{"id":856,"date":"2007-04-19T19:33:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-19T19:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=856"},"modified":"2007-04-19T19:33:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-19T19:33:00","slug":"vulnerability-in-the-classroom-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=856","title":{"rendered":"Vulnerability in the Classroom-2"},"content":{"rendered":"

My earlier post.<\/a><\/p>\n

This issue has taken off in academic circles. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley writes an op-ed in the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, ending with<\/p>\n

In other words, most of the broad social \u201clessons\u201d we are being told we must learn from the Virginia Tech shootings have little to do with what allowed the horrors to occur. This is about evil, and about how our universities are able to deal with it as a literary subject but not as a fact of life. Can administrators and deans really continue to leave professors and other college personnel to deal with deeply disturbed students on their own, with only pencils in their defense?<\/em><\/p>\n

Law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh asks questions about self defense<\/a>: <\/p>\n

What, though, is the argument against allowing professors and other university staff to possess weapons, if they choose? (Assume the professors lack criminal records, and assume they go through whatever testing and modest training is required to get a concealed carry permit, or perhaps even some extra training.) One argument is that it’s just dangerous for law-abiding citizens to have weapons, because they’ll start shooting over arguments or fender-benders. But that’s precisely the argument that has been rejected by the 38 states that allow any law-abiding citizen to get a concealed carry license (or, in 2 of the 38 states, to carry without a license).<\/p>\n

I’ve also heard some arguments that suggest universities are different because they are places for reasoning, not violence: They should be gun-free zones (except of course for university police officers and security guards, who for some reason don’t count) because that’s needed to create the proper climate of peaceful inquiry. But the sad fact is that you can’t make a university into a gun-free zone. Mad killers can bring guns, and use them, regardless of what policies you announce.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Combat Philosopher fears that administrations will just implement heavy-handed “security” measures<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is also quite likely that there will be new provisions made, in a bid by the administration to enhance campus security. In all likelihood, these provisions will be burdensome and work against the free flow of people and ideas that makes campus life vibrant. Would you be inclined to return to your office, or lab of an evening if you had to run a gauntlet of security?<\/em><\/p>\n

On my campus, the new director of counseling (not the person I mentioned earlier<\/a>) writes a campus-wide email:<\/p>\n

If you encounter a person who you believe to be a risk to you or someone else and wish to discuss your concern with someone at the Student Counseling Center, we will help you evaluate the level of threat.<\/em><\/p>\n

That is fine, but the problem is the conflict between student privacy laws and warning the instructor. If I have a deaf student, for instance, he or she will show up with a letter from the Disability Center explaining his or her needs, such as an interpretor. But no one tells you if you have a mentally disturbed student in your class–or what to do about it. You are left to figure it out on your own. In a big class, you might never know.<\/p>\n

What usually happens is described by The Phantom Professor<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s a common strategy for dealing with troubled and troubling students: Just get ’em through the department. Do whatever it takes, but don’t cause problems or invite legal hassles by leaning too hard on him. Is he still paying his tuition? Then just deal with it. He’ll be gone next year. Shut up and deal with it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My earlier post. This issue has taken off in academic circles. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley writes an op-ed in the New York Times, ending with In other words, most of the broad social \u201clessons\u201d we are being told we must learn from the Virginia Tech shootings have little to do with what allowed the horrors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-dO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":812,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=812","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":0},"title":"Magic Spells for Professors","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I want these! Just a sample:1st-LEVEL PROFESSORIAL SPELLS * CANCEL MEETINGS. Professors at Level One may cancel department meetings only. (See Appendix 253 for a full list of levels and corresponding meetings.) This spell may be countered by another Professor's Spell of Urgency, and will always be blocked by a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5249,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5249","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":1},"title":"Popularity Contests and Declining Universities","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Janice Fiamengo takes on Rate My Professors as a sign of what is wrong with American universities. Such accusations reveal little about the professor in question; no one ever satisfactorily distinguishes a boring professor from a boredom-inclined student \u2014 which is not to suggest that boring professors do not exist,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3241,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3241","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":2},"title":"Oh yes, learn to write","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Walter Russell Meade on advice for new college students and their parents\u2014if you are on of those, raise your hand. Good stuff, such as \"The real world does not work like school\" and \"Choosing the right courses is more important than choosing the right school.\" It's actually a classic defense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12568","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":3},"title":"An Offer to Buy the Pomegranate, and Other Pagan Studies Scams","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Periodically I receive these emails, usually in the business-school dialect of babu English. Academic publishing, apparently, is full of scammy stuff like this.((I have also encountered them in real estate and in regard to mineral rights.)) Dear Editor\/Publisher, Hope this mail finds you in best! I am writing down this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/people-worship-mao-zedong.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/people-worship-mao-zedong.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/people-worship-mao-zedong.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11125,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11125","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":4},"title":"Mescalito Meets Calligraphy Class","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 5, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Cleaning out a stash of frames, mats, framed photos, some of Dad's old watercolors, etc. today, I found this. It is work from my beginning calligraphy class at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where the study of calligraphy shaped the visual identity from the 1940s\u20131980s in particular, and to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"Death is a whorl, he said.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4492,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4492","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":5},"title":"Data-Mining and Student Success","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses using data-mining techniques for better student advising. One way to ensure that students will reach the finish line is to quickly figure out if they've selected a suitable track. So the Arizona State system front-loads key courses. For example, to succeed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}