Go ask ALICE

I'm feeling my way feebly around my office this morning after suffering disturbed sleep and nightmares last night, for which I blame ALICE.

How can a mere acronym keep me awake at night? When it's the acronym for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, my options in the case of an active shooter in my classroom. I attended ALICE training late yesterday afternoon so now I am fully equipped to throw tennis balls at an armed intruder (provided that I happen to have a handful of tennis balls handy at the time) or to stab an armed intruded in the neck with a pencil (if anyone in the classroom still carries pencils) or to slam a stapler against a window to break it and allow egress (except I don't carry a stapler and the windows in my building run tight in the hips).

While I am delighted that our campus police provide this vivid and intensive training, it saddens me that it is deemed necessary. ALICE makes me feel both more safe and less safe--more safe because I now know what to do when a deranged student pulls a gun out of his backpack, but less safe after hearing the variety of ways things can go horribly, terribly wrong. I've learned that some of my colleagues keep ropes handy in case they need to flee upper-story offices, but those of us in the basement would need extension ladders to reach our dungeon windows, and where can I keep a ladder without tripping over it every time I get up?

Mostly I don't like to think of my students or colleagues as potential murderers. The gears of academe are lubricated by the oil of trust, but viewing others as armed maniacs throws a wrench into the works. That's not the way I want to imagine my little world.

But that is the world we live in, nevertheless, so I guess I'm glad to be prepared. I notice, however, that most of the women in my department have taken ALICE training while the men have not. I suppose that means they're relying on us to rescue them. If we're ever in the middle of a bloody emergency and they come crawling to me begging for help, I intend to tell them, "Don't look at me. Go ask ALICE."