Yet another deathly dull presentation to sit through. I just don't get how these speakers of illustrious repute can make things such as bloody colonial battles sound like the most boring tales ever.

Anyway. Taking the opportunity to occupy myself with other activities as usual. (If we had faculty 'development' programmes every day, I'd never leave LJ.) Today's topic: annoyance with a colleague who said, over lunch, that students who have anxiety attacks are "pampered": basically, that they're faking it for attention or whatever.

I can't begin to describe how terrible it is for people, especially professors who should know better, to be dismissive of conditions such as depression and anxiety. The worst that can happen has happened on our campus. We have proof that these are very serious and real issues that we need to know how to confront. I'm especially disappointed in this particular colleague, because we've just introduced two courses in Disability Studies (one for the BA students and one for the MAs), and he was put in charge of the syllabus since he apparently has a background in the subject. If someone with experience in the discipline has such a biased attitude toward psychological conditions that can be truly crippling to those who experience them, it really is unsurprising that so many laypeople display the same biases. (And, yes, I am thinking of people in the SPN fandom who choose to dismiss Jared's anxiety and related issues as 'attention-seeking'.)

Okay, mini-rant over. Back to pretending to listen to the speaker. (How have you been in academia for decades and not learnt that no one will listen to you if you speak in a monotone throughout your session? Seriously.)