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Background of the Problem 
 
In April 2007, a 23 year-old English major at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 
fellow students and faculty on campus by gunfire (Cable News Network, 2007). He had been 
diagnosed with a mental illness (Cable News Network, 2007). In September 2006, a 25 year-old 

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30 
gunman went on a shooting rampage at Dawson Community College in Montreal killing a 19 
year-old female student and injuring 19 others. The man was killed in a shootout with the police. 
On his Goth culture website he had written, “Work sucks… School sucks… Life sucks…” (CBS 
News, 2006, para. 4 and Gunman Said He Was ‘Ready for Action’ section, para. 4). In August 
2000, a student at the University of Arkansas, who had just been evicted from a graduate 
program, bought a box of bullets less than an hour before walking into his advisor's office, 
shooting him three times and then killing himself (Cable News Network, 2000).
Adrian-Taylor, Noels, and Tischler (2007) report that destructive conflict emerges too 
often in graduate student and faculty supervisor relationships resulting from lack of openness, 
time restrictions, negative feedback, unclear expectations, and limited use of the English 
language. Rice (2001) in a dissertation on violence in higher education recommends that 
campuses establish a violence prevention policy that addresses what actions will not be tolerated, 
the disciplinary action that will be taken in response to violence and disruption, what to report, 
and to whom to report it. Colleges and universities have begun providing guidelines to their 
faculties for dealing with disruptive classroom behaviors (Common Disruptive Classroom 
Behavior, 2007). Since the Virginia Tech shootings in April 2007 higher education institutions 
across the nation have created or updated emergency management policies, purchased alert 
systems, sought ways to balance campus safety with privacy, and debated the pros and cons of 
allowing guns in school settings (USA Today, 2007).
Adult educators work not only in school settings but also as trainers in the workplace. 
For 2006, the United States Department of Labor reported that 13.2% of 5,703 fatal occupational 
injuries were the result of assaults and violent acts (Fatal Occupational Injuries by Event or 
Exposure, 2006). In April 2007, following a poor performance review a NASA contractor shot a 
co-worker and took another employee hostage before he took his own life (Cable News Network, 
2007). In July 2003, an employee at Lockheed Aircraft plant in Meridian, Mississippi shot to 
death six coworkers and wounded eight before killing himself (Halbfinger, 2003). The U.S. 
Department of Labor (2004) issued guidelines to Health Care and Social Service employers 
about workplace violence (U.S. Department of Labor, 2004).