Local Opinion: It was a mistake for the UA to continue business as usual

In the wake of Professor Tom Meixner’s killing Oct. 5, University of Arizona President Robbins and his administration decided not to shut down normal operations, which would have let us as a community take a moment to step away from our routines and grieve together. Instead, staff, faculty and students have been notified that counseling services are available to us should we want them, to come and reflect on the loss of our colleague in a room in the student union, and/or to attend a candlelight vigil.

I did not know Professor Meixner. His killing has affected me in ways that I was not prepared for. I have been experiencing waves of grief, sadness, anger and anxiety. I cannot stop thinking about what happened. My sleep has been disturbed. I am craving unhealthy foods. And I am using alcohol to “take the edge off.”

I am the victim of a workplace murder. And so too are the tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff of the University of Arizona. All of us.

In his email to faculty, staff and students the day after Meixner was shot and killed, President Robbins observed that being on campus “was a surreal experience.” He went on to urge us to step back from our routines, to talk to each other about what happened, and to “access many available resources.” But he also made it very clear that Family Weekend would go on as planned.

Instead of ceasing all normal operations and bringing us together as a community in response to this act of violence, President Robbins and his administration have given us a menu of choices. It is up to us as individuals to choose what is right for us and to presumably take responsibility for those choices. But then what about community? What kind of community are we when our leaders encourage us to deal with our trauma as individuals?

“Surreal” is not how it felt to be back at work Thursday. It did not feel like I was in a strange dream. It felt wrong to be at work. It felt wrong to be going about my day and carrying on as if everything was normal. It’s not normal for a student to kill their professor. It’s not normal to be worried about being killed at work. It’s not normal to think that one of my students may decide one day to come into my office and kill me or one of my colleagues.

I cannot help feeling that by allowing business to go on as usual, the leadership of my university is asking me to accept this killing as normal. The message seems to be that, while tragic, these events will happen. And we, the administration, will provide resources for dealing with the psychic damage that they may cause. But the show must go on. It’s all just part of life in the 21st century where instead of flying cars we have the normalization of workplace murders and mass killings.

Sadly, decisions made by President Robbins and his leadership team have contributed to normalizing this act of violence that was perpetrated against Meixner, ending his life and traumatizing our community. Instead of suspending operations and bringing us together as one community, they have chosen to individualize the effects of this act of violence and to encourage each of us to do our own thing. This only reinforces the sense that we are not, in fact, a community, but that we are first and foremost all individuals. This weakens our ability to understand how this workplace murder has affected us collectively and how we might, together, work to prevent this from ever happening again.