(NY Post) Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?  Columbia University is offering a new course on  Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students  into the field for full course credit.

The class is taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, who boasts about her nights camped  out in Zuccotti Park.   As many as 30 students will be expected to get involved in ongoing OWS  projects outside the classroom, the syllabus says.

The class will be in the anthropology department and called “Occupy the  Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement.” It will be divided between  seminars at the Morningside Heights campus and fieldwork.

On her blog, Appel defends OWS, arguing that “it is important to push back  against the rhetoric of ‘disorganization’ or ‘a movement without a message’ coming from left, right and center.”

Addressing the safety risks of fieldwork among protesters, she writes on the  syllabus, “I can say with absolute certainty that there is no foreseeable risk  in teaching this as a field-base class.”

She said her allegiance won’t keep her from being an objective teacher.

“Inevitably, my experience will color the way I teach, but I feel equipped to  teach objectively,” Appel told The Post. “It’s best to be critical of the things  we hold most sacred.”  (read more)