GREENFIELD — Frustration, disappointment and concern were the prevailing themes of a student walkout and a public meeting held at Greenfield Community College on Tuesday in response to the administration’s handling of a lockdown last week caused by a potential threat.
Roughly 60 students gathered in the Core Lobby to air their grievances, and they heard from President Yves Salomon-Fernández before most headed upstairs for a separate but related meeting that Anna Berry, the dean of students at GCC, scheduled to follow the walkout. Berry and Alex Wiltz, the school’s director of public safety and chief of police, fielded questions and comments from students and staff members who met in Room C208 to share stories of where they were on Nov. 8, when a potential threat relayed by the Brattleboro Police Department put the campus on lockdown for roughly 40 minutes. The lockdown was lifted when it was determined the college was never in danger.
Wiltz explained the perceived threat came from a mentally ill former student who had “psychotic break” in Brattleboro, Vt., and sent an email to that town’s police department referencing GCC, a library in Brattleboro and a 2014 school shooting. Wiltz said the school does not have the grounds to press charges, but the individual — who is familiar to Brattleboro Police — is receiving mental help and has no means of transportation. The person is not in custody, Wiltz said. The initial word of the potential threat came to GCC public safety officials around 11:20 a.m. Students and faculty reported hearing about the lockdown around 11:45 a.m. By 12:20 p.m., State Police were again allowing traffic in and out of campus, after having closed off access from the rotary on Colrain Road.
At the walkout, 36-year-old liberal arts student Chris Daehne said he wishes emergency information had been better communicated during the lockdown. He said he feels the administration handled the situation “to the best of their ability at the time,” but there is “room for improvement.” He said he was in one of the college’s outdoor gazebos when he was told classes were canceled for the rest of the day and he could go home to Northampton. He said he did not learn about the lockdown until he watched the news that afternoon.
Salomon-Fernández told students the college takes their safety very seriously, and she applauded the walkout, saying it “models leadership we want to see” everywhere.
The walkout was planned by 26-year-old liberal arts student Brenna Durrah, who said she wants campus to be “the best and safest place it can be.” She said it is the student body’s responsibility to hold people accountable for campus safety.
“Students really deserve to be part of the process,” she said. “I love this place.”
Durrah said some faculty members canceled their morning classes to accommodate students who wanted to attend the walkout and convene in the Core Lobby. The walkout was scheduled to last from 10:30 to 10:55 a.m.
In the upstairs meeting that followed, Wiltz assured everyone in the room there was never a threat. A few people were unhappy by what they perceived as a casual, nonchalant attitude exhibited by police officers around the campus during the incident. Wiltz said police officers are trained to remain calm at all times and they probably appeared unconcerned because they, unlike students and faculty, were privy early on to information that there was likely no threat. One woman said she and some classmates were outside for a smoke break when the lockdown occurred, leaving them trapped outside “like sitting ducks.” She said this could have ended tragically if there was an active shooter on campus.
“I do not feel safe,” she said. “I do not want to be here.”
Most in the room said they did not know what was going on, and only knew about the lockdown because they were around someone who received an alert via email or text. Within 10 minutes of the emergency call, the campus was the host of 30 police officers.
A decision was made hours after the lockdown was lifted to make GCC’s emergency alert system an opt-out system.
Berry said the alert system is tested once a semester and, ironically, it was scheduled to be tested this week. She said emergency drills and alerts testing are easier in school environments in which students are in kindergarten through Grade 12, because each school day has a particular schedule and all students are contained to the school grounds. Berry and Wiltz said more focus will be given to training staff and faculty members in an emergency response known as ALICE — Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.
“We can’t guarantee complete safety,” Berry said. “But we just got a big ol’ smack upside the head.”
Ravin Graves, an 18-year-old human services student, sat in the front row of Tuesday’s meeting and said she was eventually let out of a building by a police officer, though she had no idea what was going on.
“I did not know my life, his life, our lives,” she said, gesturing toward everyone in the room, “were possibly in danger.”
Joshua Anderson, a 30-year-old nursing student, said he served two combat tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, and he assured his fellow students that frustration and mild chaos during and after a traumatizing event is not unusual. He compared the meeting to an after-action review, or AAR, in the Army, when everyone sits down for a debriefing to understand what has happened and what can be improved.
Reach Domenic Poli at:
dpoli@recorder.com or
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