Welcome to Coddled College
Higher education professionals are dismayed at the growing number of students who expect their universities to protect their tender emotions from over-stimulation.
If you graduated from college in the previous millennium, you may be unaware that many students now believe that college professors and administrators should protect them from, rather than expose them to, ideas they disagree with, especially ideas that disturb them.
Much of the recent debate over the current state of college campuses was spurred by Judith Shulevitz's March 21 op-ed in The New York Times, "In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas."
The Brown University campus, Shulevitz wrote, provided a "safe space" during a debate about campus rape, which was a room "equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies ..."
While high school graduates were once considered adults, college students are now treated like kindergarteners.