The lecture room was filled with students chatting, music playing and a presentation of facts running on a large screen.

Then, following a few short announcements, 101 Thomas fell completely silent.

Sam Richards, who teaches Sociology 119 (Race and Ethnic Relations), said he uses the moment of silence to bring the class together. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the class has observed silent reflection at the start of each lecture, sometimes standing and holding hands.

"This is a good class because it opens your mind to things you don't think about," LaTisha Mays (senior-political science) said.

Opening students' minds is one of Richards' objectives for the course.

"The goal of the course is to inspire students to think differently than they currently do," Richards said. "Not to think like me but just to think."

The four-credit course, which fulfills both a Social and Behavioral Sciences and an Intercultural/International Competence general education requirement, has been so popular that it is expanding for next semester. The Spring 2002 course will have space for 480 students, about twice the current class enrollment.

The printed course listings for next semester do not have the updated information for the higher enrollment, but the online course schedule is correct. In the spring, the main lecture will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m. and will have 32 smaller sections that will hold weekly discussions.

Laurie Mulvey, Richards' wife, coordinates the discussion portion of the course. The couple has been teaching the course together for about five years. Richards estimates that this is his 11th year teaching the class.

A group of teaching assistants facilitates the groups, which have about 15 students each. Mulvey said the breakout sections developed because of a student need to discuss class topics.

Students answer weekly journal questions, then discuss those reflections in their small groups.

"We try to keep it pretty open-ended so that people can say what's really true for them," Mulvey said.

In yesterday's lecture, Richards encouraged students to become more involved in group conversation. Many students shared experiences during the lecture, rather than argue about opinions.

"When I first started teaching the class we used to have these amazing class arguments . . . there were times when I thought people were going to come to blows," Richards said.

Over the course of teaching he said he has learned ways to present the information to answer all the objections students may have before they can be raised. Instead of discussing, which is saved for group sessions, students gave examples that backed up or refuted data that Richards presented about racial discrimination.

Richards said he has numerous stories of how the class has changed the lives and opinions of his students. He gave one example of a right-wing student who hated him at the start of the course but kept the class and really changed his views.

"Turns out the guy was a heroin addict, and because of my course, because of things I said in class, he gave up heroin," Richards said.

Mulvey said the growth of students is one of the rewarding aspects of the course.

"I think the most challenging thing is also the most inspiring thing," she said. "That's just being a witness to people's growing and providing a space for them to do that."

Malin Svensson, an international student from Sweden, said she took the class because it is much like one she had in her home country. She said racism there is not as prominent of a problem as in America.

"It's one of the best classes I've ever taken," she said.