Bomb Threats

Within minutes of receiving an emailed bomb threat yesterday, Harvard University Police Department officers and Cambridge Police evacuated Harvard Yard. We are grateful for the prompt and professional response by law enforcement officers, many of whom spent hours searching buildings, not knowing whether a bomb was inside. While the threat turned out to be false, the relatively calm evacuation is a credit to their efforts.

The threat was an unwelcome addition to the stresses and pressures of exam week, but the College’s efforts to accommodate students whose exams were canceled or were otherwise affected by today’s events are commendable. There is no fair or perfect solution for the disrupted exams. Delaying exams until the evening unfairly penalizes students who had planned to travel immediately after finishing. Canceling exams hurts students who had hoped the final would improve their course performance. Mandating make-up exams next semester leaves students open to forgetting most of the course material.

The College has tried to find the least bad alternative. The administration’s rapid decisions this morning and afternoon left course heads scrambling to make major grading decisions under tight time pressure. Students were left in limbo as they tried to parse sometimes contradictory or incomplete exam information. Yet these problems are an inevitable part of a major disruption—administrators deserve praise for their handling of the exam schedule, and students should give them the benefit of the doubt.

The University was less successful in dealing with emergency communications. While the MessageMe and email updates were a major improvement from the long silence following the Boston Marathon bombings, the University and College ought to clarify who should be responsible for communicating to students. Over the course of the day, College students received updates from MessageMe, Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp, Faculty of Arts and Science Dean for Administration and Finance Leslie A. Kirwan ’79, and secretary of the Administrative Board John “Jay” L. Ellison. House Masters, Resident Deans, and others sent their own updates over email lists. There were also crossed wires between administrators and the law enforcement officers on campus. Emails that said certain areas had been reopened went out before the buildings had actually been deemed safe.

The confusion would have only been amplified had the threat been real. Given the inevitable confusion caused by emergencies, it is all the more important that Harvard speak with one voice in a crisis. The University should have one and only one designated administrator to communicate during emergencies, as should each school. With too many administrators writing to too many different and overlapping email lists, emergency communications become a giant game of telephone.

No bombs went off at Harvard yesterday, nor were any found—the threat was, fortunately, unrealized. But whoever emailed in the threat succeeded in diverting our attention from researching, learning, and teaching. Now is the time to refocus and move ahead. Harvard should analyze, critique, and improve its response, but ultimately, the University fulfilled its duty to keep students safe.