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/