Monday, September 24, 2001

Threat Prompts Calvin College to Shut Down By DANA MULHAUSER Calvin College shut down its campus, in Grand Rapids, Mich., late last week, moving students out of dormitories, closing offices, and canceling classes after receiving an anonymous threat. A voice-mail message left at a campus office on Thursday afternoon contained an unspecified threat against the college, to be carried out on Friday. The college declined to reveal the wording of the threat. Gaylen Byker, the college's president, ordered an evacuation of the campus from 11 p.m. Thursday to 9 p.m. Friday. "In light of recent terrorist attacks in the United States, and yet also the large number of hoax incidents which have occurred since, the decision to close the campus was difficult," Mr. Byker said in a statement. College and local police officers patrolled the campus and blocked all entrances on Thursday night and Friday. They found no suspicious activity. Half of Calvin's 4,300 students live on the campus. On Thursday night, they stayed with their families and friends off campus. "Some of the students seemed angry at whoever had placed the threat, but there was not a mood of panic," said Phil de Haan, a college spokesman. Friday ended uneventfully, he added. In an interview Sunday, he said that police officials had arrested a person Saturday in connection with the threat, and that he believed the person was not connected to the college. American, Purdue, and Stanford Universities have also received threats since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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