Ball State University's Office of Housing and Residence Life will look into developing individual communication systems among each residence hall in response to a bomb threat at LaFollette Complex this weekend.
Ball State police and the Delaware County Bomb Squad swept the building and evacuated LaFollette Field early Saturday after police received a call about a bomb in the LaFollette area.
Alan Hargrave, director of Housing and Residence Life, said he spoke with hall directors and resident assistants from LaFollette on Monday. After hearing from them, Hargrave said he decided the situation was handled properly.
"We don't expect our hall staff to go around looking for bombs," he said. "That's not the purpose of a hall director or an RA."
Hargrave also decided he would like to develop a communication system during situations that do not warrant all-campus alerts, he said.
"The expectations of students who are here now are quite different than they were even five years ago," he said. "The conversation that I had with our staff in housing led to instead of alerting the entire campus, are there ways that we can continue communicating with students who live in a particular building that can be effective? ... We want to make sure that emergency alerts are for those instances when people need to take specific action as opposed to notification of an event that may happen."
The hindrance with a residence hall-exclusive communication system, Hargrave said, would be that staff members would need to spend their time more effectively during emergencies than sending out e-mails.
"For every situation, I know people want to know," he said, "but there also is the same issue of 'Do you want people to do their jobs or do you want them sitting down writing e-mails to people?"
Tony Proudfoot, associate vice president for marketing and communications, issued an e-mail statement to the Ball State community explaining why the university did not send out emergency text alerts about the threat.
"In this case, there was no action to be taken beyond specific instructions from authorities and staff at the scene," Proudfoot wrote in the e-mail. "In addition, notification in this case could have led to individuals putting themselves in harm's way unknowingly."
Hargrave said he agreed with the university's decision to not send out text alerts, as well as the police officers' decision to lock down LaFollette.
"The bomb team and Public Safety have gone through training on this, and I have to trust their judgement that from training they can handle the situation," he said.
Because of the type of bomb police presumed would have to be used, the damage would have been more severe if it was outside, which is why police evacuated Relay for Life participants on LaFollette Field, Proudfoot wrote.
Hargrave said students inside LaFollette Complex would have been safer than outside because the building is sturdy and would minimize the blast from an explosive.
"Concrete blocks may not be attractive, but they are sturdy," he said.
Residence hall staff are trained on how to report bomb threats, Hargrave said, but once police arrive, they are instructed to comply with the officers' orders, which is what the RAs and hall directors did on Saturday.
Gene Burton, director of Public Safety, said the department is investigating the suspected prank phone call, but he did not know of any leads as of Monday.
"We don't have a physical description or a suspect named," Burton said. "We're investigating things as far as we can, and hopefully we can have somebody speak up."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
