University of Iowa instructor Christina Cooke used to worry about getting a bad review or a complaint to the department head if she had a problematic student.
Now, in the wake of the latest deadly American campus shooting, she worries that a student might walk into her office and kill her.
"I thought about who I had to discipline in my own courses, students I had to ask to leave altogether because of various behavioral issues and how terribly wrong that could have gone," said Cooke, who just completed two years as a teacher's assistant at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
She was not the only educator for whom the story of a murder-suicide at UCLA hit close to home. With concealed carry legal in most states and some passing laws legalizing campus carry, many educators worry this could become the new normal.