A group of about 50 students, professors and D.C. residents gathered to discuss the Occupy movement in the ICC auditorium Tuesday night.

The event, organized by Georgetown Occupy, included a panel discussion and breakout session aimed at identifying the nature and goals of the Occupy protests.

The discussion ranged from the event’s theme of “What is Occupy?” to the 2008 economic crisis and problems with American culture.

“The greatest thing that Occupy Wall Street has done so far is change the conversation,” said Michael Kazin, a history professor and panelist at the event. “It’s got people in the media and outside the media talking about all kinds of things we’d like them to talk about.”

Still, Kazin voiced concern about the movement’s lack of structure.

“The structureless-ness … is unsustainable,” he said. “In the end, there are no leaderless movements.”

Barbara Wien, a professor in the justice and peace studies department and a frequent attendee of the Occupy protests, said that the conception that the protesters lack goals is false.

“The Occupy movement has very clear goals and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” she said, listing stricter regulation of financial institutions and cuts to military spending as primacy concerns for the movement.

During her turn on the panel, Wien left the stage and walked among the audience members.

“I’m going to interrupt this culture right here, this hierarchy,” she said, pointing to the stage. “That’s what the Occupy movement is about, is interrupting culture.”

Wien also discussed her hopes for expansion of the protests in the coming months.

“The encampments are just one small part of this movement. They’re going to be doing housing takeovers for people who have lost their homes due to predatory lending … They’re going to be taking over malls … They’re also calling for the birth of a new hybrid political party,” she said. “We live in the most exciting time probably in the history of the world right now.”

After the panel, the audience divided into two smaller groups to discuss the issues informally.

Samuel Geaney-Moore (SFS ’12), a member of Georgetown Occupy who stayed for the breakout session, said that he attended the event in order to show his support for the working class.

“The thing I care about the most is the struggle of the working people in the United States,” he said. “This is a way … to fight the inequality.”

According to the panel’s moderator, Madeline Grayson Howard (COL ’12), the goal of the event was to attract a wider group of people involved in the Occupy movement.

“We really wanted to get more contact with people who have these tendencies,” she said. “I think that it was pretty successful because we reached a lot of people who I have never met before.”