As debate over war with Iraq continues, Penn State alumni and State College residents are reminded of past anti-war movements at the university.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movements reached a head, protests at Penn State were commonplace.

Those protests were typically much larger and people were a lot angrier than today's, said Mayor Bill Welch, who earned his bachelor's degree from Penn State in 1964 and has lived in State College virtually all his life.

"Sparks [Building] had more people packed into it than any space I've ever been in," Welch said in reference to an anti-war protest he witnessed in the late 1960s.

"People were literally budding out of the windows," he said.

State College resident and 1969 alumna Jackie Sobel also witnessed heated protests first-hand during the same era.

"[The protests] were really a problem for the university," Sobel said. "It was like we were at war on campus."

Protests now are very quiet in comparison to the 1960s and 1970s, Sobel said.

"The protests we've seen [recently] are model in terms of their decorum and behavior," Welch said.

Additional factors, such as the civil rights movement and the draft, helped increase the size and intensity of past protests, Welch said.

"The circumstances are so different," he said. "One of the motivating factors in the '60s was the draft. To a lot of people, this was literally life and death."

The current economic condition of the country has an effect on the number and size of the protests today, as people are more concerned with making a living and have less time to attend protests, Sobel said.

Welch said he sees a difference in the focus of the situation with Iraq than with the Vietnam conflict.

"There is a clear objective now, not so in Vietnam," he said.

More people were opposed to the war in Vietnam because it had no clear goal or end in sight, and more casualties coming in every day, he added.

For Lynn Meyers, a 1971 Penn State alumna who was active in anti-war protests while enrolled, the reasoning for war with Iraq is not so clear. However, her uncertainty has not changed her feeling toward Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"I don't know why we're going to war, but I'd sure like to get rid of him," Myers said.

Public opinion also tames war protests now, Sobel said. Most people opposed to war feel Hussein should be dealt with in some way, but there was no such feeling about the Vietcong, she said.

While many circumstances are different, the spirit of the protests remains the same.

"[Protesters] are still fighting against the U.S. trying to police the world," Sobel said.