Colleges Should Have Safe Spaces For Students

762 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Safe spaces on college campuses essays

When a person attends college, their life is flooded with new experiences, cultures, and an integrated society of races. Unfortunately, no one can prepare a person for everything that they'll encounter. There are various political and moral views shared on college campuses. Often, at first, it is hard to find a place to speak freely without judgement. Safe spaces are very important places on college campuses. They give a comforting place for students, to feel safe and communicate their emotions and statements on matters. Trigger warnings are greatly needed in college classrooms. They're useful for students with trauma, or students who may feel overly sensitive to certain topics. Currently many colleges are getting caught up in the politics of whether they should have safe spaces and allow trigger warnings. Furthermore, the ignorance to what safe spaces and trigger warnings are end up having negative effects on the students and campus life. Colleges should not coddle students and encourage for students to stay comfortable in their safe bubbles around campus. Colleges should instead aid them when needed, and support them. …show more content…

The downside to this is that, too many students then feel like their opinion is right over someone else's. In the article, "Safe Spaces on College Campuses Are Creating an Intolerant Students", written in Huffington Post, Van Jones's spoke to Wessely College's students and said, "… put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity.". Jones’ words may seem harsh, but he makes a valid point. The idea of safe spaces isn’t meant to close the student's mind's off, but to offer them a meeting place to let them talk freely. Colleges, nor the students shouldn’t shield each other. Controversy is everywhere and the students on campus will never learn how to face adversity or problems if they are

Show More
Related

  • Kate Manne, Why I Use Trigger Warnings?

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    A trigger warning is most commonly found on internet articles, and blogs. It serves the purpose of warning the reader of any potentially triggering material that they may find offensive or may be sensitive toward due to post traumatic experiences in their life. They are essentially created to prevent readers from accidently encountering the material without some sort of warning. An example of this would be, an article that discusses the topic of self harm can cause unwanted flashbacks in a person that has personally experienced this themselves and would not like to be reminded of it, or an image included in an article that reminds a war veteran of the things that they saw while on deployment.

    Read More

  • Greg Lukianoff And Jonathan Haidt's The Coddling Of The American Mind

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind” the authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt express that college campuses in America are dealing with emotional discomfort every day. They point out whether we are too emotional on certain topics in our lives or we need to change something on college campuses to have students feel more comfortable. College student have experienced a lot in life so I think that campuses should help college students through traumatic experiences in their past instead of not acknowledging certain topics and banning them to discuss in class like rape and domestic violence which happens in our everyday life. Colleges need to step up and talk about these things so students can feel more comfortable.

    Read More

  • Trigger Warnings Analysis

    687 Words  | 2 Pages

    College is full of new experiences, new people, and new communities, and many universities encourage the exchange of new ideas and diversity among students. This year, the University of Chicago sent out a letter to all of its incoming freshmen informing them that in keeping with their beliefs of freedom of expression and healthy discussion and debate, the school would not provide “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings”. Senior Sophie Downes found this letter to be misleading in many ways, including in the definitions of safe spaces and trigger warnings, as well as the issues it was addressing. Downes claims that the letter was misrepresenting the school, but also was using the letter as a sort

    Read More

  • On Trigger Warnings In The Coddling Of The American Mind

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    Teachers become afraid to challenges students values and beliefs, also creating a repressive area for debates. The article “On Trigger Warnings” by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) states that “the presumption that need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual”. Demanding trigger warnings make comfort more of a priority than learning. Faculty may feel like they need to warn students about the course material because some students might find it disconcerting, but the voluntary use of trigger warnings on syllabus could be counterproductive. Just because some material may cause one person to have trauma does not mean everyone will and by putting a trigger warning on the syllabus might cause others to expect something upsetting. This could cause students to not read assignments or it might provoke a response from students they otherwise would not have had. Trigger warnings also signal an expected response and discourage the reading experience and even eliminate spontaneity. Trigger warnings make students into victims and makes both teachers and students fearful to ask questions because it might make someone uncomfortable. The goal is to educate and challenge students, make students question things and debate on things that they normally do not think about. AAUP also says that “the call for trigger warnings comes

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Shulevitz In College And Hiding From Scary Ideas

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Roxane Gay 's op-ed, "The Seduction of Safety, on Campus and Beyond", she states, "Rather than use trigger warnings, I try to provide students with the context they will need to engage productively in complicated discussions", and this is exactly what I am talking about. People who understand that freedom of speech does not have to be taken away in order to stop "triggering" people. Communication is key and freedom of speech is our given right that allows us to communicate our thoughts and feelings. When I searched, "safe spaces in universities" on google, all I could find was article after article of people criticizing safe spaces and giving reasons why they should not happen on college campuses. The most used reason, was a reason that Shulevitz used as well, that safe spaces create ignorance in the growing teenager and become problematic. While this may be true, I feel I should of found more articles like Gay 's, emphasizing with victims and understanding the need for safety sometimes, but without ignorance. The world is scary, hurtful, and breaks you as you grow older. Safe spaces are needed for comfort, they can bring peace, and give someone a person who understands. It 's wrong to put college students behind a door and shut them in so they are not "triggered" by someone 's opinion, but it 's also wrong to not acknowledge that sometimes, people just need to take a break from all the speech in the world and re-cope themselves to

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Trigger Warnings

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author argues that the use of “trigger warnings” should not become a policy due to the student becoming uncomfortable over a certain lesson in class. The argument is effective in parts, but not as a whole. What about the students who actually are medically unable to deal with a lesson in class due to PTSD? This editorial really only showed the bad side of trigger warnings inside colleges classes instead of showing the pros and the cons like most would. Some people claim that the addition of trigger warnings would not affect a college student’s ability to complete the work. It would also be difficult to do well on parts of a test unless they have a friend who will attend class still and take notes for them. Over all, trigger warnings are not completely bad, but they can most definitely be taken advantage of by students who do not want to go to classes one

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Coddling Of The American Mind

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to The Coddling of the American Mind, trigger warnings and microaggressions confine professors’ and well-educated adults’ unalienable right of speech; furthermore, they can impact one’s health. Protecting rights have a unison consensus; the authors unite them and the audience together to persuade the well-educated adults to protest the use of trigger warnings and microaggressions. While concluding that vindictive protectiveness is the reason for trigger warnings and microaggressions Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt state, “A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety.” (45) The word “policing” holds a negative connotation implying regulation, and no one wants their first amendment right of free speech stolen from them. Also the idea that trigger warnings and microaggressions may lead to depression and anxiety gives more logical reasoning to end trigger warnings and microaggressions in higher level education. When the authors specify the change that colleges should make, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write their idea of the purpose of college, “Rather than

    Read More

  • The Coddling Of The American Mind By Greg Lukianoff And Jonathan Haidt

    840 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, the authors go into great detail of describing the effects of trigger warnings. Using real world examples, Lukianoff and Haidt describes how college students are oversensitive and carried along the school year. The authors explain how this is a negative thing for the college students going into the work force in the future.

    Read More

  • Student Privacy vs Student Safety

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    One once said that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but maybe some schools disagree with this statement, and they take publicity more seriously than the welfare of their facility, staff, and students. A school with bad reputation is not going to receive many applicants, but is this a valid excuse for not protecting their students? I believe that if there is a disturbance like a student threatening someone or a shooting, schools should notify the police right away. Mary Hoeft, a professor of communication arts and French at the University of Wisconsin – Barron County, wrote Professors in the Crosshairs, an article about incidents that occurred at her school that should have involved the police. Hoeft spoke of a situation where a young female student raged down the ...

    Read More

  • Free Speech Zones

    1906 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many college campuses restrict free speech solely to these areas, meaning that the rest of campus is not open for expression.

    Read More

  • Trigger Warnings Essay

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    Trigger warnings are becoming a widely used method to prevent offending or upsetting people. Trigger warnings are used to alert people of content that might set off a strong emotional reaction. The people who usually experience these experiences are people who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or anxiety. There are many more, but these two are the ones I will be focusing on. As a survivor of my own traumas, and an anxiety disorder so bad that my hair fell out, I want trigger warnings to be in the college environment.

    Read More

  • Essay On Trigger Warnings

    760 Words  | 2 Pages

    Recently, more and more people began to concentrate on the problem of Free Speech. Lots of unnecessary troubles in campus were produced by free speech. Thus, the “trigger warnings”, which is a kind of way to prevent unnecessary troubles, are under ardent debate. Even some major media, such as the New York Times, began to focus on reporting the materials about trigger warnings. In the articles from American Now, authors Jennifer Medina, Brianne Richson and Jon Overton expressed their opinions about the trigger warnings, the ways to prevent unnecessary troubles, respectively. The trigger warnings are not very useful and helpful because it may increase the time to prepare for the class, make more troubles for students and full of flaws that could not eliminate the topics that students don’t want to see.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Trigger Warnings

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trigger warnings? Some may say necessary while others think of it as people being weak. Imagine sitting in a class and the topic at hand is the war. The professor without giving any warning decides to show a video of the gruesome war. Little did they know in their class sits a student who has just returned from the war and wanted to push their life forward. By not giving this warning, the student freaked out and caused a whole disruption. They managed to calm him down and tired to continue the lesson. Now would you be comfortable to continue the lesson after a huge disruption, or do you think that even a little warning in the beginning of class could have prevented this? Trigger warnings help even in the smallest ways. Trigger warnings are

    Read More

  • The Coddling Of The American Mind Analysis

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like trigger warnings, there are certain situations that may call for a “safe place,” but as the President of the University of Oklahoma points out, college “…is not a 'safe place, ' but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others.” (Stump) In other words, we are limiting this generation negatively by not allowing them to be exposed to other opinions other than their own. By making colleges “safe places,” it ultimately infers that the working world is a “safe place,” which could be very misleading

    Read More

  • Free Speech College Campuses

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Colleges and universities control their faculties and students’ actions by shaming and criticizing their faculties and students on social media when the faculty’s or student’s actions cause distresses to other college students. They also control their faculties’ or students’ actions by firing the faculty or suspending the student. In an article that is posted on the website Newsweek, Nina Burleigh states that “American college campuses are starting to resemble George Orwell’s Oceania with its Thought Police, or East Germany under the Stasi. College newspapers have been muzzled and trashed, and students are disciplined or suspended for “hate speech,” while exponentially more are being shamed and silenced on social media by their peers. Professors quake at the possibility of accidentally offending any student and are rethinking syllabi and restricting class discussions to only the most anodyne topics.” The idea American colleges and universities are compared to the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, or a thought police shows how dangerous and restrictive college campuses have become. This quote also cites the fact colleges have tried to censor their own newspaper as one of the examples how dangerous campuses have become. The fact that colleges try to censor their own newspaper and to intimidate their professors is troubling because this fact indicates that American colleges and

    Read More

More about Colleges Should Have Safe Spaces For Students

Open Document