The Response to a Shattered Department at UA-Huntsville

This is week's blog entails school shootings and campus violence. A recent devastating shooting took place on February 12th at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in the biology departments faculty meeting. Was it an active shooter or student? No, but a faculty member herself. This has left millions of Americans stunned over such an incidence. According to reports, Amy Bishop, an assistant professor of biology who was upset over a denial of tenure, showed up at the faculty conference armed with a 9-millimeter handgun. After sitting quietly in the meeting for a short period of time, she purportedly stood and started suddenly blasting away at her stunned colleagues—human targets who may have been implicated, at least in her mind, in her failed tenure bid.

The loss for their families, students, friends, and loved ones have my deepest sympathy for such a tragic loss. What's next for the department and students? The offers, from faculty members at the other two campuses in the University of Alabama system, are clearly welcome. A similar incidence happened at the University of Arizona in 2002, where a student gunned down three nursing professors. It's extremely rare for violence to affect multiple professors in a single department. Departments must meet near-term challenges (such as covering classes or finding new advisers for students) and challenges that emerge further down the line, such as recruiting new faculty members. In the Arizona incidence, students returned to class a week later and college received amazing support from nurses across the country and from the university medical center, where several clinicians covered their nursing courses.

Finding a way to cover classes may be one of the earliest and easiest problems for Huntsville to solve. But other issues are likely to arise such as helping graduate students and undergraduates left without advisers and research mentors to adjust or even receive letters of recommendation from professors whom have known them well. Additionally, committee work in the department is also likely to grind to a halt for now, and when it resumes its going to be hard to take on that on in the face of that tragedy.

As days and weeks go by, a first response during departmental meetings will more than likely include asking how is everyone doing. I can see it definitely being difficult on everyone during meetings by recapturing the incident that took place that took the lives of their colleagues. The counseling center should be utilized by the departmental faculty, staff, students, and even the families.

Rebuilding the biological-sciences department at Huntsville will also mean hiring new faculty members. The tragedy may make the the task uncomfortable at first, but other universities have found that applicants are not deterred. Its an overwhelming process, but it has to be taken one step at a time. The main focus right now is the memorial service and supporting the victims' families at their time of bereavement. The plans for the future is to try to rebuild the department in the months ahead.

As student affairs administrators, how can we protect our students from our very own employees? What campus safety policies are in effect at your institution to combat against tragedies such as this?

References:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Task-Ahead-Rebuilding-a/64213/

http://chronicle.com/article/Tenurethe-Workplace/64197/

Expulsion??? but no due process...

For the second time Bighamton's Social Work Department has brought allegations against students who share different viewpoints than the department faculty. One would think, is this a violation of the individual's First Amendment rights of freedom of speech? Let's take a closer look at the allegations. A student from Canada enrolled in their MSW program was expelled without knowing why, much less having a chance to properly defend himself against the nebulous allegations. In one classroom incident the student mentioned above to his professor that "he should be careful when he starts his car," after the professor had asked students what format did they want their midterm to be, but later after a consensus was reached the professor told them the actual exercise was their exam and he joked about the students "coming after him after class." In the second incident the student had told the class a past experience related to a class discussion regarding using a pick-axe to hit a chair for having his pay docked. This prompted fellow students to report to the professor that they felt uncomfortable and threatened.

The university took all of its complaints seriously and an investigation was launched. Additionally the student and professor was questioned and the professor had confirmed the second incident was apart of a class discussion therefore, the university policy closed the case and so did the Office of Student Conduct. However, the student was interrogated later by the Advancement Committee for the program and was recommended against his advancement (i.e., continuation in the program) that there "appears... to be a significant discrepancy, at times, between the purported intention of his verbal behavior and the ways in which his verbal communications are perceived by others." The student had to return home to Canada with no degree, a lot of debt, and many unanswered questions.

This story makes me think about things that I may say in my classes or at work. I feel the Advancement Committee took this situation to another level. Simply relating a past life experience and following along with a professor's joke, clearly should not impose of one's free speech rights. Due process is a law within the Fourteenth Amendment applicable to the states in which an individual has the right to a fair hearing and right to appeal a decision. In this case, the student was not able to appeal therefore, his due process and rights to free speech were both violated. As the second time a student has had an encounter with the Social Work department, it goes on to say that the department has some internal issues that needs to be addressed with the assistance of an outside entity. I have to ask the question, should students monitor their responses in classes to not make others feel threatened or uncomfortable? Should students not convey personal situations in class discussions? How does this affect student learning and applying conversation to practical experiences? I hope anything of this sort does not affect other college campuses. This situation was taken to the extreme and the student could have at least been referred to the university counseling center but he was not causing any harm to anyone but I see the department and students thought differently. As student affairs professionals how do we make our students feel safe in the classroom while acknowledging feedback from others? Participating in classroom discussions makes me wonder... should students not convey personal stories to their peers to protect themselves from expulsion or was this another situation where the department did not like the student?

College Students and Civic Engagement

Are colleges promoting civic engagement as apart of their curriculums to students today? In a report released by AACU, a group that promotes liberal education on Sept. 20, 2009 states colleges are not promoting civic engagement nearly as strongly as their students, faculty members, and administrators believe they should be.

When it comes to colleges' promotion of social responsibility , there exists "a troubling gap on campus between aspiration and actuality, " concludes the report, based on a survey of about 24,000 students and 9,000 faculty members, academic administrators, and student-affairs professionals at 23 colleges.

While nearly half of students surveyed strongly agreed that they had come to college aware of the importance of contributing to the greater good of society, only about a third felt strongly that the campus had helped them learn the skills they needed to change society for the better or that their commitment to improve society had grown there, the report says.

Moreover, the gap between the civic education students desire and what they actually receive appears to widen as they progress through their undergraduate years, with seniors being substantially less likely than freshmen to believe their institution is promoting the goal of contributing to the community.

While nearly three-fourths of the campus professionals surveyed strongly felt that getting students to contribute to the larger community should be a major focus of their institutions, fewer than half saw doing so as a top institutional priority.

Caryn McTighe Musil, senior vice president of the AACU, said the report's findings "really reveal for higher education that we need to walk the walk" when it comes to promoting the civic education of students. "We have to provide an array of opportunities for them, and we don't," she said.

George L. Mehaffy, vice president for academic leadership and change at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the leader of an effort by that group to promote civic education, said the AACU report suggests that colleges are much more effective in promoting civic engagement in freshman general-education courses than they are in the classes that students take later on, as part of their majors. Colleges need to do more to promote community involvement throughout the curriculum, and not merely as a separate activity, he said, adding, "It is important for all of us who are involved in this work to take this report seriously."

The promotion of civic engagement is widely seen on campuses as a key learning goal, and that some programs and activities appear to be succeeding in making students more community-focused.

Courses that require community engagement and student organizations with service components both seem to make a significant dent in promoting civic involvement, the survey found. Students who prayed or meditated, or interacted with faculty members outside of class, were substantially more likely than others to report a sense of being involved with the community.

Campus professionals at research institutions reported the biggest gap between aspiration and reality. Nearly 75 percent strongly agreed that contributing to the community should be a major focus of their institutions, but only about 42 percent strongly agreed that it actually was.

What's Next?

Colleges and campus professionals may implement civic engagement through service-learning projects, internships/practicums, student organizations, and etc. Civic engagement is also a vital resource that helps students build their resumes. Particularly at my institution, civic engagements is seen in a variety of capacities (i.e. student organizations., Greek Life, academic departments, athletics, staff council, and etc.) Being involved within the community as college students is vital to the learning process that allows the development of leadership traits, networking, philanthropy, character, and social and interpersonal skills to name a few. As student affairs professionals and academic advisors, it is important that we instill in our students the importance of participating within the campus and local communities. From reading the report found on this study, it brings to mind are colleges instilling in their students to be active in their community? Are students focusing more on academics today than before? Are students who were active while in high school more prone to be active in college? These questions may provide student affairs administrators evidence of their student bodies involvement within the broader community.