Updated

A UC Santa Barbara student's proposal to get professors to provide a written or oral heads-up before they cover graphic material has become part of a national debate over the use of "trigger warnings" in higher education.

Student Bailey Loverin says giving individuals who have been sexually assaulted, survived war or touched by other traumas advance notice before they are exposed to those topics in class is not too much to expect.

The USCB student government passed a resolution in February endorsing the idea and calling on faculty to come up with guidelines.

This year, students at the University of Michigan, Oberlin in Ohio, Rutgers in New Jersey, Scripps in California and Wellesley in Massachusetts are seeking trigger warnings on potentially troubling readings, films, lectures and works of art.