By now, most of you have probably heard about the shooting
that happened at Lone Star College near Houston. Another tragedy and sad
situation. As I write this, I’m watching CNN News, listening to one of the
students talking to the news anchor. I can only imagine if it were me on the
phone trying to explain such a situation.
Over the past few months the number of shootings have
definitely increased. Now, my academic intrigue kicked in, so I did a little
research. (My undergraduate thesis advisors would be so proud of me to WANT to
do research on a topic J).
Going through back issues of Time, People, New York Times,
Washington Post, Wikipedia, and of course the ever amazing Google, I found out
that since 2010 there have been approximately 8 significant shootings that have
occurred on college campuses across the United States. That’s approximately 2
per year for the past 4 years.
No doubt, for the next few days, institutions will be
reassuring the public and its students of the high safety levels of their respective
campuses including the number of police they have on staff, having or will have
cameras in every hallway, perhaps metal detectors at main entranceways, and so
forth. However, when it all dies down, what will we have learned and what will
be done to prevent another such incident? Increase in campus security and tweaks
to the Jeanine Cleary Act have been the traditional routes. However many times
it stops there or just gets buried until the next incident occurs and we redo
these steps over and over.
And as SA professionals it tends to drive us nuts when there
is no purposeful resolution or at least some solid movement in improving the
institution.
So, for one second, let’s put all this mess of gun control
and the political blame game going on in DC on hold, and look at college
shootings from specifically a Student Affairs point of view. I think if you do
that, most, if not all of us SA professionals, will come to the conclusion that
there is a greater issue than gun control and campus safety. In most cases it’s
a mental or emotional health issue.
As SA professionals, we know that there are so many other
things going on in our students’ lives. We know that the students are going
through the various identity development stages from Chickering and other
colleagues of his, all the while dealing with the daily struggles of class,
family, work, and other demands of day to day life. With knowing this, perhaps
it gives Student Affairs Professionals the ability and advantage to know what
is really needed to know how to take the first steps to prevent such situations
and tragedies occurring on our college campuses outside from the “Beefing up
security” and “Increase in Gun Control” tactics that many will focus on.
Being in the trenches and having the personal interaction
with the students allows SA professionals to help focus on what the students
really need outside of increased security, whether it means additional
counselors on campus, increase in student support groups, workshops on
communication or stress relief, or even tweaking student leadership programs to
promote mental health. We have the ability to get behind the lesser immediate
“fix-it-now” remedies and build long term programs and resources to prevent the
increasing numbers of campus tragedies.
Perhaps I’m being a little naïve and utopian about it. But
there’s always gotta be a over positive and idealistic voice, right? I know
first hand that we are all fighting to keep the few resources we already have
while budgets are getting smaller and smaller, but let’s be honest. Most of us
are not in it for the money nor the recognition. We’re here for the students.
And we’re all scrappy and innovative. So, why not give voice and help create
and/or coordinate already existing resources and programs, that will help
prevent these tragedies, or at least make more of an effort to do so.
Perhaps we can use these tragedies from the past few years
to launch a new initiative in higher education to help our students not only to
graduate, but to be healthy citizens wherever they are.
I close with offering up thoughts and prayer to those at the
Lone Star College effected by this shooting.
No comments:
Post a Comment