We are in our darkest hour.

While most consider recent events on campus (namely, the resignations of UM System President Tim Wolfe and MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin) a victory, the coming days and weeks will bring threats, uncertainty and questions about student safety. Tuesday night alone, there were multiple gun threats, rumors of the Ku Klux Klan on campus and several Greek organizations were on lockdown, among several other concern-raising rumors and threats.

And what did the university have to say about it? Three tweets from the @MUAlert Twitter handle in a four-hour span.

Have they learned nothing at all? Missouri just watched its system president resign due in part to an inability to communicate with students. And with threats running rampant some 36 hours later, administration failed its student body once again.

I want to let the university’s online emergency information center know this: It’s OK to get annoying. Strike that; I beg you. Get annoying.

It doesn’t bother me if I see updates every five minutes, even if it’s the same status as five minutes before. I’d rather know. This institution prides itself in its School of Journalism, and builds much of its early curriculum around shoving the importance of social media down students’ throats. But how do they respond when hours of uncertainty and threats hang over campus?

Three tweets.

Tell students the details: Do you have cops on the scene? Where are the cops? Are there certain areas to avoid? Should students stay inside? How do you plan on proceeding? Are more cops on the way, or is everything completely normal?

And if you don’t know, learn. And tell students how you’re going about figuring it out. Because when lives are even possibly at stake, students need to feel like they have a friend in their university. Like everything’s going to be taken care of. And if everything’s not going to be taken care of, then there’s a bigger issue at hand and some administrators need to get a reality check.

Michael Natelli
natellimedia@gmail.com