The Stanford Workshops on
Political and Social Issues

Students looking at the Stanford curriculum see little relation between the courses being offered and the problems of our society—urban blight and the ghetto ... outrageous influence of the military. . . pollution and destruction of the environment. . . .

And even where courses are directed to the study of particular problems, active engagement in possible solutions is rarely considered.

We are a few students who feel that the urgency of these problems warrants a more active approach, and have organized several workshops to study issues of local and national concern directly—specifically in order to consider what can be done about them.

— from the first SWOPSI catalogue,
fall 1969

• The Stanford Workshops on Political and Social Issues Chapter 14, pages 196-207, in Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena by Joel Primack & Frank von Hippel, Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, New York, 1974. Winner of the APS Forum on Physics and Society Award in 1977.

• Stanford University catalog holdings on SWOPSI:

  • 27 titles listed

  • Full records

• SWOPSI publications on-line

• Articles by Randy Schutt:

  • South Africa and Stanford

  • Stanford Students Helped End Apartheid.

• "The Student-Run Course", by Lee Altenberg, for the SEAC-Earthworks Student Environmental Action Guide, February 17, 1991.

• Other articles about SWOPSI on the Web:

  • Lost Opportunities..., on the end of SWOPSI, by Marianna Aue and Emma Luevano

  • SWOPSI: Student Workshops on Political and Social Issues, by Lauren O'Brien

  • Excerpt from: Chapter 9. The Days of Reckoning: March 4 and April 3, by Stuart W. Leslie

  • No Retreat from Commitment, by Weissman, Stephen R., from the archives of The Nation.

  • SIC provides students with more diverse options, Editorial in The Stanford Daily, January 23, 2003, on a successor to SWOPSI.

  • The historical context in which SWOPSI arose: The 1969 April 3rd Movement, A3M