How Times Have Changed

When I was an undergrad and you saw a bunch of firetrucks in front of a campus building, you automatically assumed that some idiot pulled the alarm. Things are alot different now ... and a bunch of flashing lights in front of a campus building makes your heart race.

I was walking to class this morning and there were 6 or so firetrucks, and about 3 squad cars in front of one of the lecture halls.

In addition to campus shootings (most recently at NIU a school very close to ours) there have been a rash of threats directed towards local schools lately. Shortly after the NIU incident, a student at my school (UIC) was arrested for an anonymous e-mail threatening violence on campus. Recent threats have led to the temporary closing of St. Xavier and Malcolm X College in addition to some local High School and elementary schools. And, as if they havent already suffered enough, NIU had a bomb threat yesterday.

There is a sense of fear and panic on many school campuses today that did not exist years ago, and that must be changing the entire educational experience/process. When I was in grade school, High School or college I never had to think about campus violence. Now as I teach college age students, that fear is in both the faculty and our students. Just the other day, a student advised me on his way out of class that he thought a backback had been left in the back of our lecture hall. My first thought was "what if its a bomb?". How crazy is that? (At the end of class when I went to look, the bag was not there)

The Flying Pig
The other day I was talking about the idea that "nothing is impossible". There are still things that I think are highly unlikely. But, ask me 10 years ago (before Columbine) about school shootings and I would have a totally different response. Things you would say are not likely (or are "never gonna happen") sometimes do happen. I mentioned the liklihood of a cougar in my neighborhood was pretty much zero - until a few days ago. Now, right afer the cougar showed up I started thinking about how things we think wont happen actually do. And even with this genius insight I would have told you that an earthquake would not happen around here. And once again I would have been wrong. But this would have been due to my ignorance and not the unliklihood of the actual event. A bit of searching told me that earthquakes actually occur in Illinois once a year! Now who would have thought???