CORVALLIS - We all know that our world has changed in important ways since terrorist hijackers turned four passenger jets into suicide bombs on Sept. 11, 2001. Now Oregon State University's College of Business is offering a seven-week seminar to examine how those changes continue to affect the economy, both nationally and here in Oregon.

"War on Main Street: The Impact of Terrorism on Business and Society" begins Monday and will meet every Monday from 6 to 7:15 p.m. in Milam Auditorium, a 650-seat hall at Southwest 26th Street and Campus Way. Students can earn one college credit for the class, and the public can attend for free.

"The college and faculty believe that the landscape has been altered permanently since 9/11," said Tom Dowling, a College of Business faculty member who is leading the spring term course. "Our goal for the seminar is to prepare students to engage in a changed national and international climate in a post-9/11 world."

The course will examine how the Sept. 11 attacks have impacted businesses and individuals in five areas - economic, political, social, legal and employment.

"One of the things we know for a fact is that since 9/11 certain sectors of the economy have dropped off dramatically and not recovered," Dowling said.

"For example, it's pretty obvious to many people that the travel industry is in trouble now, and there's been a lot of focus on the airlines, but large theme parks like Disney and Great America have had financial problems, too."

Those problems have had a significant ripple effect in Oregon, he said. Dairy farmers, for instance, have lost orders because of the theme park slowdown, which can be tied directly to a fear of terrorism.

"These things trickle down throughout the economy," Dowling said.

There have been some bright spots in an otherwise dismal economic picture - gains in productivity and personal income, housing starts, new car sales and consumer spending. But most indicators are down, Dowling said, and even some of those pockets of strength have been showing the strain.

"I think you see employment down, I think you see consumer confidence slipping and fuel prices have been up, which impacts almost every American business, whether you're a small business in Corvallis or you're GE," Dowling said.

Compounding two years of economic weakness: uncertainty over how long the war in Iraq will last and how much the war and subsequent rebuilding efforts will cost. The way Dowling sees it, that uncertainty likely will push back any chance of a significant recovery by nine months to a year.

"The biggest impact of that, I think, is it's retarding hiring," he said. "I've talked to a lot of CEOs who say they're understaffed and they've been understaffed for a long time. They would start hiring if they thought things were going to get better."

What's more, Dowling and many of his colleagues expect the war on terror to continue long after the war in Iraq is finished. Heightened security concerns will continue to ripple through the economy, raising the cost to business and individuals in often subtle and unforeseen ways.

"These are all going to be overhead costs that businesses are going to have to deal with whether they like it or not, and the bottom line is consumers are going to have to pay for that," Dowling said.

"The war on terrorism is going to be a long-term prospect, and we are going to have to accept that as the price for peace of mind and safety."

Course schedule

• April 7: "Voices from Main Street," a panel discussion focusing on the statewide effects of the war on terrorism, including reserves and National Guard call-ups, the experiences of foreign nationals and college students, and the impact on the business community.

• April 14: John W. Mitchell, the Western region economist with U.S. Bancorp, will present "Terror and the Invisible Hand," a discussion of terror's impact on the U.S. and Northwest economies.

• April 21: Stephen Engelberg, an Oregonian reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network while at the New York Times, will present "The News Desk's View of al-Qaida and Other Threats."

• April 28: Cetin Koc, an OSU professor of electrical and computer engineering and a nationally recognized expert in cybersecurity, will present "The Impact of Terrorism on Business Information Infrastructure."

• May 5: Michael R. Anderson, president and founder of New Technologies Inc., will discuss national efforts in the area of computer forensics and security risk analysis for business and government clients.

• May 12: Nancy King, an assistant professor of business at OSU and a noted analyst of privacy laws, will speak on the USA Patriot Act and its effect on civil liberties.

• May 19: John D. Schmelzer, an attorney adviser for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Office of Field Program, will discuss national employment issues related to the war on terrorism.

More information on the course is available online at www.bus.oregonstate.edu.

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Albany Democrat-Herald and Corvallis Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@ lee.net.