CULTURE
Wounded Healers
By Elizabeth Station
Henry Kissinger once wickedly quipped that “academic politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low.” Those of us who work in academia have always taken a secret delight in that little joke, not only because it’s witty but it’s true. We know that what happens on college campuses may not be important to the world, but truthfully, we don’t really care. It’s important to us, and that’s enough.
Last month, when a Virginia Tech senior authored the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history on the eve of his graduation, it shocked many of us out of our reverie. The massacre was not an outcome of bitter academic politics but of profound, painful mental illness and the ready availability of guns.The details at VTU were uniquely poignant, but the incident could have happened on any of our campuses, and the victims could have been our students and professors.
The shootings were traumatic for other reasons. Most members of a university community will say they gladly labor for lower pay because our workplaces are kinder and gentler than the big, bad world—they’re places where people choose beauty, serenity and learning over lucre. But the VT shootings shattered this idea in the same way September 11 exploded the myth that living in America would keep everyone safe from terrorism.
And something else—something new—became increasingly apparent as the story unfolded: everything, including our response to events, was going to play out in real time and over the Internet. The killer himself stopped at the post office to overnight his “multimedia manifesto” to NBC between shooting episodes. As soon as it was posted, we watched it online. Over 2,000 editors around the world contributed to a Wikipedia article about the shootings that had 750,000 visits in its first two days (that’s four visits a second).
The massacre happened Monday morning. By Friday afternoon, I was sitting down with college administrators around the country to discuss, in an online “webinar,” how our institutions should respond to the crisis. Normally it costs universities about $200 each to participate in these live audio chats, but the friendly folks at Magna Online Seminars were offering this particular session, “The Compassionate Response: Helping Students After a National Tragedy,” for free.
As I listened to experts around the country discuss the issues (and vulnerabilities) that the Virginia Tech shootings laid bare, I realized how much our jobs as college administrators have changed over the years. Top-tier academic institutions are already expected to provide a dazzling array of services—wireless technology, a winning sports team, vegan options in the dining hall, a welcoming environment for GLBT students—to compete with the best. But to that list we must now add several new items: guidelines to prevent a homicidal maniac from going on a rampage, and a well-articulated plan for compassionate healing and fair media coverage if it happens anyway.
In the immediate aftermath of the VT shootings, I heard a chilling suggestion: let students and faculty pack pistols in class so they can “take out” a shooter before the body count gets too high. One of the participants in our webinar suggested that student leaders be trained with the campus police in preparation for the new academic year.
But are those really our best choices for preventing another Virginia Tech? My own inclination would be to take better care of our mentally ill population and make handguns a whole lot harder to get. My definition of progress on this front would be different from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, who defended his state’s gun laws two days after the shootings in a curious fashion. “It is the case that there are states that have stricter rules than Virginia,” Kaine told NPR. “We also have some rules that have been models for other states”—like the law limiting a person’s handgun purchases to one per month.
One gun purchase a month? If that’s a model, just shoot me.
Gov. Kaine went on to reflect that after a tragedy like Virginia Tech, “There’s nothing right to say.” I disagree. Former University of Illinois professor C. Bryan Cloyd said something very right about campus security just days after losing his 19-year-old daughter in the VT massacre. “Universities are vulnerable places and they need to be,” said Cloyd. “We can’t put scanners on all our doors. We don’t want to be airport security.”
University settings are the epitome of a free society, he added. To remain so they must balance safety considerations with the vital task of intellectual inquiry—which, in the end, demands more openness than caution and people who come to class with open minds, not concealed weapons.
As a policy response takes shape on campuses across the country, these issues will continue to be debated. In that sense, maybe what we do in academia is important. Lately, at least, the stakes seem pretty high.
