{"id":18472,"date":"2025-10-31T21:18:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T21:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/?p=18472"},"modified":"2025-10-31T21:18:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T21:18:31","slug":"professor-vincent-russell-organizes-people-vs-war-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/blog\/2025\/10\/31\/professor-vincent-russell-organizes-people-vs-war-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Vincent Russell Organizes “People Vs War” Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Vincent Russell put war on trial during the <\/span>People vs. War<\/span><\/i> event at the Appalachian Women\u2019s Museum on Oct. 7.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The event was organized and promoted by communication professor Vincent Russell, chair of the Diane Withrow Coyle Peace and Justice Fund. The Coyle Fund collaborated with Denver-based civic engagement non-profit Warm Cookies of the Revolution to bring their <\/span>The People Versus<\/span><\/i> event series to WNC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Diane Withrow Coyle Peace and Justice Fund is established in the Development Foundation of Western Carolina University. Its purpose is to help WCU students and the local community explore non-military, nonviolent ways to foster international peace and justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russell was in charge of securing the venue, securing food, booking equipment, managing communication with the non-profit, and recruiting volunteers. Russell incorporated his students into the event by recruiting a number of them to volunteer for the event as part of a service-learning project.<\/span><\/p>\n

The People vs. War<\/span><\/i> was a mock trial where the audience acted as the jury and decided if war was guilty or innocent based on a number of trials presented at the beginning of the event. Students and faculty took the roles as the defendants and prosecutors of war and performed their arguments in a light-hearted, accessible tone to the local community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLife is so hard these days,\u201d said Russell, \u201cBut if we can make civic engagement fun and interesting and provocative, it motivates folks to show up, talk to their neighbors, and think about these social issues that are impacting them. In other words, it gives them a chance to do the work of democracy\u2014work that is increasingly necessary in the current climate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The event ultimately had around 70 community members and WCU students in attendance as a result of The Coyle Fund\u2019s and Russell\u2019s outreach and promotion efforts. The event sparked conversations between attendees and encouraged them to communicate with one another to reach their decisions, all while enjoying free food and warm cookies.<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn more about The Coyle Fund, email WCU\u2019s Community Engagement office at <\/span>communityengagement@wcu.edu<\/span><\/a>. Follow Warm Cookies of the Revolution on Instagram @warmcookiesrevolution or visit their website at https:\/\/warmcookiesoftherevolution.org.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Vincent Russell put war on trial during the People vs. War event at the Appalachian Women\u2019s Museum on Oct. 7.\u00a0 The event was organized and promoted by communication professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3416,"featured_media":18475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18473,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18472\/revisions\/18473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}