Csdrhrt

Yesterday, a colleague from my school's history department brought me a student's final project from her history class. The assigned project was to produce a "creative" project dealing with a historical figure/event covered in the time period of the class (20th century United States). One student wrote a short play about the Great Depression. Another student designed a simple computer game that he ran on a Macintosh Classic II from the 1990s.

However, the student in question here (whose project I was shown) wrote a diary for a famous American serial killer. The diary graphically details the killings this man performed, including hand sketches of female genetilia and (as far as we can tell) splatters of real blood. It is a horrifically disturbing piece of work.

The student did technically fulfill the parameters of the assignment. He produced a (seemingly) historically accurate project on a historical figure from the 20th century in the United States. (Neither my colleague nor I really wanted to fact check every detail of a 200 page diary written in scrawled handwriting and splattered with blood and sketches of vivisected women). The writing is decent, albeit rather repetitive and somewhat simple. My colleague is likely going to give the student a fairly high grade on the project.

However, the graphic and disturbing subject matter, alongside the frighteningly realistic psychopathy, have brought my colleague to wonder if she should show the project to department or university administration. We were not sure if this student just had a distinct (and disturbing) gift for creative writing or if he was actually writing from personal experience (or something?). Is it a cry for help? Is the student a serial killer (unlikely)? Does he enjoy fantacizing about vicious crimes?

We are not psychologists, so we are not going to try to psychoanalyze this student from a professional standpoint. We also want to tread lightly around punishing and censoring a student for "thought crimes." However we also do not want to become part of history ourselves by being "that one professor" who saw potential signs of a violent criminal and opted to just give the kid an A- and be done with it.

Should my colleague show this project to university administrators?

The "administration" is probably the wrong place to look. Instead, see if you your institution has some mental health staff, whether just associated contacts, or counselors, or even a dedicated behavior concerns advice function, to get proper advice. If the university is well-organized enough to have one of the latter, chances are they've also established policies requiring you to pursue this. And such an advice line would be well suited to tell you how to go about it. If your university doesn't, figure out where to report it.

Note that, unless your institution is highly dysfunctional, reporting concerning behavior and having a professional talk to the student in question shouldn't be considered a punishment, but a safety net.

As Buffy points out in a comment, the law may further require you to do some things, and avoid doing other things. While one would hope that the mental health support staff are well-informed, contacting the legal staff (University Counsel) may be useful. That said, as a non-lawyer person, I imagine most legal pitfalls concern naming the student when you shouldn't. Your initial inquiries need not include the name of the student, until you're convinced that you should.

Not to be dismissive of this, but to be honest he sounds like the average "edgy" teenager/young adult. Maybe he's a fan of horror/slasher movies/history or just interested in serial killers in specific. I'm very interested in this type of things myself and I'm not violent in the slightest, I've also done some questionable school projects when I was younger, not only because of my interest in these subjects but also partly for shock factor and to stand out from the other works (which seems to have happened here).

That being said, there's always a chance he could become a serial killer or show signs of violence, etc, but anyone in your class could without explicitly demonstrating it. If anything, show it to your superiors or talk to him about it just to clear your conscience, and if you notice any other worrying signs maybe suggest an appointment with a mental health specialist.

Grade wise, I do think he deserves a high grade if he did a good/accurate and detailed work, independent of opinion or personal taste on the matter.

[A student wrote] a diary for a famous American serial killer...graphically detail[ing] the killings this man performed, including hand sketches of female genetilia...[The student will likely receive] a fairly high grade on the project.

It seems like the student should be commended for their account of historic events.

It is a horrifically disturbing piece of work.

That seems like an excellent portrayal of a serial killer.

(as far as we can tell) splatters of real blood

You've acknowledged that it might not be real...

I'm left thinking: The student should be commended. That said, I don't have a full picture and you certainly "do not want to become part of history ourselves by being 'that one professor'." I recommend passing the buck to your department head, to mitigate liability. As commented below, "if it all blows up, you can point fingers. If you don't, and it all blows up, fingers will be pointed at you."

You're the doctor. Ultimately, medicine has been a complete disaster with dealing with psychological issues. Firstly, note that it disturbs YOU. Until you acknowledge that, you can't tell if you or the student are disturbed (or undisturbed) in a healthy way.

Secondly, the ONLY healthy way to address the issue is to tell them your feeling about it, not as an equal, but from the point of view of being the superior. This way you'll perhaps learn something, rather than get more confused through attempting to understand each other. Something like: "This is not really appropriate result for the assignment. While detailing the account of a serial killer was aligned with the objective, you went into a depth that suggests that you have an underlying problem with sexuality."

This allows YOU to understand student psychology better, rather than hand it off to some unknown authority that isn't directly connected to the issue (as you are: you know what the assignment was and the context in which you asked it).

Every interaction with a student on difficult issues related to your mission is another chance to further your mastery of pedagogy and your curriculum. The more difficult it is, the more you have to gain -- whether you are right or wrong. You never want to give up those opportunities.

TL;DR - if you're worried, contact the department head and recommend that they keep an eye out for further signs.

Let's start with the obvious: if you think that there is a clear and immediate threat to you, the student, or anyone else - contact the authorities.

I don't think that this is the case here though. The most reasonable explanation in my opinion is that this is a student who wants to be edgy/different, and has a thing for horror. Some of the things you point out do not sound too outlandish to me (at the risk of sounding crass, you can get a pretty good idea of what genitalia look like after 5 minutes on the web), but you are a better judge of that.

If you feel like this is unusually weird, and it raises red flags in your opinion, I would the department head. Your reaction needs to be measured when you present the case. The student committed no crime and took an unusual approach to an assignment. If you start a whole thing involving psychological services etc., it may turn out to be nothing, and may be construed as 'thought police-ey' (your department head may -rightly- think that you're overreacting). Just state that the work made you uncomfortable, and that its content may be indicative of some underlying issues. There is no ethical issue with showing students' work to colleagues (including department heads). Your department head will be in a better position to make a call - they'll be able to find out whether the student has been showing other disturbing signs in other classes, or on campus.

Yesterday, a colleague from my school's history department brought me
a student's final project from her history class. The assigned project
was to produce a "creative" project dealing with a historical
figure/event covered in the time period of the class (20th century
United States).

What a strange university level type of history assignment ! Why would you want a student of history to get creative ?

(Neither my colleague nor I really wanted to fact check every detail
of a 200 page diary written in scrawled handwriting and splattered
with blood and sketches of vivisected women)

200 pages with drawings ? That seems overzealous, way too much work for an assignment, doesnt it ?

Although it's not your job to put a diagnostic on the student, it is possible that you dont find in the institution anyone whose job it is. In that case, you still gotta do something as a citizen.

The teacher can interview the student about the essay under the guise of finding it interesting and unusual, but with the real intent of probing the student. A paranoid/guilty student wouldnt submit such paper. I suggest the interview focuses on discerning the fantasy part in it and possibly concludes with a counselling offer if suitable.

The interviewer should ask questions as an amazed reader wanting to know more about the genesis of the work, this is well within the scope of teacher student interaction

-is this real blood? Is it yours ?

-did you write the thing on a word processor before handwriting it ?

-what sources did you use ? Did you get creative ? Where ?

-how did the idea come to you ?

-how much time did you spend on it etc....

Now if the student says it's his blood (show you the cuts), wrote all by hand without word processor, intertwined a lot of fantasy with few historical detail, and has always been fascinated with such things then it is certainly worthy of spending extra effort finding shrink help for the student.