Northeastern Voice

In Klein Lecture, Fox offers warning for campuses

Klein lecturer James Alan Fox and his wife Sue Ann pose with president Aoun. Also pictured are daughter Jennifer Stark and son Alex.

Now is not the time to panic.  It isn’t the time to make off-the-cuff decisions in panicky reaction to the perception that the United States falling victim to an escalation in campus violence so great that the nation’s young people are imperiled, is giving sway to “epidemic thinking” that could have far-reaching, detrimental effects.

“Epidemic thinking can tragically become a self-fulfilling prophesy by fueling a contagion effect,” said Lipman Professor of criminal James Alan Fox at this year’s annual Klein Memorial Lecture. “As tragic as the two campus shootings were this year, we are not in an epidemic.”

Rather than rush to impose restrictions on students through the use of metal detectors, surveillance, training drills, beefed-up security and student profiling research— all measures Fox describes as reactionary — a reasoned approach to student needs should be taken.

Enhanced student counseling services is one path that could lead to better overall student wellbeing, he suggested.

Noting that the International Association of Counseling Services, a nonprofit accrediting organization, advises that campuses maintain a student-counselor ratio of 1,500 to one, Fox recommended doing better than this. Universities should increase resources for troubled students. If this means paying higher salaries to counselors, and staffing a fuller team, it will be money well spent on a proactive measure.

“We need to be very sensitive to the needs of our students and the subtle issues and worrying signs that indicate trouble,” he said.

Another area that could be better leveraged is the way in which some faculty treat their students. Stresses abound in academia; faculty should remember that, he said. “All too often the faculty are not the most sensitive or responsive people when it comes to their students’ wellbeing,” Fox said. “Sometimes their minds are more in the lab than they are on the students.”

He added, “We must ensure the faculty members and the administration do not abuse their power over the lives and careers of students, and graduate students in particular, as well as colleagues. This extends to grading issues, disciplinary matters, advising roles, and mentoring and assessment of faculty.”

Nor should members of the mainstream press forget their responsibility for reasonable, objective reporting, and their role in whipping up media frenzy this year that was embarrassing in its scope, he said.

The world does not need minute-to-minute death toll figures and television reporting that borders on absurdity. He was sickened by CNN’s and MSNBC’s marathon coverage of the massacre in Blacksburg, Va., he said.

“As if the tragedy wasn’t horrific enough, the media coverage was shamelessly sensationalistic,” Fox said. “With nearly gleeful enthusiasm, the anchors of the various cable channels tracked the rising death toll at Virginia Tech.

“Within hours, as the death toll climbed higher and higher … and for the remainder of the day and evening, viewers were told repeatedly and ad nauseam that this had been the biggest, baddest, the bloodiest, the absolute worst, the most devastating.”

Tragic as recent campus shootings are, they are not indicative of an epidemic, he said.

— Susan Salk