This seems a little, well, behind the times:
Students at Indiana University will build basement printing presses and print their own underground newspaper, learning from a legendary Polish journalist whose low-tech publishing innovations fueled the popular uprising that brought an end to Communist rule in Poland.
[. . .]
The students also will be studying the recent history of political uprisings, especially the ideas behind democratic revolutions that swept across the world at the end of the Cold War. Their underground newspaper will feature articles that apply those concepts to contemporary social movements in the U.S., the Middle East, Latin America, Russia and elsewhere.
In keeping with the spirit of the Polish underground press, Kenney said, students will distribute newspaper copies clandestinely, in ways that won't be announced in advance. "It will be a surprise," he said.
It's valuable to learn the role of underground newspapers in political uprisings, but I'm not sure about all that "practical experience." The world has changed dramatically since the days of Solidarity. When Russian hardliners tried to stage a coup in 1991, it was new technology, especially people getting the word out with their fired-up Fax machines, that saved the day. Rebels today are likely to be on the Internet.
