"Things Can Happen"

(an important thing to do so they don't)

The first I heard about the mass shooting at Brown University on Saturday afternoon was from a Signal chat I’m often in, a group of AAUP leaders from around North Carolina. In addition to grading and advising and writing recommendations and participating in graduation ceremonies, these faculty have occupied themselves with trying to save our American university system. I almost rewrote that, because it sounds aggrandizing and hyperbolic—save our university system—but it’s true. This system, which is for many children the ultimate goal of school (go to X college to study Y) and for many communities and individuals the source of jobs, healthcare, culture, and purpose, is and has been under unrelenting attack since Trump was elected.

To be clear, we have no idea at this point what motivated the shooting, or even who did it or where this person is. But all the Brown University students, and many residents of Providence, were in lockdown for hours. Some of them are second-time survivors of a school shooting. Probably some of you reading this have been in a lockdown before, or have felt that familiar stab of dread dropping off your child for school, or have lunged at the radio dial to turn off the news of yet another shooting so that your child does not have to go to school afraid.

That we have a leader who says “things can happen” in response to yet another shooting is unacceptable yet predictable. He also said “things happen” about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi while hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who according to U.S. intelligence ordered that killing. Things happen, things can happen: that is the collective shrug we are meant to pay to violence.

But Trump also said this:

“So to the nine injured, get well fast. And to the families of those two that are no longer with us, I pay my deepest regards and respects from the United States of America. Thank you very much. It’s a very important thing to say. And we mean it.”

I reread this statement in disbelief, because it sounds so confusingly like what a president might say after soldiers are killed in a war, to their gold star families. Thank you for your service. Thank you for making the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Is this what we are meant to think now, that to enter public life as a student or teacher is to be like a soldier? Someone knowingly and bravely risking their life because we cannot protect them?

I reject this idea, and so do my AAUP colleagues. We believe that universities, public and private, can be open and welcoming and productive parts of the community. We also believe that it is our responsibility, and our university leaders’ responsibility, to do all that we can to make these spaces safe for the work of teaching and learning.

There is something you can do right now if you are a resident of North Carolina or an alumni or friend of our public universities. Tell Peter Hans, the president of this system, that you believe that our syllabi—and therefore our work and our whereabouts—should not be made public and searchable by anyone out there with a bone to pick or a gun to fire.

The petition is called “Protect Academic Freedom, Our Faculty, Our Communities” and so far it has 2,600 signatures and many concerned and outraged comments. You can sign it as an alumni of the system or as a community member who cares deeply about our universities, their students and teachers, and the crucial work we do.

Between graduation ceremonies, some colleagues and I took this petition to President Hans’s office on Friday. He was not in the office, but has offered to meet with us soon. I would like to have your voice, and your friends’ voices, as part of the chorus that says we cannot afford to subject our students and our universities to further risk and harm.

Please share this post, share the petition. Social media works well but we’ve found that direct addresses—a text to a friend or better yet a friend/family group—works best to get people talking about what we can do as a community. Thank you!

Lots of love from us, Frog Troublers. We’re in Walkerton with Mamie, who is recovering well from shoulder surgery. We made these cookies yesterday after trying them at a friend’s party, and they were delicious. I also remembered another great book on my gifting list (for a couple of uncles); it’s by a colleague and is a terrific little guide for people in our neck of the woods.

How are you holding up? Did you sign the petition?