Professor of Religion George Wiley’s course, The Holocaust, is allowing students to do something slightly different than many other classes on Baker University’s campus.

During the semester, each student in Wiley’s class has to design and come up with two “experiences.”

The idea of “experiences” came from the new Baker University Liberal Studies program, and is designed to further engage students and encourage critical thinking.

Some examples of “experiences” that his students have created are bringing a Holocaust speaker to campus, going without shoes for a week, using different objects to represent the number of victims in the Holocaust and living like a victim of the Holocaust for a week.

“I started teaching the course in the ‘90s,” Wiley said. “This list of experiences is completely new, but over the last 10 or 15 years, I have gotten more and more interested in active and experiential learning. I think it engages students and reinforces learning in a different way.”

Junior Blake Stanwood and sophomore Taylor Nall decided to give a presentation on the number of Jewish victims in the Holocaust.

In order to represent the number of lives taken by the Holocaust, Stanwood and Nall measured out grains of sand so approximately one million grains of sand represented a portion of the number of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust.

“When we gave the presentation, we dumped the entire jar of sand out on the table and there was just a giant mound of sand,” Stanwood said. “To realize that all of these little grains of sands stood for an actual person, who had a life, was shocking, and then to think that this representation is only one-sixth of the amount of people who died.”

Stanwood said Wiley was very impressed with the presentation.

Another pair of students, junior Kat Niehues and sophomore Kristina Shiddell, are bringing a Holocaust speaker to campus, Joyce Hess.

“Her mom and her aunt were in Auschwitz,” Shiddell said. “Her mother survived, but passed away four years ago and (Hess) now speaks on behalf of her.”

Niehues said they got in contact with the speaker through one of the members of Delta Delta Delta sorority.

“Joyce Hess is actually (senior) Alex Hess’s mom,” Niehues said. “We always heard Alex talking about her family members in the Holocaust and found it so interesting. When Kristina and I joined the class, we got in touch with Alex’s mom.”

Shiddell said the date of the presentation is set for 9 a.m. on Dec. 2 during Wiley’s Holocaust class.

Wiley hopes through the “experiences,” students will gain a different perspective on the Holocaust and expand their knowledge on the subject.