As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, I was often assigned to lead instructional sessions and teach courses in a small room in the basement of our School of Public Policy, as the History Department had no real classrooms of our own to use for undergraduate instruction. It was an awkward little space – underground, windowless, with glass near the door to provide a visual connection to the hallway outside. A structural pillar created a dead space in the back, and the thirty or so desks crammed inside were often comically undersized for my students, many of whom towered over me when they came up to ask questions at the end of class. It was a great place for hiding from tornados, the ultimate Midwestern natural disaster. It was also catastrophically unsafe in the event of a mass shooting: with one door in and no windows, anyone inside would be a sitting duck. And with the glass paneling next to the door, it would be almost impossible for anyone to hide.
Continue reading “Not Like This.”
Much That Is Fair 