War protesters, including one from Maine, disrupt speech at Mass. college

WORCESTER, Mass. – Two war protesters smeared themselves with ketchup and cherry-flavored Kool-Aid and briefly interrupted a lecture given by a Pratt & Whitney Aircraft executive at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Stephen N. Finger, executive vice president of Pratt & Whitney and president of Pratt’s military engines division, addressed WPI students and faculty Monday as part of the college’s lecture series on the 100th anniversary of powered flight.

As Finger talked about the history of commercial aviation, Nicholas Nassar, a WPI senior, and Clark University sophomore Cha-Cha Connor, made their way to the front of the auditorium.

They admonished Finger and his company for making warplanes and lay down on a table to “play dead.”

A tape recording of F-16 jets, powered by Pratt & Whitney engines, played for a few moments and then the auditorium fell quiet with the students on the table.

“Then Mr. Finger just picked up where he left off,” William W. Durgin, WPI associate provost and vice president for research, told the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.

“It was very, very strange laying there while he went on with his show,” said Nassar, a computer science major from Winslow, Maine.