They first began in 1965, when 3,000 University students spent the night in Mason Hall, going from classroom to classroom, lecture to lecture. The fears of the unknown kept them awake as they listened to professors preach about the state of the world beyond Ann Arbor.

Originally started by a group of University students and faculty members in response to the draft for the Vietnam War, the teach-in has once again sprung up on campuses across the country as a form of activism in a time of national crisis.

While in spirit they have the same aim, today"s teach-ins lack the fervor of those of the 1960s.

"It was real exciting to stay up all night and listen to people talk about Vietnam," said SNRE Prof. Bunyan Bryant, who was a University student in 1965.

"A whole different picture emerged from what we were getting from the mainstream media and the government."

America"s first teach-in was started after a group of anti-war University professors decided it was their duty to educate students. The faculty members wanted to hold a one-day strike when they would cancel planned lectures and instead invite students to discuss Vietnam.

Forty-nine faculty members had agreed to cancel classes before they began worrying about the possible consequences. Tactics were rethought, and in the end, professors reached an agreement with the University to hold lectures throughout the night of March 24, 1965.

Bryant said that students were also active in organizing the teach-in.

"One of the things that drove the teach-in back in the late 1960s was that students of interest were involved, in the sense that there were students who had been drafted and sent to the war in Vietnam," he explained. "So you wake up one day and say, where is Bob and where is Joe?"

Two hundred professors participated in the nightlong teach-in, which was interrupted twice due to bomb threats. By 8 a.m., 600 students remained.

Teach-ins sprouted up across the country as Columbia University, Michigan State University, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania followed the University of Michigan"s lead.

Bryant said he believes the current sentiment of students around the country can"t compare to the feelings held in Mason Hall that night. He added that today"s teach-ins, though following the same idea, don"t hold the same power because most students are not as affected.

"I think that if the war against terrorists widens and there is this serious loss of American lives, and if this country has to start the draft again, then I think that there will probably be teach-ins and I think those teach-ins would have the same effect or similar effect they had in the 1960s," Bryant said.

Regardless of whether teach-ins today have the same effect on those who attend them as they did in the 60s, teach-ins have again become a popular forum of education and activism for professors and students and not just at the University.

After University of Wisconsin Prof. Charles Cohen organized an impromptu teach-in about Islam for Sept. 19, he said he received a positive response from the students who attended.

"I have received numerous emails from people stating that they learned a great deal," Cohen said. "I think it presented Islam in a far more complex way, and thus helped people look beyond stereotypes."

Other universities have held alternative forms of teach-ins and seminars.

On Sept. 24, the University of Iowa held a series of small group discussions coordinated by 50 professors from the school.

"We wanted to allow students to discuss issues they think are of concern in a small, seminar-like setting," said University of Iowa Associate Provost Steve Hoch.

The University of California at Los Angeles chose to add last-minute series of seminars available to undergraduate students this semester. The seminars include topics about national security, war, America as a superpower and the First Amendment.

Cohen said that a teach-in allowed him to do things that a weekly class and smaller discussions couldn"t.

"The teach-in was an emergency, one-time event in order to help people begin to think about events. It was not meant to probe deeply," he said. "The teach-in was supposed to make people feel less isolated, both by exposing them to knowledge about the world and by doing so in a large group. A class could not have accomplished the communal objectives."