A(H1N1) epidemic shows universities ill-prepared for crisis

• Source: Global Times
• [00:36 October 10 2009]
• Comments

Many students complained that they have nothing to do, that the situation makes them uncomfortable, and that they are very confused.

Internet bulletin board systems and blogs started displaying messages and photographs. One student complained about her life on campus, "I have to measure my temperature and show my ID card when entering every single gate. I am not allowed to go out without the leave permit from my teachers."

The new generation of young people can be labeled as the "me generation," and the response of many students follows this line.

It suggests that in a time of crisis students forget their communal responsibilities and turn into selfish individuals, who are as one observer remarked, "passing this period with a victim mentality."

They puts themselves at the center, glad that someone else got the virus, not them. They care about the measure taken by the administrators only if they do not affect their individual comfortable life.

In universities that were affected by the A(H1N1) epidemic, students complained about the uncomfortable confinement they had to endure. But in unaffected universities, no one worried.

This view is supported by a brief survey on "Students' response to the A(H1N1) condition on their campuses" conducted by Liu Haibo, a psychology postgraduate student at Peking University. Her conclusion: "It seems that most universities are in a very good state and everybody there is not worrying."

Universities are self-contained communities, where hundreds of thousands of students live. There is room here for individualism, but not at the expense of communal responsibility.

Crisis management is a science that should be understood through all its complexities.

When a crisis, such as the A(H1N1) epidemic, is handled correctly, it reduces not only the spreading of the disease, but the potential danger of rumor mills and unhealthy confusion.

Administrators should realize that this is the era of the "me generation," and that the "we" is fading away.

The author is a professor and Director of the Sino-Israel Research Center at Heilongjiang University