Compassionate Complexity: Learning on the Frontlines of Campus Tragedy

An historic storm makes an unpredictable turn toward campus. A gunman opens fire in a crowded lecture hall. A vehicle carrying students to a university event crashes hundreds of miles away. A terrorist strikes a busy city street near the university. Higher education institutions hold endless possibilities for learning, exploration, and innovation, but when this environment of discovery turns to one of tragedy, such as in the examples above, administrators face the daunting task of restoring the perception of safety and recreating the opportunity for learning. Student affairs leaders often manage crisis response efforts for the institution, a role these individuals view as both a tremendous privilege and a nearly impossible responsibility. We view ourselves as first responders to our campus community, much like law enforcement and fire officials are first responders to the society as a whole. One student affairs leader observed that:

While other people are running away from a crisis, we tend to be the ones running into it, along with the first responders. I think that makes me very proud of what I do. It makes me always incredibly proud of what my teams do, but it also reminds me that we need to take care of each other… you could just have the life sucked out of you if you let it.

When the worst–case scenario becomes an urgent reality, campus leaders encounter situations that require an immediate, extraordinary response. The job demands learning, even in excruciating circumstances. But if campus leaders are charged with healing the community, how do individuals at the center of widespread trauma personally navigate such devastating experiences?

Encountering the Unimaginable

I was raised in Oklahoma City, attended college in Waco, Texas, and left my heart in New York City, where I established my professional identity in higher education. My three hometowns experienced heartbreak and fear previously unknown on such a widespread scale, experiences that undeniably shaped my own development. Born on the cusp of the millennial generation, my peers quickly became accustomed to media reports of unprecedented school shootings and terrorist attacks. The 1995 federal building bombing physically shook my sixth–grade classroom and emotionally rocked my family when my father served as a first responder to the terrorist attack. My high school days were marked by reports of school shootings and unfounded fears toward the loner student who wore a trench coat to class, an innocent item of clothing that became a nationwide symbol of school violence. Three weeks into my undergraduate experience, full of possibility and anticipation, I sat in an Introduction to Mass Communication class watching as the World Trade Center crumbled on live television. Learning was never the safe, oasis–like environment my parents and grandparents enjoyed. Education, it seemed, was equal parts hope and fear. Armed with a unique generational and geographic background, my first decade in student affairs included hundreds of middle–of–the–night phone calls for student crises, a handful of hurricanes, and, as is becoming all too prevalent, a couple of terrifyingly violent situations. Over that decade, I realized that student learning is key, and our role in student affairs is to create environments that foster student learning, especially in the most devastating and heartbreaking circumstances.

Campus Crisis Leadership

No two campus tragedies are alike, and encountering any crisis requires a unique and unprecedented response. Over two years, I interviewed 11 Chief Student Affairs Officers (CSAOs) who simply went to work one day, unaware that the next few hours would irreparably change their personal and professional lives. As one individual recalled:

All I did that morning was get up and go to work. And I think a lot of us think that… we didn't do anything. We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't do anything to contribute to the situation… All we did was get up and go to work. So there's a lot of meaning there I think in that, it could happen to anybody. Any day. Anywhere.

I spoke extensively with each CSAO over the course of a week, during which time they humbly recalled what could only be described as a nightmare scenario. They recounted unimaginable stories of witnessing the crime scene, visiting victims’ families, and guiding their community through the anguish that followed a major campus disaster. In the midst of attempts to restore a sense of safety and peace on campus, these individuals recognized that, “it will always be horrible. People will always be negatively impacted from it, but… how do we make sure something like this doesn't happen somewhere else?” Their experiences followed remarkably similar themes, including an initial uncertainty and ongoing sense of fear, heightened awareness about physiological aspects of the experience, deeply felt personal impact, and incidental learning in the wake of tragedy. Throughout our conversations, I waited through seemingly endless silences and silent tears, witnessing firsthand the pain that continued to haunt these individuals, months and years later. While not my own tragedies to claim, the overwhelming privilege and responsibility of sharing these stories will undoubtedly influence my own narrative for a lifetime.

Student affairs leaders encountered crisis situations such as automobile accidents and psychological emergencies on a near–daily basis, but they found it impossible to fully prepare for the magnitude of high–profile campus tragedy with significant injuries or fatalities. CSAOs understood that, “there's no script that you could ever write that will tell you what your next step is on any of these issues… What you need is truth, you don't need protocol.” No amount of advanced planning or literature could prepare campus leaders for the reality of encountering the worst–case scenario as their present circumstances. By illuminating the lived experience of serving in such a role, my objective is not to provide easy answers or quick solutions, but simply to create a small window of truth through which to view campus tragedies. As I flew thousands of miles cross–country, transcribed nearly as many pages of interview recordings, and listened to hours upon hours of gut–wrenching narratives, two enduring truths emerged: complexity and compassion.

Learning through Complexity

Encounters with campus tragedy undoubtedly create an environment marked by significant uncertainty and complexity. Those named as formally responsible in lawsuits felt a deep sense of blame for the events, although none of the disasters occurred because of their direct involvement. Others wondered if they were to blame for their inability to protect students. As I listened to their stories, the heartbreaking reality of their guilt spoke volumes, indicating the ongoing nature of the tragedy and the complexity of the profession. One CSAO emotionally recalled his guilt in the aftermath of campus violence:

I knew that there was nothing that I could have done particularly differently to have changed anything that happened to them, but… my job is to… take kids when their parents drop them off and give them back a few years later in one piece. Not being able to do that… is just sad, much more than the obvious, especially relative to my job and my role and my realms of responsibility. Again, I didn't feel to blame, but… I wasn't able to send these kids back home in one piece.

Another leader shared the guilt–ridden sentiments when internal doubt turned to external speculation: “whether they were going to say we screwed up or not, deep down in my heart I felt like, obviously we didn't do our job right. Students died… that's not doing your job, right?” Regardless of the circumstances, student affairs leaders knew that the crisis was not their fault, but they were still unable to escape the guilt of student death through university events.

In navigating campus tragedy, CSAOs learned an enormous amount through their leadership experiences. This learning was often unrecognizable in the moment, but resulted in long–term personal and professional growth. Much of their learning involved technical details seemingly unrelated to their formal training: building codes, insurance laws, supply management, legal strategies, law enforcement operations, transportation systems, etc. They realized that, “there are just so many nuances. What you were trained to do was great, but you are going to learn a whole new set of skills that you did not have in the past.” Student development theory did little to restore campus operations. However, CSAOs learned even more about their strengths, leadership abilities, and institutional environment. As the preeminent theorist on learning from experience, John Dewey recognized that, “every experience lives on in further experiences” (p. 27). The impact of campus tragedy became an ever–present influence for the future. Student affairs leaders navigated an enormously complex environment while continuing to enact their leadership role, a task that proved to be daunting for many individuals. In doing so, they gained significant educational experiences that were not acknowledged for quite some time.

Crisis leadership inevitably required CSAOs to navigate a complex, unpredictable, and often chaotic institutional environment. Student affairs leaders told both explicit and implicit stories of the complexity they encountered on a daily basis, not to mention in response to unprecedented campus tragedy. As one leader recalled, “the numbers of things that all of us in these roles navigate, negotiate, manage, oversee… the possibility for something to not have gone textbook perfect is just so high.” While leaders were accustomed to the standard intricacy of their roles, they expressed apprehension about the overwhelming complexity that followed campus disaster. Many student affairs leaders admitted that, “the complexity of… responding to these kinds of things is striking.” Higher education is an industry known for adherence to tradition, typically affording its leaders extended time to consider possibilities and engage in university–wide discussions about various options. We spend weeks, months, or even years discussing the potential impacts of a particular action plan. In the midst of campus crisis, CSAOs lost the luxury of time and were forced to make immediate decisions without extended opportunities to consider possibilities or broadly involve others in the process. No longer able to hold extensive meetings and gather university–wide input, they created plans and made decisions about emergency student housing, memorial services, campus safety, victim relations, and a myriad of other details in a matter of moments, not months.

Throughout my discussions with campus administrators, complexity and chaos became commonplace terminology to describe campus disasters. In A Simple Guide to Chaos and Complexity, Dean Rickles, Penelope Hawe, and Alan Shiell note while complex systems may be unpredictable, they do contain order and structure. Chaos, on the other hand, involves instances that Jean Swenk describes in Chaos Theory and Higher Education as times when “doing the obvious thing does not produce the obvious desired outcome” (p. 36). Complexity involves dynamically interacting elements with unseen patterns, whereas chaos tends to lack significant patterns altogether. Institutions of higher education are complex systems with many dynamically interacting elements. However, a significant campus tragedy unexpectedly introduces chaos into a complex university system. CSAOs must implement emergency operations procedures, preplanned tactics that likely fail to account for the full scope and specific details of the situation. One campus leader recalled how, “protocols only go so far, because every crisis is different… Did I feel prepared? Yes. Was there a protocol book in place? Yes. Did it help? For two or three days, yes… but after that, no.” How, then, do student affairs leaders navigate crisis response situations that become both complex and chaotic?

Navigating Campus Tragedy

Drawing upon Dewey's theory that learning depends on both the continuity of experiences and interactivity with the environment, Aliki Nicolaides and Lyle Yorks argue that how individuals interact with their surroundings holds the key to understanding learning through complexity. Learning systems are continually reconstructed over time and depend upon one's interaction with their environmental surroundings, the result of which is the development of increasingly complex mindsets. Student affairs leaders’ acceptance of increasing ambiguity was a determining factor of their capacity to learn through complexity. The moments following a major disaster on campus were defined by an overwhelming ambiguity in which no one had a clear sense of exactly what happened or how to respond. Student affairs leaders did not know details of the situation, the safety of their students, or the magnitude of the events. One CSAO remembered that, “we spent a good part of the day trying to figure out a plan for figuring out where everyone was, and who was safe, and who wasn't.” Another leader admitted that, “it's very frustrating to have these responsibilities and not be able to know… what has actually happened. It's always the case in the early moments of these things that there's confusion and lack of clarity. That lack of clarity is very frustrating.” In the wake of campus tragedy, student affairs leaders described both an innate knowledge of what to do, and, paradoxically, a lack of understanding about how to proceed. Their ability to navigate ambiguity and lead others to do the same ultimately determined the institution's long–term experience with crisis response.

Student affairs leaders expressed a wealth of learning through complexity, much of which depended upon insights from previous crisis response experiences. While the vast majority of leaders did not have experience with disasters approaching the magnitude of their current situation, they were familiar with crisis response on a smaller scale. Although unaware of the terminology, they relied heavily upon analog reasoning to guide their actions. Giovanni Gavetti and Jan Rivkin write in Harvard Business Review that analog reasoning involves situations in which leaders, “faced with an unfamiliar problem… think back to some similar situation they have seen or heard about, draw lessons from it, and apply those lessons” (p. 54). Student affairs leaders demonstrated tremendous analog reasoning when they considered strengths and insights developed through previous encounters with student fatalities, weather emergencies, safety threats, and other crises. Acknowledging the limited role of emergency procedures, CSAOs relied primarily upon their gut instincts, guidance they undoubtedly acquired through decades of campus crisis response. As one individual recalled, “one of my jobs was to remind everybody that we'd been through a version of this before and that we should use some of the lessons that we learned.” In relying on prior crisis leadership insights to guide their actions, administrators inevitably experienced learning that had the potential to become valuable analogies for future crisis scenarios. One CSAO recalled the bittersweet influence of campus tragedy:

You carry the burden from those experiences in one sense, but you also carry the wisdom from those experiences. And I don't know how else to say it, because I would prefer not to have experienced those things… On the other hand, don't deny the fact that you've had those experiences.

CSAOs who encountered campus tragedy navigated a staggering level of logistical details and uncertain circumstances, paradoxically describing both a reluctance and comfort level in doing so. Prior to our conversations, many of the leaders I spoke with had not previously shared the heartbreaking details of their experience beyond the campus community. Some were eager to do so and others participated reluctantly, desiring only to help others navigate the grief of campus tragedy. Ultimately, however, their true challenge came in the overwhelming task of guiding the community's fear and grief in the wake of tragedy.

Compassionate Leadership

Throughout their stories of encountering and responding to unthinkable crises on campus, student affairs leaders continually expressed a single desire: to serve those most closely involved and resolve the situation as best possible. They knew that nothing would restore life or heal the pain of student death, but ultimately strove to create an environment that provided courage, guidance, and strength to move forward in meaningful ways. One leader reflected that, “this work is a calling. It's a form of ministry in a way, what we do. It's who we are. It's not a job.” These leaders experienced campus crises on a deeply personal level, postponing their personal needs to care for the magnitude of needs in the campus community—providing comfort to grieving families, direction to anxious staff, and presence for worried students. They believed that, “the overall role of student affairs is to be the heart and the hands of the university… to be the one that shows the compassion and the competency to help the university and the affected families and all involved move through this experience in the very best way possible.” This desire to display compassionate leadership was a pervasive element of every aspect of the experience, since it seemed to dictate CSAOs’ initial actions, internal desires, and lack of attention to their own experience with the tragedy.

Drawing upon long–term research conducted on individuals’ experiences with trauma, Jane Dutton, Peter Frost, Monica Worline, Jacoba Lilius, and Jason Kanov write in Leading in Times of Trauma that compassionate leadership “involves taking some form of public action, however small, that is intended to ease people's pain—and that inspires others to act as well” (p. 1). Similarly, in Resonant Leadership, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee describe compassion through three key components: “understanding and empathy for others’ feelings and experiences; caring for others; willingness to act on those feelings of care and empathy” (p. 179). Compassion is not a mutual process of negotiation, but a unidirectional act of showing empathy toward others. While the practice of compassion serves others, the act of doing so fosters a unique sense of renewal and resilience in those who demonstrate compassion. For student affairs professionals, this sense of renewal is evident each time we celebrate students’ accomplishments or help them resolve a difficult situation. These CSAOs understood that crisis response was a critical function of the role, but believed that their ultimate responsibility was to create environments in which student learning could thrive. As one recalled:

Fear in an academic way is about ignorance… lack of curiosity… indifference… not having the constructs to deal with different perspectives… All that's fear. That's highbrow fear, and hopefully we know that we can wrestle with a deep understanding of what it means to be a human being who loves other human beings. I'm firm that love is stronger than fear.

Loving in spite of fear required them to seek positive influences from even the most negative experiences, showing compassion to foster both individual and organizational healing.

In the wake of unexpected and horrific events in the campus community, student affairs leaders recalled an overwhelming need to be present for grieving students, faculty, staff, and families, as well as a personal preference to handle the logistical response rather than the emotional needs. As Dutton's team observed through hundreds of interviews with trauma survivors, “there is tremendous power in just sitting with people as they process terrible events… Unfortunately, however, the simple act of being there doesn't come easily or naturally to most people. It can be much easier to avoid those who are in pain” (p. 3). Recognizing their discomfort with expressions of grief, several CSAOs arranged for counselors and clergy to manage the emotional response to tragedy, preferring personally to handle details of memorial services, campus safety, and continuity of operations. At the same time, they paradoxically described a shift from a standard operating practice that prioritized relational interactions to a more task–based approach, but also expressed deep worry and desire to provide compassion at the time their community most needed them. Nearly every CSAO I spoke with told their staff early on to expect a different leadership style, shifting from a collaborative style to a commanding approach. One directed staff, “I know that your reporting lines typically are, but right now you report to me… here's what I need for you to do.” The crisis response work was simply too critical and time–sensitive to act in any other manner. In doing so, they arranged for other leaders to offer the emotional support they were unable to provide: “you have to be the person, or at least make sure there is a person, to comfort people… now your ministry has to start.” While these conflicting demands created an internal struggle for CSAOs, they were not uncommon experiences of compassionate leadership.

Grief and Grace

Consistent with the practices of compassionate leadership, student affairs leaders recalled the myriad of ways they cared for the victims’ families and campus caregivers, including travel arrangements, counseling, meals, time away, and other basic needs. One arranged for snow removal from a victim's sidewalk, allowing for loved ones to safely visit the family. Another arranged translators with the help of a foreign consulate to ensure that the family understood the university's actions. A third recalled staff members who packed a deceased student's belongings to protect the family from that unbearable task. Similarly, they emotionally recounted the ways in which people cared for their personal needs as they were managing the crisis response: a neighbor prepared meals for a CSAO after long days, a friend took their children shopping for school clothes, a colleague not involved in the response did the CSAO's laundry, a congregation prayed over the leader in weekly services. None of the CSAOs felt that they could be fully present for their families, so they were particularly moved by others’ willingness to fill those needs. Each student affairs leader described hundreds of emails, phone calls, letters, flowers, and other messages of support in the days following tragedy. Many recalled how colleagues from other institutions arrived to provide support with student counseling, phone calls, and memorial service logistics. In the wake of citywide terrorism, one student affairs leader recalled:

I saw incredible grace. I saw people who had grace like you can't imagine during that time. And I hadn't anticipated the generosity either… I saw such grace and charity and people from all over the world, especially strangers… I'm going to confirm that love is more powerful than any fear. I saw it… That is just sheer beauty.

Compassionate care for the caregivers became both a powerful symbol of support and the ultimate standard to uphold. In the days following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, Mayor Rudy Giuliani famously urged New Yorkers to extend compassion toward their fellow citizens, sparking a standard of care that continues to permeate the city. In his unscripted remarks at the memorial service for the 10 victims of a basketball team plane crash, Oklahoma State University president James Halligan guaranteed that the institution would build memorials both at the crash site and on campus, as well as promised free education to the victims’ children, promises the university continues to uphold. The individuals I spoke with shared similarly powerful stories of leading through their grief in order to create healing amidst chaos. Through tragedy, they realized the strength of the student affairs profession, since, “we know by the grace of God it could have been us. We know that every day.”

Compassionate leadership recognizes that, as Dutton's team poetically recalls, “there is always grief somewhere in the room” (p. 7) and responds in meaningful ways to alleviate suffering as much as humanly possible. Compassionate leaders must first allow people to make meaning of their experiences through grief sharing, community gatherings, and so on, but they must also create an environment that allows others to take action to restore the community's sense of healing and peace. One CSAO recalled that, “obviously we saw the worst of a human being and what human beings can do, but we also saw the best of what human beings can be about.” In speaking with CSAOs who encountered unimaginable tragedy, I listened to stories of their efforts to comfort and heal their community, always at the expense of their personal needs. Compassion requires leaders to maintain an ultimate focus on the needs of their community and openness to those individuals, a mindset that seemed innate for the leaders I interviewed. Student affairs leaders described their chief purpose as maintaining a learning environment that was as reasonably safe as possible and creating conditions in which students could thrive. This responsibility became even more critical in the midst of a crisis that shook a community's sense of safety and peace.

Meaning in Chaos

For the millions of Americans who witness yet another campus tragedy via television, fleeting fears are quickly forgotten as they return to their daily lives. For a university leader charged with managing the crisis, a single instant forever changes his/her life and the campus community. It is, as one student affairs leader reflected, “the antithesis of what we come to work to do every day.” Eleven men and women courageously allowed a stranger to enter into their worst nightmare and the many dark days that followed, sharing their fears, struggles, resilience, and joy. They experienced the worst of human nature, but also shared endless stories of the strength they discovered through efforts to heal their community. The leaders whose stories are portrayed through this research experienced deeply personal changes in every aspect of their lives, further affirming the holistic lifestyle of the student affairs profession. For these men and women, their role was never simply a job. Student affairs was then, and remains, a lifestyle, a calling, and a form of ministry that became unmistakable in the most difficult circumstances. As one leader so poignantly observed, “we always feel like we're very modest heroes at that moment.” Even so, these leaders quickly acknowledged that their true mission was educating students to create a more humane and hopeful world.

Throughout the study, I was humbled and overwhelmed by participants’ compassion and encouragement of my own journey, both professionally and personally. I learned more about education, leadership, and hope in these conversations than I did through two graduate degrees and 10 years in the field. These men and women invested themselves in me and continue to provide enormous inspiration. In doing so, the student affairs leaders demonstrated their steadfast commitment to strengthening the profession and transforming unimaginable events into meaningful experiences. Their stories will not prevent future disasters from occurring and do little to ease the pain of personally encountering campus tragedy. Campus tragedy will always be heartbreaking, and student affairs leaders will never fully be prepared. In uncovering the lived experiences of men and women who encountered the worst days in the history of higher education, their stories ultimately point to one enduring truth—a deep hurt and a magnificent hope.