Campus Reacts to Threat and Closure

“This was a big alarm to me,” Brijana Mulliqi, a junior at The City College of New York (CCNY) said after she received an alert about a possible threat on campus. On November 21, the college sent out an alert via email that read, “Due to a threat to the City College campus, and out of an abundance of caution, CCNY will close today.” The email asked everyone to leave the campus immediately.

Mulliqi and others wondered and worried about the specifics, which weren’t spelled out. Vanesa Brun, a CCNY student studying political science, said “I felt very confused when I received the call from CUNY alerts. I walked out of the Shepard Hall to the NAC. I saw the police patrols and students running out of the NAC building. I realized I needed to leave immediately.”

Susan Mei, who oversees the tech for the Department of Media & Communication Arts (MCA), told Harlem View she was initially unaware of what was happening because she didn’t set up her email for alerts from CUNY. “We got calls from friends who received the alert. It was more of confusion than panic. Our instinct told us to evacuate our MCA rooms and any students or people we saw along the way,” Mei said. She also explained that she didn’t see public safety officers actively trying to evacuate students and faculty. “We treated the situation seriously but were not overly alarmed or frightened because security wasn’t combing the floors or rushing people out, so we knew the situation was more out of high caution than an immediate risk.”

CCNY posted about the campus closure on its Instagram and Twitter about the campus closure. Many users commented. They said they didn’t know details about the threat, and some were angry because there were no specifics. “Please improve your security. This school needs to consider implementing a swiping system to enter buildings on campus,” @justcallmenaomi commented.

Brijana Mulliqi lives in The Towers, the dormitory at CCNY. She was in class online when a classmate brought up the alert. “I had my cousin pick me up and spent the night at her house because I didn’t want to be alone in the dorms,” she said.

Days after the threat, Jay Mwamba, Publications Editorial Manager from The Office of Institutional Advancement, Communications, & External Relations, said, “At this time, we cannot comment as this is an active investigation.”

The week following the alert, CCNY President, Vincent Boudreau, sent an email via the campus broadcast system and gave more details. He wrote, “On that day, we received a phone call in which someone threatened to commit an act of violence on campus at a specific time—without, however, targeting any specific individual or group on campus.” President Boudreau also said that closing the campus immediately after the call was the best decision for everyone’s safety.

Faculty Senate President David Jeruzalmi said he thinks President Boudreau made the right decision. “The President made the best decision he could given the information that he had on hand. My view is that the small inconvenience that we all experienced when the campus closed pales in comparison to the alternative.”