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| Topic from May 2008 |
| This month, the Advising Forum presents the twenty-third in a series of advising case studies. The first six case studies were published in the journal in May–October 2000, with two other six-part series published in 2002 and 2004. Case study #23—A surprise visit You're catching up on some paper work in your office when one of your advisees drops by with a quick question. As your conversation with him goes on, your advisee, whom you don't really know very well, starts acting irrationally. You begin to feel very uneasy as you suddenly realize that office hours are over and you're alone in the building. Your advisee is seated between you and the door. You try to calm him down, but he becomes more agitated. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a weapon. What would you do in this case, both in the short term and in the long term? |
| Readers' Responses |
I hate it when people respond to a hypothetical situation not by responding to it as written but by stating that it can't happen to them for some reason because they're too smart. So watch me do the same thing. I'd never be in this situation because I've had to deal with workplace violence before, so I've found training for myself, and I know what to do to prevent something like this from happening to me. Well, that frankly is a nightmare scenario there. If the argument was about something I had done and the weapon was meant to be used against me, I don't know that he or she would give me the time to make a 911 call. We have no “panic” buttons here under our desks. I could possibly throw something on my desk as a distraction in order to try to distract the student for a second. My office is rather small, so I wouldn't have far to lunge at the student. If I could get the weapon, I would certainly then make a 911 call. This is all based upon the presumption that the student is beyond talking to or reasoning with. A professor in my department in graduate school was shot and killed by a graduate student that had come to the professor's office upset over losing his spot in a doctoral program. So this is a scenario that seems very real to me, but one that I hope forever remains just a scary thought. This is always a real possibility. One I'm sure we all try to avoid (I try to never be the last one in my office still working, and if I am, I make sure the outside office door is locked!) ... but, I honestly don't know what is the best way to handle this situation. I'm not trained for this. If I could talk the student “down” to a rational level, that would be great, but I highly doubt I would be able to at that point. Calling security would also be smart, but I'm guessing that there would not be an opportunity. Other than pray, I have no idea what I would do!