Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching

Tragedy in the College Classroom: For Faculty

During the course of a career, college instructors may experience the death of one of their students or another tragedy that affects the community of the classroom, such as the serious illness of a student or loss of a faculty member in the department. Or there may be a time when the teacher is personally experiencing a death of a loved one.

There are some resources specifically for the college instructor, but also many ideas from reading about the relatively well-established principles for public school teachers, particularly for those teaching adolescents. Many of our students are not so far from that time. Following are some links to help in times of tragedy. We welcome additions to our list. We are also collecting faculty approaches which you'll find collected at the end of this page.

Please refer your students to this page (http://www.wku.edu/teaching/booklets/tragedystudents.htm).

Or share this handout on Campus Grief, prepared by our Counseling Center staff.

From a university student perspective:

WKU Counseling and Testing Center. http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/StuAffairs/COUNS/index.htm Has links for identifying signs of suicide and coping in times of war. They include a section for Faculty Staff on how to make referrals of students to their services. The Center staff are always willing to provide consultation. If a faculty/staff member wants to talk about what to do concerning a tragedy, how to do it, or to discuss a student whom they are concerned about, call the Center at 53159.

American Psychological Association.

Dartmouth. (1/29/07). Response to Trauma.
Available: http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Echd/resources/tragedy/index.html. A brief set of suggestions.

Warren, L. Harvard University. Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom. http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html

Kansas State University. Learning to Live Through Loss. http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/famlf2/NCR537B.pdf

Professional and Organizational Development in Higher Education http://www.podnetwork.org/resources/crises.htm

University of Chicago. (2003). Student Counseling Virtual Pamphlet Collection. Available: http://counseling.uchicago.edu/vpc/virtulets.html Offers a wide variety of topics including "Grief," "Traumatic events" and a good selection of links for "Concerned Others" where you'll find advice for faculty/staff in dealing with individuals in distress.

For example, San Diego State University. (no date). A Faculty/Staff Guide: Working with the Emotionally Distressed Student. Available: http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/cps/

University of Washington. Guide to Discussing a Crisis. http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/resources/guide.html

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. (no date).

 

From the public school orientation:

National Association of School Psychologists. (1999). Death: Dealing with Crisis at School. Practical Suggestions for Educators. Available: http://www.nasponline.org/NEAT/neat_poland.html Also includes comments on suicide.

National Association of School Psychologists. (2003). Has a variety of resources at http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/index.aspx, such as:

The Compassionate Friends Atlanta Georgia Area Chapters. (2003). Death in the Classroom Part I and II. Available: http://www.tcfatlanta.org/GriefintheClassroom.html Reprinted from Bereavement Magazine, November/December 2003 and Sept/October 2003. Advice for a teacher who is grieving a personal loss.

WKU Faculty Reports

From Heather DeHart Johnson, Biology, instructor, February 2004. In response to the deaths of a student in a traffic accident:

I'm not sure if you could say that I really worked with the class in the grieving process. I didn't open up a forum for discussion on the subject about how they were feeling, but here's what I did do: On Mon. I told that class that they had probably heard about the accident over the weekend, and if they hadn't that there was a car accident involving several WKU students, three of whom lost their lives and one of whom was in this class. I told them that the name of the girl in our class was Susan [Not her real name] and that some of them may have known her, others may not have. I said something like, "What a difficult thing it is to come into class that day knowing that someone is missing. It is such a tragedy to lose especially young people like that. You may have known the other girls involved as well and may be attended funerals and visitations over the next few days, and if so just let me know and we'll work out any class business." I reminded them that I coordinate the labs as well and that we would work out absences for the labs. I told them that we would take a moment and then go on with the class topic for the day as best we could. I paused for a moment, as long as I could stand it without opening weeping and went on with the topic of metabolism. It was almost a relief to focus on something else.

I alerted the Graduate Teaching Assistants as well and forwarded the messages from [university officials (Provost's Office, Dean of Student Life, faculty development office)]. I told them to feel free to come talk to me, especially if they had any of the girls in their labs. The GTA who had Susan in her lab came to me and we talked about how to handle the more intimate setting of a lab class. The GTA was clearly upset, vividly remembering Susan being in her class. Each week, students are graded on their virtual lab homework or their in-class labwork. Angela, the GTA, and I agreed to count the homework that week and allow the students to do the lab or take the time to themselves to remember Susan. I told Angela to deal with it in the classroom to the extent to which she felt comfortable. I also told her that I was available to take over or assist in any way.

I'm not sure if I did the right thing in either case, but it was what felt right at the time. I think the hardest part of losing someone is the fact that life does go on for everyone else. On one level it seemed absurd to carry on when something so tragic had happened, but on another level there are students who are still here and need to learn.

From Paula Quinn, Journalism and Broadcasting, February 2004. In response to the deaths of 3 students in a traffic accident:

I just started teaching a new three-week basic reporting class tonight. The assignment for Friday evening is to cover the memorial service. None of the students knew any of the young women, but, of course, we're all deeply affected.

We've already talked about the need to be respectful and unobtrusive as reporters duriing the service, and the proper way to approach people for interviews afterward.

After the service, we'll meet to discuss the event and how they're feeling as fledgling reporters, and talk about ways in which the stories might be developed.

I've prepared a discussion of the ethics of covering funerals for class Thursday, and a photojournalist who covered [the] funeral [of another student] will be with us to enhance the discussion.

I also called Jim Malone, Courier-Journal Paducah bureau chief, who has covered many, many tragedies. He provided thoughtful, intelligent advice for the students, which I've posted tonight on our Blackboard site.

Jim said he can think of no better assignment for beginning reporters, because death is so much a part of life--and of journalism.

Follow up Note from Paula Quinn:

Thank you again for your interest in the assignment that I gave my Journalism 202 class (Basic News Writing and Reporting). As a reminder, the assignment was given on the first night of a class that meets consecutively for 15 evenings, Monday through Friday. The coverage occurred Friday evening of the first week.

Covering the memorial service was quite a difficult experience for each of the 15 students, but I believe that the assignment has strengthened them as human beings and as reporters in many ways, and that their stories will be very well written. The three young women who had died the previous Saturday in a car accident were all members of the same sorority. Some of my students knew them through their own sorority and fraternity activities.

Several of the students told me that after the service, they found people who were quite willing to talk to them. Those who were not yet ready to speak to a reporter made appointments with my students for later in the weekend.

We met as a class at Cherry Hall after the service with three excellent additional sources whom I knew or had just met at the sad event:

Dr. L., assistant director of the Counseling Center who's been doing grief therapy on campus; a young woman who had been best friends with one of the victims since the seventh grade; and a Photo Journalism major, C., whose father died of an AKA-47 wound in a shooting 14 years ago in which seven others were also killed.

After a period of silence, my students found the courage to begin the interviews. Based on their questions, this is what they learned from these invaluable sources:

The counselor gave the students important information on the grieving process, including that it was appropriate for people to laugh as well as to cry, and to keep the victims' rooms exactly as they had been until family members were through grieving, even though this might take months or even years to complete.

The young woman who had lost her best friend described how she learned of the death through a cell phone call, and how her father had driven to pick her up and take her the rest of the way to campus. She also shared fond memories of the long-term friendship, and described the last time she had seen her friend, just a few days before the friend's death.

C. told the students how he had begun HATING photojournalists and reporters at 14 when his father was killed because of the incessant, intrusive coverage.

Later, he said, he finally realized that he must understand the work and responsibilities of journalism to the public. The students gasped when C. told them he's now in his senior year at Western as a photojournalism major.

He described his initial experience with the press those 14 years ago, his healing process, and the difficulty of the memorial service assignment, which he'd been given by editors at our college paper. He well knows what it's like to experience a tragedy, but it was the first time he'd had to cover one.

(As a side note, out of the continued coverage of the shootings in which the student's father died, came the public's knowledge and understanding of severe depression, Prozac, and the availability of AK-47s.)

We were in Cherry Hall for nearly two hours, until after 9 p.m., but it was an excellent discussion and I know it helped to ease the emotions of my beginning journalists and photojournalists, gave them greater insight into sources and reporting, and also taught them the many, many other avenues of news coverage and how to handle them.

We were very fortunate that our three guests were willing to share of their time, experiences and insights.

WKU Department Head Advice

Rich Weigel, History Department Head, in response to the death of a faculy member.

This is a shock to the department. My suggestions, after arranging for covering his classes (where I found faculty incredibly willing to help out) are for the department to be involved in some memorial service and to collectively decide on some fund in the faculty member's memory where donations can be made from students and faculty. These can be toward a scholarship or student award connected with the faculty member's field of expertise.

Other Resources

Carolyn DiPalma (2003). Teaching Women's Studies, E-Mailing Cancer. In Freedman, D. & Holmes, M., Eds. The Teacher's Body: Embodiment, Authority, and Identity in the Academy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Chapter describing how a teacher diagnosed with cancer responded and effect on her students.