June 11 — Students who sleep through lecture do not always need to get class notes from a friend: oftentimes a professor’s lessons are as accessible as the daily newspaper or a cable news sound byte.

International relations professor Augustus Norton recently shot a letter to The New York Times, criticizing an op-ed article about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s standing in the Muslim world, written by historian and military strategist Edward Luttwak. Norton’s May 12 letter brought an expert’s perspective to the opinion page — and summed up the years of research students might encounter in one of Norton’s scholarly volumes or courses.

“[Luttwak] argued that Obama will be seen by Muslims as a lapsed Muslim because his father was a Muslim,” Norton said in an interview. “There is no serious basis for this claim. He was raised as a Christian, and he is generally seen in the Muslim world as an American Christian. He is no more a Muslim than a Chinese child raised in a Jewish home would be a Confucian.”

The experts employed by BU — scientists and religion scholars, political observers and analysts — not only educate their students, but offer views and facts to the media. Some professors, like Norton, speak up when they have something to contribute to a public debate. Other times, reporters seek out scholars for their stories, many of whom are made readily accessible and listed as experts by BU’s Media Relations Office — a sort of intellectual product-placement mechanism.

Students are likely to see College of Arts and Sciences professor Bruce Schulman at the front of an American history lecture hall — and in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, where he recently weighed in on Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s conservatism.

Professors often identify themselves as faculty when they send in letters to large publications, said Thomas Fauls, a College of Communication mass communications professor.

“You always have the option of identifying yourself or just remaining an individual,” he said. “As for the university’s reputation as a result? It really all depends on what is said.”

Although professors have full freedom to say what they please in public, they still can represent the university, Fauls said.

“There have been some instances where statements have caused a little controversy, of course,” he said. “But I certainly think it depends on the individual as well as the statement for sure.”

Norton, who has been to the Middle East numerous times over the past 30 years because of his political reform work in Arab states, did not shy away from commenting on Luttwak’s article, calling it “one of the dumbest pieces I have read in some time.” Norton said he was astonished The Times published it in the first place.

In his May 12 column, Luttwak said Obama’s conversion to Christianity at a young age makes him an apostate, one who deserted his religion, in Muslim eyes. Norton said Obama is actually viewed very favorably in the Middle East.

“The prospect that Barack Obama could be elected president inspires awe, not charges of apostasy,” Norton wrote in his letter. “These people do not see Mr. Obama as a lapsed Muslim but as a potentially empathetic American leader who grew to maturity as a Christian.”

Times public editor Clark Hoyt criticized the newspaper’s handling of the op-ed, which made allusions to a possible Obama assassination in the Muslim world. That Times editors did not seek out scholarly views contrary to Luttwak’s is “a pity in this case, because it might have sparked a discussion about whether Luttwak’s categorical language was misleading, at best,” Hoyt wrote.

Luttwak was unavailable for comment for this article.

Alexis Steinberg, BU for Barack Obama public relations director, said the election needs to move past the issue of religion, and he stands by Norton’s response.

“Religion shouldn’t even come into play here,” Steinberg, a COM sophomore, said. “Muslim nations will recognize that Obama has an international perspective. He grew up in Indonesia, spent time in Kenya and was one of the only Democratic candidates to speak seriously about Darfur early in the race.”