I originally posted this on West Mall, but after reflection, this is probably a better board for discussion.... I have a 19 year old stepson who is finally tired of working pissant jobs and has decided that he is serious about applying for college. We went on a campus visit as part of an introduction to campus day at Western Colorado State University After a while they split us up into parents and prospective students and I was in the parents' group. Now for those of you not familiar with the Mad Mountaineers this is a small public school, undergraduate only, of 2600 students located in a small town (Gunnison) maybe twice the size of the school. And one of the questions asked of the administrators/faculty representative/admissions director and dean of students was "If my son/daughter comes to school here, what processes are in place to prevent a Northern Illinois/Virginia Tech incident from happening here? What screening do you do of incoming students as far as background checks or psychological evaluation to prevent that from happening?" And it really got me to thinking. Now, I'm older than most of you, but back in the day, noone asked me when I was applying for college about my criminal history. And their response was "we have no way of checking juvenile records, and most of our incoming freshmen are 17". And, as we all know, your psychological background and medical history is protected by confidentiality laws so that it is really difficult for anyone to find out if you have a history of mental illness. And you are not likely to volunteer on a college application that you are a loner with a pathological addiction to violent video games and a sizeable gun/pipe bomb collection that you keep stashed from your parents and are just waiting for that first failing grade/relationship breakup/peer rejection/ self crisis so you can pick up some extra clips you ordered on the Internet and go take out several people in a classroom while you yield to your inner demons..... I remember going through my own self crisis at UT. I think it is very common for people in college to have that time of self crisis where things aren't clear, or you face failure or self doubt about what you are doing in school or who you are in life. So some questions. For those of you in school now or recently graduated, how would you have felt if, in applying for college and at regular intervals you were asked to submit to a background check and to divulge any psychological problems you have had, or are having? And for those of you with kids, (most of whom, from being on this board, are years away from facing this issue) about how you would feel about putting your kids into a situation like this? For you of tender years, please understand this. As parents we know that we can't protect our young adult offspring from the dangers and experiences of the world. We have spent most of our lives trying to protect and equip our kids with the resources to encounter and deal with the hazards of life, but there is a basic instinct to hope that something is in place to protect them when we are not there. You may see it as trying to continue to run your lives, but we see it as trying to save yours so that you can run the gamit and learn your own lessons safely. And two caveats: By all accounts, absolutely noone saw this coming from the shooter. Second, this conversation was taking place in Colorado. I'm sure that there were parents in the room for whom Columbine was something more than a distant news story. Thoughts?
if it was an individual school (or schools) that made the decision to screen for mental illness, i would not attend there, nor recommend my children attend there when that day comes. i may even take the issue further into protest/boycott/etc and i am not the type to do those types of things. if the government mandated this to all schools, i would definitely be on the front lines. one thing to note is that the prevalence of mental illness is about 20-30% of the population according to the surgeon general's website. The Link That's a lot of people to turn down an education, and a large population to deny civil liberties. Would these questions include people with a family history of mental illness, and thus "at increased risk?" If so I could see the number of positives nearing 100%... Another issue would be denying education to people that may change the course of history. "What starts here changes the world" right? This link compiled by NAMI is a small compilation of some of the authors, scientists, politicians, etc who have suffered from mental illness. Maybe too we should deny their contributions in the classroom? I can't imagine a physics class without Newton's discoveries... I don't want to discount the seriousness of these tragedies, but murders happen every day, and nowhere near all of them by people with mental illness. I have a hard time believing that a measure like this would prevent any violence.
To be clear, what I was talking about as far as submitting personal medical information on treatment for mental illness is NOT a policy at this school, or any other as far as I know. Given the prejudices in our society about admitting, let alone treating, any kind or degree of mental illness, any process that would require disclosure of that information and use it exclusively, or as a negative factor, in admissions would be counterproductive. I agree with your point on that. I'm not arguing policy, just principles. The mad dogs over on West Maul are tearing apart this post about the policy aspect. Beyond that, I question whether it would even be productive to do that. I agree that, at least in this case, this is a random incident with one individual who apparently went off their meds (and I would guess that the side effects of that would have been conducive to a meltdown). Overall, I don't think we really have the means, through our (or any other) mental health system to predict this, let alone prevent it. But I would love to hear from mental health professionals whether this is an illusion.
There are many people with mental illness, and few who actually act out something like what happened at Virginia Tech or Columbine or Northern Illinois. Realistically preventing something like that from happening is slim. Are you going to deny education to every person who has a mental condition? Armed guard in every single classroom? Metal detector on every door and window or every building in the U.S.? It ain't gonna happen. Every time there is an accident or incident, it is the school's fault, it is the road's fault, or it is the gun's fault, the car's fault. It's never the perpetrator's fault. I don't know if there are any solutions to crimes like this. Better treatment and monitoring for the mentally ill could help, maybe.
Carrying the thought a little further, who would move to a neighborhood or town that required background checks? At some point, life involves risks, including those stemming from interacting with the public. While shootings such as the NI one are tragic and make the news, remember that one is far more likely to die at the hands of a family member than in a random shooting.
