For many faculty members, another academic year has ended. Grades have been posted. Some of your favorite students have graduated and moved on. Some professors will continue to teach a summer course or two. Others will sponsor or attend workshops or conferences as they engage in new, exciting research or further immerse themselves in topics that they have already developed a passion for.
Some professors will take it easy by visiting or writing letters to family or friends or catching up on some long-awaited activities such as fishing, leisure reading, taking vacations, etc. Indeed, it will be a time of either hedonistic relaxation, intense overdrive or a combination of both for many of us. It is safe to say that most academics will have a temporary reprieve from an issue that has periodically resurfaced on many campuses — trigger warnings.
Unless you have been comatose or have been living in a cave in the outermost reaches of the hinterlands, you have certainly been introduced to this issue, particularly if you are an academic. It has become one of the latest buzzwords in academia and in many institutions outside of the ivory tower. Academic blogs, both print and electronic media, a few politicians and others have wandered into the debate. As is the case with most controversial issues, discussions on the issue have been emotional, intense and in many cases, polarizing.
There are those who are steadfast in support of such provisions being a part of the academy and others who are deeply opposed to such an implementation. Supporters of the policy argue that it provides certain students who are not as emotionally impervious as their peers the opportunity to be forewarned of material that they may find psychologically unsettling. Detractors see such an issue as a real potential danger to free speech and a severe encroachment upon academic freedom.
Read the following:
I have made the following statements in the various courses that I teach. They are historically accurate. There is no doubt that some students have been made to feel uncomfortable or disoriented by such unpleasant truths. Trigger warnings would require me to succumb to the injured feelings of upset students.
What we are witnessing is a generation of college kids, millennials (not all by any means), who have grown up in an environment where many things are “handled” for them. All the answers have been provided for them. Many are under the assumption that they are entitled to choose from a smorgasbord of options. Many of them have been indoctrinated with an “everyone wins” attitude. In their largely scripted, insular worlds, professors are supposed to solely relegate their pedagogy to giving lectures. On the contrary, debating, discussing, engaging in critical thinking, reading complex or controversial material and writing essays is “too hard” or unacceptable. The level of emotional fragility among some young people is troubling.
