“5 Dead, 10 Injured,” “Our School is Facing a Massive Tragedy,” “Community in Mourning.” Headlines like this pop up on student’s phones all the time. In fact, they seem nonstop these days. In an age where the news is always available and current events are at our very fingertips it can be overwhelming. Tragedy has a devastating impact on the people around it, but the effect tragedy has on people as it becomes an everyday occurrence like school shootings often seem be, it is hard to do anything but simply move on.
Students, professors, campus staff and the community all have their thoughts and feelings on the matter. Winona State University professor Craig Upright, who’s been teaching here since 2011, has borne witness to students’ changing attitudes towards mass shootings over the years.
“What I’ve noticed more is that, while they’re not shrugging it off, it’s not affecting them negatively emotionally in the way that it used to…It’s something that has been perceived as normal, and that’s what I find most distressing about this,” Upright said
Something that used to be unprecedented has become the norm for many people, especially students who have lived through seeing so many in the news.
Access to current events has increased over the years: more people are getting their news from non-traditional sources. Rather than waiting to see the news in the morning or hearing about it later in the paper, they’re seeing it happening right now. Hours or even minutes after something has happened it’s posted on the internet. Sometimes information is widely accessible while the incident is happening. This only makes it easier to detach ourselves from the reality of it.
“Mass shootings in the U.S. have become more common… This in turn has made horrible news easier to find, eat up, and toss away,” third year Winona State student Ellie Brezinka said.
Our devices package tragedy for users like snacks. People can scroll through a variety of mass tragedies in minutes. While many still have empathy for these situations and the losses that come from them, it’s easy to push it out of our minds when it happens as often as it does.
Fourth-year Winona State student, Zach Wiste, has found his own thoughts demonstrating the disconnect that can occur between people and mass tragedy. A small reaction is common among students when it comes to mass shootings due to the frequency of them.
“I cry when I hit a bunny on the street., Wiste said. “But the fact that I’m getting an email or a little banner on my phone that says there’s another mass shooting. It’s like, oh, that really sucks. And I don’t think it should be that way. I think that human life, especially a child’s life, should be held in higher regard than roadkill.”
In a way, this phenomenon can be compared to the way people tend to get more upset when a dog dies in a movie versus a person. On the opposite hand, mass shootings are like the people dying in the movies. It happens so often that it’s almost expected.
What’s unexpected, Upright shares, is that he “wasn’t expecting to give that talk on the 2nd day of the semester before I give an established report to class.” The recent Annunciation Church shooting in Minneapolis is one of many instances of gun violence to rock this country, and unfortunately it probably won’t be the last.
However, Winona State is taking actions to make campus safe. Christopher Cichoz, the head of campus safety, is ensuring that Winona State alert systems are tested often. Winona State is also often evaluating responses to incidents on and off campus.
“[We are] regularly testing their WSU Alert system and evaluating how we respond to critical incidents, with priority placed not only on the physical safety of our surroundings but how safe our community members feel at Winona State,” Chichoz said.
Winona State has a number of systems in place to deal with active threats or potential active threats including validating potential threats, notifying the local police department when necessary to ensure their response is sent to the appropriate location. On top of this, Winona State campus safety works to keep campus informed and safe via the alert system. Cichoz is adamant in the belief that campus safety is a shared priority. While communities can’t predict everything, they can prepare as best as they can.
As a part of preventative action many people, like Wiste, think that more time, energy and funds should be allocated to our mental health resources. “I also think that more than anything we’re really in a mental health epidemic, and more funding needs to be put into mental healthcare, because people are scared to get mental healthcare,” Wiste shared.
The well-being of the community also plays a big role in the well-being of the school environment. Which is why Winona State works with the community in many ways as a part of community buildig, but also as a part of campus safety. While banning firearms is often what groups of people jump to when they hear “gun control” this isn’t always what it means. “This [gun control] could mean the ban of military-level weapons being illegal to be sold to the common citizen.”
While no one can accurately predict what will happen in the future, it’s good to continue trying to bring about changes to the system and polices to create a community where everyone is safe and secure. Mass acts of violence have weaved their way into everyday lives so tightly, it seems easier to brush past them. This desensitization that students at Winona State, faculty, the Winona community and the country are feeling may be a larger reason to call for change.
