A Marquette professor is taking it upon himself to unify Marquette voices and make a difference by calling for a stop to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Barrett McCormick, professor of political science, is organizing students to circulate petitions around campus calling elected officials to end the genocide currently happening in Darfur.

"There is a militia in Darfur that has been killing local villagers with great violence," McCormick said. "They are seeing an enormous loss of lives with tremendous human suffering."

McCormick said he felt the call to action after attending Paul Rusesabagina's keynote speech during Mission Week, in which Rusesabagina gave an account of the Rwandan genocide.

"When Paul Rusesabagina was on campus I had the great fortune of being able to ask him a question on behalf of Marquette faculty," McCormick said. "I asked him what we at Marquette could do to make genocide a little less likely. He said we should speak out and make ourselves heard by our government."

According to the Genocide Intervention Network in Washington, D.C., 380,000 people have been killed and 3 million displaced since February 2003. Currently, 15,000 people are being killed each month.

"Whenever they pretend to be willing to see they only talk about it," Rusesabagina said of public officials in his speech. "They never join words with actions. There are so many voices calling for rescue. Raise awareness. Africa is burning. If we tell our whole world that what is going on is wrong, all as one, we can make it."

One of McCormick's goals is to unite the Marquette community into "one" so elected officials realize the situation is wrong and something can and should be done about it.

"I would like to see us get a large percentage of the Marquette community to sign the petition where there's enough involvement that we can also go into the surrounding communities," McCormick said. "I also would like to see that our elected representatives would be compelled and act on our concern."

According to Ricken Patel, co-director of Darfurgenocide.org, a Web site that provides people with more information and opportunities to speak out about the violence in Darfur, students who would like to become more involved should start by increasing their own awareness.

"The best way to start out is to just Google it," Patel said. "Learn more about what's going on. Find out what groups currently exist that address the issue. There are a number of student activist groups currently in the country that students can become involved in."

A meeting of all students and staff interested in helping McCormick will be held Thursday in Cudahy Hall 001 at 3:30 p.m. At that time the wording of the petition will be finalized, along with the establishment of an organizing committee and plans to get as many signatures as possible.

"I think this gives Marquette a chance to show who we are and what we're about," McCormick said. "Everybody can get behind this. It's something that doesn't have to belong to any one organization."