I'm wondering about the Yale murder almost a year and a half ago.
The victim seemed to be a nice medical student (not all med students are nice, of course). It was Yale. They were in a relatively secure building. The murderer didn't seem to have been provoked. So what the hell happened? Doesn't it make you wonder if any of us are safe?
Q. Do any of you proffies or administrators do anything to try to avoid getting smoked? Care to share your secret strategies for survival? And what about protecting your colleagues and the students? Do you trust anyone at your school? Or is it just a dog-eat-dog jungle?
A. Be honest, dammit.
We wear plastic ID badges around our necks. Apparently, they stop bullets.
ReplyDeleteOur school has a 'text alert' service that we can sign up for if we want to be notified of any shooting on campus. I'm not sure how that will necessarily STOP the problem, but it'll help us duck and cover, I suppose... if we have our cell phones on in class.
ReplyDeleteI have sent referrals to our Counseling People of students who particularly concern me (usually the jerkface in the class, and the silent sulking child who has outbursts of temper that involve his stomping his feet and flinging his returned essays toward the trash on his way out the door every three weeks). I've also referred students who cannot stop crying in class, but for other reasons.
Dr. Bubba, what do YOU do?
@Contemplative: You're asking the wrong person. I don't trust most of the people at my school. Some of them would surely kill me if they knew they could get away with it. I sometimes have carried a concealed handgun with me on campus--just to see what it feels like and explore the possibility of doing it regularly. At my campus, nobody's going to pat me down or ask to look through my belongings. We don't have metal-detectors. I don't wear a plastic badge; people recognize me and understand that I'm supposed to be there. And I'm on a first-name basis with a good number of the campus police officers. All of which leads me back to the fact that I probably feel about as safe as that Yale med student did. Not very reassuring, is it?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's against the rules for me to have the gun on campus. So what.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess that other than keeping an eye on possibly deranged students, I never give it a second thought.
ReplyDeleteI carry a big load of pepper spray on my work keys.
ReplyDeleteDr. Bubba, Do you think we have to also worry about our colleagues? One of my colleagues who retired from my dept. warned me to never allow myself to be in the dept alone with another certain deranged colleague who would "likely strangle someone while smiling through the whole act."
ReplyDeleteMy significant other carries a knife (more of a shiv... Prison style) to class, but I'm not sure why... says it's for just in case.
I'm vaguely aware of the possibilities, but can't say that I've had a truly disturbed, or disturbing, student in some time. I suppose I might be more vulnerable to attracting the attention of a disturbed person at school than in other places because it's the place where I'm most obviously in a (relative) position of power, but I suspect that I'm at least as likely to be attacked by one of my homeless and mentally ill neighbors (and while the chances of that aren't zero, I still consider it highly unlikely -- enough so that I take no defensive or evasive actions whatsoever except avoiding glances that might be seen as prying into the semi-private spaces they've constructed for themselves in the woodland near some of the trails where I walk. When they're out in the open, I smile and nod as I would to any other neighbor I recognize).
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty certain that the most dangerous thing I do on a regular basis is get behind the wheel of a car (or, when my aging car is on the fritz, trust myself to a bus that plies the same roads). I suppose I reduce that practice a bit by teaching online classes, but that's more a matter of meeting student demand and keeping my skills up to date than of reducing driving (though I'm grateful that, at current gas prices, I won't have to drive to campus 4 times a week for the summer session this year; that will make the summer supplement to my long-stagnant salary worth just a bit more).
Finally, though I don't fear my actual family or friends, I'm aware that, statistically at least, and especially as a woman, I'm far more likely to be attacked by a lover or other intimate than by someone in my workplace. This, of course, is not a reason to avoid close personal relationships (but perhaps a reason to be observant about the shape very new ones are taking).
P.S. Some of my colleagues are a bit eccentric, but on this very basic level -- and, in fact, on most levels -- I trust them.
ReplyDelete@Contingent
ReplyDeleteLovers being the more likely group to attack me is the best reason I've heard not to love my students. Safety first.
In the Yale case, it was an employee who killed one student, not a crazy well-armed student looking to kill a bunch of people.
ReplyDeleteIn the few administrative positions I've held, I had a well-hidden and easily accessible panic button that I could push to get the police to my office within a couple of minutes.
Anybody can flip out. Students, faculty, staff, members of the public. I love less than 1% of them regardless of whether they are students or employees. Those are the rare ones that have become valuable friends.
I'm never on campus at night. A couple of times I've had to give exams in the evening and I've asked a student to walk me to my car, but out of an abundance of caution. When I was doing my PhD at a Big State U in the US, if I worked on campus too late to feel safe getting to my car I slept in the department lounge with the door locked.
ReplyDeleteI've never had a colleague or student that worried me, yet.
Yale? Secure? Believe a Yale alumna, that campus is anything but secure. I don't know a single person who hasn't been mugged, robbed, assaulted, beaten, attacked, etc. It is a very dangerous campus.
ReplyDeleteI stand 6'4" and weigh 215. My coworkers don't intimidate me in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteHumpshack has recently experienced a spate of muggings and assaults both on campus and in its immediate environs. When I work late in the building, I have a machete stashed in my file drawer. I don't think I ever really considered this rationally before, it's more of a post-traumatic stress type thing. I also sleep with one wedged between the mattress and box spring. They make me feel...safe. Atom Smasher fortunately tolerates this as one of my charming foibles.
ReplyDeleteOn the first day of class, we talk about what to do in the event of a "hostile intruder" (that's what the school calls them). We have a campus-wide text and email alert system.
During the semester, I report my more unstable students (like the psychotic one) to CAPS.
I don't -feel- in any danger, but I figure that doing my due diligence can't hurt.
20+ years of martial arts training. Competed in MMA before that term existed. I'm also a SOCOM veteran, so I know a little something about firearms.
ReplyDeleteIn a straight-up physical confrontation I fear no one. But I'm also smart enough and experienced enough to know that that is rarely how things happen. Someone intent on doing you harm is not going to announce his intentions beforehand and allow you time to set yourself and fight.
Carrying a gun is particularly pointless. If someone comes storming into your office or classroom, guns blazing, you'll never draw down in time. And unless you practice with live ammo more or less daily, all the relevant research says that you will probably miss anything more than eight to ten feet away under that kind of stress. You are likelier to hit a bystander than your target. My own anecdotal experience as someone who has fired tens of thousands of rounds under both simulated and real stress tells me that's true.
I stand a better chance than you. But the truth is, that if someone is planning to do us harm, my chances are only a few percentage points better.
To quote Jet Li, "The best martial arts technique is a nice smile." I try to practice that technique as much as possible, especially on my enemies.
I'm with honest_prof on this one. The person who scares me most in this thread is Bubba and his casual breaking of what may very well be the law in his state.
ReplyDeleteCivilians carrying fire arms make me fear for my life because most gun owners (including myself) no matter how good they are on the range are more likely to hit a bystander than the perp.
As for the office... I have a rock hammer. I don't think it'll do me any good if i'm shot in the back of the head but it's something. And it's legal in my work setting.
I thought that the Yale murder story was that a deranged, not-all-there technician/employee had developed a romantic fixation on this female medical student. He was spurned and psychologically unbalanced and addressed his problem by murdering the woman. If this is an accurate description of the scenario, then the usual preventive responses to this plotline are to report inappropriate behavior (e.g. unwanted romantic advances) very early to the appropriate authorities (e.g. the technician's boss, the lab manager, the dept. chair, campus security), and that they should take the complaint seriously and resolve the situation by taking appropriate action to separate the parties and keep an eye on the weirdo. A contributing factor here seems to be the tolerance/acceptance of violence against women. I don't see what this case has to do with guns on campus or feeling unsafe at Yale or other urban, open campuses. Different story arcs.
ReplyDeleteBubba: I like guns too, but it's not appropriate to pack heat to your workplace. You're not a cop. You're extremely unlikely to save the world or to save your own life or property. We all must live with some basic uncertainty in our lives. Perhaps you should think about why you _feel_ unsafe and change what you're _doing_ to feel safe. 'Cause the net effect of what you're doing is to make other people unsafe, and I don't think it's reasonable. Save your pistol for your off-work recreation.
I thought that perhaps illegally carrying concealed weaponry was an American habit on which it would be impolite for a Canadian to comment, and was privately revising my Disneyland-with-the-kids holiday plans. I'm glad to see it's not universal, because it sounds completely batshit insane. I'm just saying.
ReplyDeleteBut I think Archie put it much more compellingly, because unlike me, he's actually held a gun.
I find it hard to disagree with anything Angry Archie says, including on this thread. After reading his comments this morning, I talked with one of my friends on the campus police force for a little bit. He suggested a book by Dave Grossman titled, "On Killing." Grossman discusses how inept most of us are at shooting another person, and gives examples. For psychological reasons, we humans just aren't very good at hitting that other person, even if we believe they're going to shoot us. Practicing at the ROTC shooting range just isn't the same as facing another gunman--on the battlefield or on campus.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the issue of my bringing a concealed gun to campus... well, I'm ok with it. After decades on college campuses as a student/proffie/administrator, I've never felt like having a gun with me would do much good. However, a lot of people disagree. So I have tried it a few times. It makes the abstract concrete, just like chemistry lab forces students to confront what all that abstract gibberish in their textbooks means. It's one thing to think about becoming a parent, but something else entirely to have a child. For me, bringing the gun to campus is about breaking down the walls in my mind and trying to expand my understanding of reality and look at things from a different perspective.
As for the argument that illegally bringing a concealed handgun to campus is "not appropriate," I don't care. We all bend and break the rules. I sometimes drive 85mph when the speed limit is 55mph. MLK and Ghandi broke the laws to improve their societies. Sometimes I bend or break the rules for the sake of my own intellectual or emotional exploration. It's not just about bringing a concealed weapon to campus: If I could successfully masquerade as a woman on campus, I would do that. I'd like to know where we get our truths and values. Some people have been calling this "thinking outside the box." I don't really care what it's called, but I think most of us academics feel called to do it in one way or another.
Wow. I've never actually seen someone justify their own selfishness in such an open manner. Next time you complain about a snowflake it'll be a lot harder to take you seriously.
ReplyDeleteNow this is odd to me, because (as a Canadian) I would expect to be particularly horrified by the concealed weaponry on campus experiment, but in fact I found myself nodding my head as I read Bubba's post and thinking "well, I can kind of see that - see if my attitude towards things changes if I know that I'm packing heat and I know that you don't know I am. Does it make me feel safer? Seriously insecure?" I suspect it would make me nervous as hell, and I don't plan to make the experiment, but I can see how someone else might.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "are there no bounds to your ego" argument, I don't think I see that here either. Now, if Bubba had actually shot someone just to see how THAT felt, it would be different.
I always sort of hoped that Strel and Bubba were hyperbolic to a certain extent. But if Bubba's carrying a weapon on a college campus, then I don't really know what to say.
ReplyDeleteHow about reprehensible, bully, coward? I think we are being punk'ed, this is too much to believe.
ReplyDeleteActually, there was an interesting article in Harper's last year that took a similar line of argument to Bubba's: Subscriber's link.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/08/0083063
The author was interested in learning how his own attitudes towards danger might change if he decided to do a lot of concealed carrying. He did have a concealed carry permit, and he didn't break any laws, but otherwise it was similar in spirit to Bubba's post above. It was worth reading.
@Bubba It isn't just psychological. There are physiological things--mostly having to do with adrenaline--that happen to you in that situation that make it difficult not only to shoot straight, but to make good decisions. It takes a lot of the right kind of training to blunt those physiological reactions and allow one to make lucid decisions and exercise the necessary physical control to shoot straight. Most people, including an awful lot of law enforcement personnel, don't have that.
But the psychological aspect is also key. By definition, the unhinged psychopath who wants to kill people won't have the aversion instinct, and so ironically he'll be a much better shot in that situation than a neuro-typical.
@Angry Archie: Thanks. Now I need to read that article in Harper's as well as the Grossman book.
ReplyDeleteI'm puzzled by the supposed Yalie who said she didn't "know a single person who hasn't been mugged, robbed, assaulted, beaten, attacked, etc." Not a single one? Either this person has a very limited number of acquaintances, or Yale needs to make a few corrections to their Clery report.
I'm also puzzled by the comparison of concealed-carry to rape, child porn, and bullying.
And is there no room for nuance or logic here? It's legal for me to leave my gun in the trunk of my parked car all day while I'm working on campus. What if somebody steals my car? They'll get a bonus firearm out of it and the world will be far less safe than if I had simply broken the rules and carried the gun around with me all day.
My day's over. I'm going to start drinking bourbon now.
Drinking and carrying a gun, great.
ReplyDelete