A few careful considerations may be in order in the wake of recent protests at Yale and the University of Missouri (Mizzou).

With hundreds of students participating in protests responding to this semester’s events in Ferguson and police brutality across the United States, student protesters are claiming a new kind of class is in session for Washington University.

Washington University students have been protesting with thousands of St. Louis residents since a St. Louis County grand jury’s decision Monday not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for killing teenager Michael Brown in August, with some being hit with tear gas and pepper spray and one being arrested.

Op-eds, open forums, class discussions and direct participation in rallies and protests are only a few of the ways that Washington University community members are responding to the recent events in Ferguson, Mo.

Most Washington University students are proud to call St. Louis home for at least nine months out of the year—as such, it is important for us to fully grasp the tension in Ferguson and the tragic events occurring so close to our adopted home.

Although it fell short of its goal of 1,000 participants, Saturday’s rally on Brookings Steps—the largest to date—brought together hundreds, who reiterated their demands that the school cut ties with Peabody Energy.

As a Washington University alumnus, I was disappointed but not surprised by the responses from fourth-year Olin Business School students regarding recent student protests at Bank of America’s on-campus recruiting events.

At the Olin Business School’s Career Fair and company presentations two weeks ago, the usual sights and sounds of well-dressed students learning about and pitching themselves to potential employers were interrupted by the coughing and shouting of individuals protesting Bank of America’s support and funding for mountaintop removal coal mining.

Last Thursday, I stood alongside Washington University students in protest. The demonstration targeted Bank of America’s financing of the coal industry; specifically, those corporations engaged in the hazardous and invasive practices of mountaintop coal removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Our protest took the form of two separate demonstrations.

The Middle East is on fire. Every day, even though it seems as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a new report comes out of Libya, Iran or Egypt telling us just how bad things have gotten in that part of the world. Its kind of hard to be in St. Louis, far away from just about everything, and not be able to do anything.