausted and claimed that they had never worked so hard in their college careers.The adventure that my students (and I) undertook was a semester long simulation of the United States National Security Council (NSC), dealing with actual global events as they happened. As Washington dealt with a problem, we dealt with the same problem. The simulation was initially offered during the deteriorating situation in Iran and instability in the Gulf region.