Violence Prevention & Crisis/Emergency Information for Faculty

 

Violence Prevention & Responding to Disruptive Behavior

JUMP TO -> :: Classroom Environment :: Troubled or Disruptive Students : Written Content of Concern ::

CMU’s Human Resources office offers a variety of workshops that could be useful to faculty in working to prevent violent disturbances.   Register for on-line training on violence prevention at http://www.hrs.cmich.edu/train/online.html or call 989-774-6447.  You can also attend a scheduled HR workshop or arrange for a workshop to be presented to your workgroup or department.  View the variety of HR workshops that are available, such as Difficult Conversations, Violence Prevention, or Words Can Heal, at http://www.hrs.cmich.edu/train/courseofferings.htm.

Creating a positive, accepting, and respectful classroom environment and establishing expectations for classroom conduct

There are a variety of strategies faculty members can use to create a positive classroom environment that models acceptance and respectful communication.  Here are a few suggestions for working toward this goal.

  1. On the first day of class, emphasize to your students that your class will be one where people can expect to be respected and valued.
  2. Demonstrate to your students that you have respect for them by showing up on time, showing appreciation when they contribute to class discussions, and having a quick turnaround for grades.
  3. Demonstrate to your students that you value each and every one of them by working hard to learn their names.  You can do this by creating a seating chart, having students fill out cards telling you about themselves, or making notes to yourself about their appearance.
  4. Work with students to create a list of classroom expectations.  Some good expectations to list for students are being to class on time and staying until the end, entering and leaving quietly if they cannot be there the whole time, turning cell phones to vibrate, respecting each others’ comments, and not talking during lectures.  Allow students to suggest adaptations of the rules and to make suggestions for expectations they have of you.  Make copies of this list and distribute it to your students.  Include it in subsequent semesters and work with those students to adapt it.

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Troubled or Disruptive Students:  Know what to watch for and how to respond

Behaviors of Concern

Faculty interact with students on a daily basis and may notice behaviors that cause them to be concerned about a student’s well being and/or the safety of the student or others. Behaviors of concern include: 

  1. Displaying emotions that are inappropriate for the situation or are more exaggerated or erratic than normal (e.g., extremely withdrawn or animated).
  2. Displaying emotions that are aggressive (e.g., resentful, irritable, abrasive, aggressive, hostile, frustrated).
  3. Displaying emotions that are sad/depressed (e.g., tearful, hypersensitive, full of despair, worthless).
  4. Acting in ways that are aggressive (e.g., threatening others, discussing previous violent actions, develops antagonist relationships).
  5. Acting in ways that suggest a student may be sad, depressed or possibly suicidal (e.g., excessive change in weight, withdrawn or reclusive, giving away prized possessions, difficulty sleeping, listless, no energy).
  6. Acting in ways that suggest a student may not be able to take care of oneself (e.g., decline in personal hygiene, inability to make decisions despite receiving help, disjointed thoughts and impaired speech, losing touch with reality, seeing/hearing things that aren’t there).
  7. Significant change in or poor school performance (e.g., used to get As and Bs and now receiving Ds and Es, overly dependent on you, infrequent attendance, procrastination, turning in poor or no work at all, making repeated requests for special considerations like extended deadlines, have difficulty concentrating, display behaviors that interfere with class)
  8. Communicating messages to you that indicate problems (e.g., some type of obsession with death, weapons, or even a romantic or religious obsession; thoughts of suicide, or discussing “going away” or discovering a way to “solve all their problems;” being under an unusual amount of stress)

How to Respond

The first step in dealing with a student who displays these behaviors may be to have a conversation with him or her if you feel comfortable doing so.  This can be daunting, and consequently, if you feel it is appropriate to have this conversation, consider the following suggestions before initiating it. When in doubt about how to proceed, consult with others (e.g., colleagues, department chairperson, Counseling Center counselors, etc.  For example, see http://www.cmich.edu/dean-of-students/concerns.htm for a summary of campus resources for consultation and assistance in these and related situations.)

  1. First and foremost if you are concerned about your immediate safety call 911.  If you are more generally concerned about your own safety, make sure others know about your meeting, keep the door to your office open, and make sure there is a colleague nearby to assist if there is a problem. CMU Police are available to be present and inconspicuous if need be when you meet with a student and you are concerned about your safety. 
  2. Avoid aggressive or dominating body language and keep your voice slow and calm to try and keep the student relaxed.
  3. State specifically what behaviors you have observed and why you are concerned about the student.
  4. Outline your goals and (if appropriate) ask the student to outline his/her goals for the meeting.
  5. Work to understand what is causing distress for the student.  Acknowledge his/her feelings and let the student know you want to help him/her resolve the problem.  Be non-judgmental and caring.  Listen carefully.  Paraphrase what the student is telling you so you can be sure you understand the situation.
  6. Talk about the situation as a problem that you will work together to solve, suggesting assignment and/or class options that will help the student, and encouraging the student to seek support and assistance from family, friends and others as appropriate, and perhaps to contact the Counseling Center (be sure to give the student the information to do so).
  7. Help set up initial meetings for the student with the Counseling Center, University Health Services, Academic Advising and Assistance, Career Services, Writing Center, Mathematics Assistance Center, or other appropriate campus resources.
  8. Note that appropriately seeking help is a sign of strength and not weakness.  We all need help on occasion. 

After discussing the problem with the student, you might need to pursue further action if the behaviors of concern persist.  Again, http://www.cmich.edu/dean-of-students/concerns.htm provides a summary of campus resources and advice.  The following suggestions are made as options that could help if the initial conversation is proven to be ineffective.

  1. If the situation seems more imminently problematic (i.e., you are concerned about the student’s or your own immediate safety), contact CMU police by calling 911.
  2. Involve a colleague or your department chair to get a new perspective on the situation.
  3. Refer the student to the Counseling Center.  Consult the following document for information regarding that process: Making a Referral to the Counseling Center (http://www.counsel.cmich.edu/helpingothers/Making%20a%20referral%20to%20the%20Counseing%20Center.readonly.doc).  Call the Counseling Center to discuss with a counselor options about how to talk with the student during that conversation.
  4. Contact the Office of Student Life for advice and consultation.

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Written Content of Concern

As we were reminded after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, student writing may indicate a student is having significant life difficulties.  When reading student papers you may read content that causes you to be concerned and wonder if a student is troubled and/or at risk of acting violently toward self or others.  The following excerpt was distributed by the English department at Virginia Tech University as part of a document called “Responding to Disturbing Creative Writing:  A Guide for Faculty and GTAs.”  The excerpt outlines themes in or characteristics of student writing that might indicate a student has significant life difficulties and raise concerns that they may be at risk of acting violently.

The following questions may help you evaluate whether a student’s disturbing writing reflects creative exploration or something more idiosyncratic.Is the creative work excessively violent? Do characters respond to everyday events with a level or kind of violence one does not expect, or may even find frightening? If so, does the violence seem more expressive of rage and anger than it does of a literary aesthetic or a thematic purpose?Are the characters’ thoughts as well as actions violent or threatening? Do characters think about or question their violent actions? If one set of characters demonstrate no self-awareness or moral consciousness, are other characters aware of or disturbed by what has taken place? In other words, does the text reveal the presence of a literary sensibility mediating and making judgments about the characters’ thoughts and actions, or does it suggest unmediated venting of rage and anger? If the literary sensibility is missing, is the student receptive to adding that layer and to learning how to do so?Is this the student’s first piece of violent writing? If yes, what is the nature of his or her other work? Is violence at the center of everything the student has written, or does other writing suggest that violence is something the student is experimenting with for literary effect? Are the violent actions in the work so disturbing or so extreme as to suggest they go beyond any possible sense of purpose in relation to the larger narrative? Do they seem to be the point of the piece, or a component? Does the nature of the violence—or the nature of the writing overall—suggest extreme depression or suicidal inclinations?Is the writing full of expressions of hostility toward other racial or ethnic groups? Is the writing threateningly misogynistic, homophobic, racist, or in any way expressive of a mindset that may pose a threat to other students?

Source: Virginia Tech Department of English, 2007.

How to Respond

You may want to discuss the disturbing content with the student.  If you choose this option, it is important to realize that, oftentimes, violent or disturbing student writing is no more than a literary tool and is not indicative of a deeper problem.  However, it is better to address the issue and be wrong than not address it at all. If you are uncertain what to do or whether or not you should talk with the student, consult with a colleague, your department chair or one of the offices noted in the document: Concerns with Students’ Health, Safety and Behavior:  Procedures to Follow (http://www.cmich.edu/dean-of-students/concerns.htm ).  The following excerpt is, again, from Virginia Tech’s “Responding to Disturbing Creative Writing:  A Guide for Faculty and GTAs.”  The excerpt outlines suggestions for how to handle your discussion with the student.

 

Try to make this discussion as informal as possible.  You’re after honest and direct give-and-take. It may be best to do this before or after class, or in a common area, rather than having the student come by your office. If the student seems at all threatening, do not meet the student alone. 

It may be a good idea to let the student talk as much as he or she wants. You’re after a fuller sense of the person behind the writing. Try to keep an open mind. Listen carefully to the student. 

Try to open up the conversation in a way that makes the writer comfortable. One way to increase comfort is to focus on the text itself, not on the student writer. You might consider asking about the inspiration for the piece. Was it inspired by an image or idea, some event in the news or some bit of history, or was it inspired by another piece of writing? Allow the student to contextualize what he or she has written. Most writers will be able to give you some sense of how their writing began and evolved. Ask the student to discuss the motivation of the characters, and their sense of how different imagery or actions will function in relation to the overall effect of the work. Try to touch on any published works the student feels are relevant. If students have read authors such as Stephen King or Anne Rice or Chuck Palahniuk, these influences may give insight into the disturbing material in the writing. 

At this point, it may be appropriate to offer your best counsel to the student and to provide as much support as possible in helping the student deal with any issues you perceive as a result of your meeting.

Source: Virginia Tech Department of English, 2007.

If you talk to a student and determine that there is not a reason for concern, just explain to the student that you understand now that there is not a problem.  Explain that writing can be reflective of the writer’s emotional state and that you hope they understand why you must address any writing that has disturbing or violent content.  If, after your conversation, you still feel uncomfortable and fear there is a problem, you may want to consider the following options as a next step.

  1. If the situation seems more imminently problematic (i.e., you are concerned about the student’s or your own immediate safety), contact CMU police by calling 911.
  2. Involve a colleague or your department chair to get a new perspective on the situation.
  3. Refer the student to the Counseling Center.  Consult the following document for information regarding that process: Making a Referral to the Counseling Center (http://www.counsel.cmich.edu/helpingothers/Making%20a%20referral%20to%20the%20Counseing%20Center.readonly.doc).  Contact the center yourself to ask what would be the best way to talk with the student during that conversation.
  4. Contact the Office of Student Life for advice and consultation.

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