Guns, Pancakes, and Ambiguity

A professor has second thoughts about writing a recommendation for a student gun enthusiast

By Myrtle Lynn Payne APRIL 18, 2016

"Sarah" was a very nice young woman who turned up in one of my classes a year or so ago. Her academic abilities were not strong but she had great energy and was a class leader. Definitely a process, and not a content, type of gal. I did take special notice of her on the first day during a sharing activity we typically do at the beginning of my science lecture courses. Sarah shared that the most notable experience of her winter break was a visit to a gun range where she had fired an AK-47. I gave the usual "very good, moving on" response but was thinking, "Whoa, that’s disturbing."

Later, when Sarah was a student in another one of my courses, I overheard her confiding that she was looking forward to getting her concealed-carry permit. (Disclosure: I don’t teach in Texas.) I hadn’t known we had such permits in our state but apparently we do. Or did. Students could legally come to the campus armed until recently, when our legislature banned weapons from all state university campuses.

Last year at some point, Sarah said she was applying to a teacher-credential program and asked me for a recommendation. Initially I said yes because I usually do. I don’t know the exact date she asked, but I am thinking it must have been before the Umpqua Community College shooting last October because that’s when I really started thinking about students and guns. After Umpqua, colleagues and others specifically asked me if I felt safe on the campus and I had to think about that question. Our college’s "shelter-in-place" drills — in which whole buildings practice for an active-shooter situation — have not made me feel safe. I also did not feel safe during a visit to the campus police station where I was offered a free gun-safety lock.

How can I say that I don’t want to support students who are gun enthusiasts, without getting put on some sort of list? You know — Santa Shoot 2.0. I mean, she’s applying to a teacher-credential program, for God’s sake. I wish the way forward was more black and white to me — that I knew what to do in this situation. But I don’t.

Myrtle Lynn Payne is the pseudonym of an instructor in the sciences at a college in the western United States.

http://chronicle.com/article/Guns-PancakesAmbiguity/236154