Oct. 1, 2025

Dear Students,

Some of you have shared concerns about how we communicated with the campus during the investigation of safety threats on Tuesday. I want to take a moment to let you know our plan to improve communications moving forward, and to provide more details about what happened.

On Tuesday, we received a report about a “potential explosive device” near the Central Green. A series of UD Alerts was dispatched by the University of Delaware Police Department (UDPD) to notify our campus community about the situation. However, following distribution of the UD Alert all-clear communication, there was not effective follow-up from the University to share more information with the community about what happened. This resulted in more anxiety following an already distressing situation. Today, I asked to meet with the presidents of the Student Government Association and Graduate Student Government. We talked this afternoon about how to more effectively communicate with students in such situations in the future, including a timely post-situation debriefing that includes details about what happened and what actions were taken.

To that end, let me share more information about the incident that occurred and how our community responded.

• The University received a vague communication on Tuesday morning referencing experimentation with explosive devices in Gore Hall.
• Upon receipt of this message from an unknown and suspicious source, UDPD immediately directed the evacuation of areas of potential concern including Gore Hall (at 11:12 a.m.), and then later Mitchell Hall and Sharp Lab (at 11:45 a.m.) via the UD Alert emergency notification system.
• As UDPD proceeded, timely updates were provided on UD social media channels, relevant buildings and spaces were cleared and/or blocked off in a timely manner, and K-9 assistance was activated for potential apprehension of any suspicious people, devices or substances.
• Simultaneously, UDPD worked with local and federal agencies throughout the investigation, including the Delaware Information and Analysis Center for criminal intelligence, to analyze the accuracy of information.
• Following a thorough investigation, UDPD concluded that the report was unfounded.

I care about our community and our safety. When such situations arise, we can and will do better at explaining what we know and how we respond moving forward.

Yours in UD,

Laura Carlson
Interim President