In Conversation with DOUGIMON Founder Mariene Hancock Brady Ehler, OP Coq. Rep. Recently, I was able to corner my Political Science profes- sor, Marlene Hancock, for an interview. Marlene has been teaching at Douglas College for over 20 years, and is the founder of The Douglas College International Model United Nations. I questioned Marlene about what made her get into her field, what she has accomplished in her career, and: some of her plans for the future. BE: You are? MH: I am...Marlene Hancock BE: And what do you teach at the college? MH: Political Science. BE: What got you interested in politics in the first place? MH: Well, I’ve been interested in politics since childhood. I read, before I was nine, all of Napoleon’s campaigns, because they were on the shelf at home. I started reading that stuff and kept on going. BE: What interested you so much about Napoleon? MH: Well, I think his war strategy, his personality. His love life really interested me; he had quite a love life. That was sort of key in his life; the woman that he had around him played a major role in Napoleon’s world. BE: When I think of politics, I don’t think of excitement like that. It seems a lot more romantic than what’s actually going on in the field today. MH: Well, the world today is quite a different world in terms of the technology of war. In those days, a campaign would be a different thing than what we have now. So, of course there is no romance in flying over Iraq, dropping a bomb on it, and going home to your lover, so to speak. It’s just not the same thing. BE: Have you ever run for office? MH: No. BE: Why not? MH: Well, I’m kind of like Benjamin Disraeli. I kind of see politics as this sort of slimy process. I may enjoy teaching it and studying it and all of that, but I don’t want to be a part of that. There is no cleanser that would clean my body if I were to get into that. BE: You specialize in middle-eastern politics. What is so attractive about the middle-east to you? MH: When I was 16, I was very impressionable and that was the first part of the world that I traveled to. I was taken there by my aunt, who was a journalist. I was intro- duced to the Arab world at a young age and I found it fas- cinating, intriguing, romantic, any good thing you could think of. The Arab personality is quite pleasant. People are very hospitable, gracious, kind, all of these things stuck with me. So I fell in love with the middle-east early on, and I’ve never lost it. BE: What made you want to teach, and what made you want to teach politics, in particular? MH: Well, teaching isn’t separated from learning. I always wanted to learn and know more and teaching is a process that, at least I think if you try to make it interesting, com- bines the learning and the teaching process. They go hand in hand; my desires to share knowledge and to seek knowl- edge go naturally along the same path, but an academic setting prescribes that you go certain places with what you're teaching so you have to conform basically in that regard. | BE: Are you happy with what you’ve learned throughout your career? MH: I don’t know if one would measure it in terms of happiness. One might measure it in terms of enlighten- ment. Maybe, as a professor at SFU once said to me; the more you learn, the less happy you will be, and sometimes that’s true, because you learn stuff that isn’t necessarily enlightening you in the right direction, it’s showing you the true nature of humanity and what human beings do to each other. BE: Isn’t it also true that learning can take the reverse effect and make you happier? MH: If you learn the true nature of many things to do with human nature, for instance, how many people on the planet starve to death every night, how greedy people can be, how uncaring and un-sharing people can be. You some- times struggle with, what you can do, and then sometimes you can become unhappy because you don’t know what you can do to bring about a difference, but it’s seeking that opportunity to make a difference. Attempting to do that might be where you’d find some happiness and joy. BE: Coq. MP, James Moore, was a former student of yours. What kind of student was James? MH: James was a very good student; he was very interested and active in the classroom. That’s what I remember. You have to remember, I had James, about six or seven years ago. So, I’m scratching my memory for details, but he was a good quality student and somebody who had a goal and a desire to do something and, this is what he’s accom- plished with his life so far. BE: Did you have any predictions as to whether or not James would get into politics? MH: No, because James never shared those ideas with us in the classroom. He just came, did his thing, and like so many students, moved on. But he’s never forgotten me and I’ve never forgotten him. So, genuinely there are relation- ships that develop with students that can be rewarding in terms of what they do try to make of themselves. BE: You’ve actually had James come in and teach a couple classes. MH: Yeah, I did. When I went to Egypt a couple years ago, James Moore was my substitute teacher. The students loved having him there, because he represents hands-on politics, whereas, never having being a member of parlia- ment, sitting in the house of commons day in and day out, while I can teach it, I don’t have that kind of experience. So, it was fabulous having the real McCoy present. When I have the time, I try to bring people in who are ambassa- dors, who are senators, et cetera, if I can get it arranged. But I don’t always have that luck of getting it done on time. BE: Let'’s talk about DOUGIMUN. What is DOUGIMUN? MH: DOUGIMUN is The Douglas College International Model United Nations. It’s a simulation of the real United Nations in New York, and students come for a four-day conference, in which they get to role-play United-Nations Ambassadors. For those four days, they have to walk- through and reach consensus on real issues. In other words, they’ve go to try and seek the answers. So, it’s a model United Nations program. BE: What are the origins of DOUGIMUN? MH: When I first started teaching here, I established a little UN club and it worked for about two years, but when my husband died I dropped all of these extra curricular activi- ties, back in 1991, to regroup in my life. A number of years later, I got an invitation to attend a model United Nations in Egypt, in Cairo, at the American University. I took four students to that conference that year and I looked [at] what they did and I said, we can do exactly what they do, and that’s what I set out to do. So, I brought it to Douglas in a big way. BE: What exactly has happened with DOUGIMUN? How many have there been? Do you think they have been suc- cessful? MH: They’ve all been successful. There have been six of them. We are heading for our seventh. They have attracted students from as far away from Virginia in the US, Colorado, Washington State, California, students from Saskatchewan, from Alberta, all throughout British Columbia, Vancouver Island. It’s been an enormous suc- cess; it’s a very popular model UN. Students like coming to it. If you want to measure, it can be measured by the amount of students who come from all over the place to attend it. BE: You're also an author. Let’s talk bout your book. MH: It’s called Mass Deception, it’s words at war in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I haven’t had enough time to try and get it published in Canada, but there is a good chance that it will get published in Iran. So, it will be inter- esting to see how that goes. It’s being translated into Farsi, which is the Iranian language. BE: Why did you choose to write about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? MH: Well, the numerous books that are on the market are often written by people who see, or deliver the Jewish story more than they deliver the Palestinian. So, I thought I’d join the ranks of those who support positive things for the Palestinians and get their story out in a positive way. Language is a little bit like music in a movie. It sets the tone and the pace of the movie. You know how music intensifies when you get to a scary part? The music goes with the flow of the picture and language does the same thing when it’s being used in turmoil or in terms of war. So, that’s where I was coming from. BE: So you’te going to be retiring from Douglas College? MH: Yeah, in 2007. At the end of the winter semester, I would think. BE: Why are you retiring? MH: Well, you get to a point where it’s a good time to start refocusing your life and I think I’d like to move on and do some other things, maybe more writing. I will continue to do the model UN at Douglas. It will give me more time to be creative, not that teaching isn’t creative, but it takes up a lot of time. You don’t have a lot of spare time when you are teaching. BE: Do you have any specific things you want to devote more time to? MH: Well, writing is one of them. I’m not entirely sure yet, but I want that time to try and be creative, bring out my creative juices and let them run. I do wood carving and I haven't had any time to do that. I like sculpturing. I like art. So there are different things that I can get myself into. BE: If you do write another novel, do you have any ideas of what it’s going to be about? MH: Yeah, I’ve been playing with a book on trade wars. It’s fiction and reality. It’s espionage; there are all sorts of intrigue. BE: Something a little more fun. MH: Yeah. I already have some of it written. I put it on the shelf, so it’s waiting for me to have that time where I can sit back and contemplate and let words flow.