Now That It’s Over…
Holy Cow!
As if the morning wasn’t rough enough, as soon as I got my computer on, I got an IM from the GA at the front desk that there were two cops in the facility.
And they were there to proctor an exam or something.
Or maybe protect a teacher or student.
That of course got an, “I’ll be right up,” from me.
Apparently a resident got booted from their program and made random threats, so the University Police were here to make sure that if said loser appeared, nothing untoward would happen.
Thing is, it sounds a lot worse than it felt. The officers were relaxed and didn’t think the individual would actually do anything, but all things considered, felt it better to take the threat seriously. So we had at least one cop here for the entire six hour exam.
One can only imagine how the other students taking the exam felt. (Luckily they were squirreled away in a classroom and the cop sat out front where he could see the front door of the facility, so they should have been able to focus once they got started.)
Or the professor who had been threatened.
On one level you can almost understand how someone could be upset about getting kicked out of their residency. But my understanding stops when someone threatens to come back with a gun, and instead makes me wonder what this creep had done to get booted out of the program, and to hope that this is the end of her career.
Because that’s just a crappy thing to do.
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March 30th, 2008 at 1:15 am
I’m probably a bit oversensitive to this issue because it hits close to home, but please consider the possibility that said professor is actually kind of a psycho bully type person, and that he or she is responsible for bullying said student into getting kicked out of the residency program, and that the “threats” that the student made, are completely made up.
Ridiculous, you say? Said professor is the picture of honesty, a charming and charismatic individual? Yeah, been there, done that (although it isn’t a professor that I’m dealing with).
People wish ill will to targets of this type of violence all the time. It’s really starting to bug me.
Disclaimer: it is entirely possible, in fact it’s even a bit probable, that this is all above the board and the student actually deserves it. Who knows?
March 30th, 2008 at 10:11 am
It doesn’t matter what a professor did or did not do, threatening to come back with a gun to harm a professor and the other students is beyond the pale.
From what the officers said, I got the impression that the threat was specifically related to that exam, as opposed to a general threat to the professor. Additionally, exams are rarely proctored by doctors or professors, and the woman who was proctoring was, I believe, an administrative assistant or office manager. (I could be wrong, I know most of the members of that department by sight, but by name or position.) So if the threat was against the professor alone, I do not believe security would have been placed on the students taking the exam.
But most importantly, raging and yelling and screaming are completely understandable. Threatening to kill or harm others is not.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Agreed. Provided, of course, that said threats were actually made, and not made UP. That’s all I’m saying.