Professors in the crosshair
Afew weeks ago, we were shocked to learn that a wellarmed former student with a grudge travelled thousands of miles to return to the University of California, Los Angeles campus to kill a former professor he once called a mentor. Another professor on his kill list was spared.
We tend to think that university campuses are among the safest places on Earth. But students are as competitive, and can be as violent, as anyone else. College may be the first time they are not only free to pursue their dreams, but also free to avenge a difficult assignment, or an average grade on an exam. Given that their pride, careers and lifelong well- being are seemingly at stake at university, students often feel as though drastic measures are warranted to ensure their success.
In more than 30 years of experience as a university professor, I have observed that threats and unsettling behaviour by students have not only increased in the last decade, they also seem to be more tolerated by the administration. The fact that universities are now opening their doors to anyone who wants a degree means that more and more students who may not be well- suited to a traditional academic environment are being welcomed.
Professors are commanded to quietly grant students the accommodations they ask for. As competition for Canadian post- secondary students has ramped up, institutions now view students as steady revenue- producing customers. Teachers are supposed to give them what they want and keep them happy. An- nual enrolment and retention targets are to be met. Discernment, rigour and discipline belong to another era.
Pos t - modernism a nd humanism have washed over our educational institutions, so that today, we cannot even agree on what inappropriate student behaviour is, much less who, if anyone, is responsible for it, and what we might do to curtail it. I offer just a few examples from my own recent experience of behaviour on by students that would not likely be considered acceptable off campus.
One student who suffered from a brain injury enrolled in a full- semester course that was stuffed into one week. This intensive, block- week course is a serious challenge for students not suffering from brain injuries. Yet he repeatedly assured me it was his right to be in that course, although he rarely attended class that week. And why should he? Using paid note- takers was but one of 11 accommodations made for him, most of which I was required to put in place.
When he did attend class, he doubled down and made non- stop demands that hindered my ability to teach the course. When in attendance, he dominated t he class. His frequent interventions were irreverent and irrelevant. He carried on as if he was the only student in the course. He goaded me about all his rights and harassed and threatened his way through the week. The learning experience of almost 60 other students in the course was degraded by this one student with rights.
On the last day, he dropped the course. I asked the administrator to channel these students away from the block- week course to the many 13- week versions of it. Yet he dismissed my concern, saying, “The human rights people would be all over that.” I could not convince him that no one, under the crown of rights and reasonable accommodation, is entitled to enrol in, and destroy for others, a weeklong course.
Another student told me he had not only suffered a brain injury, he also had a criminal record. On the final exam, he met a question he did not appreciate. As his answer, he wrote that it was “a dirty question” and that he was “furious.” In the end, he passed the course, but apparently did not receive the grade he thought he deserved. “I know this is a malicious attempt from you to try to fail me in your class. I am in Montreal right now unfortunately … next week I am coming to see you,” he wrote. Nothing came of it, but I was not certain my employer would have protected me if he had come after me.
That lack of confidence stems from an event a few years earlier, when a student came into my office at the start of a course and asked me to “just give ( her) an A in the course, like the other profs,” without having to do any work. I refused and soon found myself the target of her fury.
She did the work and passed with a good grade. But after the course was over, she embarked on a campaign of cruel cyber- harassment that my employer basically ignored. From a fake email account, she tormented me with anonymous, insulting and threatening emails. She called it “payback.” She did not deny the email harassment after I confronted her with it.
As far as I know, none of the university’s administrators were concerned enough to give her a call and have a chat. This experience sent the message to me that all the institutional nattering about safety and respect is about securing those things for students. Faculty members are on their own, if and when students want to rough them up. We just hope our names don’t make it onto a student’s kill list.
THREATS AND UNSETTLING BEHAVIOUR BY STUDENTS HAVE NOT ONLY INCREASED IN THE LAST DECADE, THEY ALSO SEEM TO BE MORE TOLERATED BY THE ADMINISTRATION.