Students Criticize Late Response

A day after the fatal shooting of a man in the Kirkland House Annex, students are returning to their exams amid lingering concerns over the initial University response to an incident that sent a wave of concern across campus.

Kirkland students interviewed by The Crimson yesterday described a period of confusion immediately following the incident, during which a variety of sources provided inconsistent or insufficient information.

The first University emergency text message alert, sent to subscribers nearly an hour after the shooting, was cut off by word-capacity constraints, reading: “Police ask people to remain indoors and avoi—”

Kirkland resident Gladisley Sanchez ’09 said she was unsure when she could leave her room. The text message, she said, was unclear and the first e-mailed communications from the university were “cryptic, vague and brief.”

“A lot of what I’ve learned has been through news sources,” said Kirkland Resident Elizabeth A. Cook ’10. “They should have informed us a lot earlier than they did.”

But Kirkland students were appreciative of the response from the Kirkland community. “The most reassuring thing that happened was the response of our house masters,” said Michael J. Chance ’10. “Their response was a lot more reassuring than anything higher up.”

But University administrators did reach out. Around 7:45 p.m., three hours after the shooting, University President Drew G. Faust arrived at Kirkland to speak with students—a decision that was lauded by House Master Tom Conley at yesterday’s meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Conley himself held a meeting last night in the Kirkland Junior Common room for students and representatives from a variety of University services to discuss the University response.

The meeting included representatives from Harvard University Police Department, the Harvard University Bureau of Study Counsel, and Institute of Politics Director and former Nashville mayor Bill Purcell, whom Conley said he invited because of his experience with coordination and dissemination of information.

During the meeting, students voiced their communication concerns, according to Conley.

Conley said he was working with the administration towards a better coordination of the messaging system, and a reconsideration of what sort of media might be best to communicate information in emergency circumstances.

But Conley, who sent an e-mail across the Kirkland e-mail list-serv as soon as he arrived at a computer following the incident, defended the University response yesterday.

“If a delay there was, it had to do with the dissemination of correct information and not speculation,” said Conley.

Students and representatives at yesterday’s Kirkland meeting also discussed security methods, such as video surveillance, which currently is absent from the House.

—Staff writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu.