Now we know what happens when the campus goes into lockdown.
Although we’re still learning about the incident, it appears as though the administration received a credible threat and took strong but appropriate action to protect students, faculty, and staff. We’ve watched in horror as terror has struck other campuses. The cliché is true: Better safe than sorry.
Yesterday, we were safe.
During the lockdown, hundreds of students sat in classrooms and in the Grewcock Student Union, refreshing social media feeds and email inboxes, waiting to receive more information about a potential threat to campus. A phone call playing a recorded message, followed by an all-campus email, alerted students about the lockdown, mentioning a person who “may be armed.”
In emergencies like this, confusion is normal. In another context, this is called the “fog of war.” In the moment, we must act on only partial information. The cold, hard facts — and the clarity that they deliver — come later.
During the lockdown, students received few details about what was happening. Some learned about the threat from parents. The rumor mill began to churn. With few updates from the administration, students texted friends and scoured the internet for nuggets of information to fill the gaps on their own. This resulted in even more confusion and hearsay, adding additional chaos to an already tense afternoon.
Some of this is inevitable. No crisis ever unfolds smoothly.
We are a college, so it’s natural for us to think of everything as a learning opportunity. Let’s turn this into one, reviewing all of our practices to make sure — if this ever happens again — that the college is as safe as possible.