by Cento staff
Yesterday evening, on November 21st 2025, Centre College received a “a bomb threat with no specified location,” according to the alert sent out to campus.
Students were notified campus-wide at 9:40 PM and told to shelter in place at their dorm halls, but students were being evacuated from buildings before this alert came out.
The Centre Pride Association’s Pride Ball at the Warehouse was the first to be evacuated, at approximately 9:10 PM. During the event’s drag show segment, a CPA exec member told students to go back to their dorms immediately. Students were puzzled, and some even thought it was a part of the drag show. However, the exec member, alongside DPS director Barbara Hayes, reiterated the request over microphone. CPA executives were told it was “serious” and to “run.”
Other buildings which held late-working athletes, students doing homework, or tutoring sessions were also told to evacuate—such as Sutcliffe Hall, Grant Hall, and the Grace-Doherty Library.
Students evacuating reported seeing an abundance of police vehicles and firetrucks on Greek Row and around Bingham Hall. One student commented that there were “more cop cars than I knew Danville had, maybe six or eight lining the street down Greek Row.” Policemen were searching the outdoors with flashlights.
After about an hour of searching and approximately 30 minutes after the campus-wide alert, students were given an “all clear” at 10:12 PM to resume their regular activities. According to available information, “Danville Police now believe the threat is not credible.”
Despite the Pride ball being evacuated first, law enforcement have communicated with CPA exec to reassure them that the threat did not target them or their event specifically. Rather, since the building was holding an event with so many people, it was prioritized as the first site of evacuation.
Nonetheless, student reactions to the lockdown were mixed.
Some were frightened—especially those at the Pride ball. In particular, not being told what the situation entailed was unsettling. One student testifies: “Part of me wanted to turn off all the lights and hide in the bathroom because I knew there were no windows there. I don’t know what to do in a bomb threat. It felt safest to do what I’m used to, which is active shooter protocols.” Another student reports that they felt “really scared in the minute chance that a real bomb might be found or detonate.” As such, students began communicating with each other through group chats, checking in on each others’ wellbeing, trying to decide how to handle the situation. Even after being given the all clear, students were still feeling rattled. “Even knowing it was nothing, it was hard to sleep,” says one student.
Other students were confused and frustrated more than anything, especially in the absence of communication between the Pride ball’s shutdown and the initial campus-wide alert. One student says, “There was a lot of noise and rumors circulating, both in group chats I’m in as well as on YikYak … People were calling it a bomb threat, a prisoner escape, a convicted criminal … I’m glad the DPS alert cleared things up eventually, but it felt like people were spreading randomly overheard ideas as absolute fact. I didn’t know what to trust.” Another student, who was interrupted during a study session, was “annoyed,” and “concerned about it scaring [their] mom more than anything,” especially since they reported that these situations have never been dangerous in their experience.
In fact, some students were indifferent to the situation altogether. One student reports having felt “fine because [they] had two bomb threats in high school and [they] knew it was most likely a hoax.” Another student was “a bit scared, but thought it wasn’t anything serious.” Another student thought it was “so quick and so little resulted from it” that they “didn’t really feel anything.”
Even so, the way the situation unfolded gave some Pride ball attendees the impression that the bomb threat was targeting the CPA event. One student says it was their “first assumption” upon being asked to leave the Warehouse premises, which gave them a “pit of dread in [their] stomach.” Another student says that, upon leaving, “It felt really shameful, like everyone standing outside was wanting to see the ball be cancelled.” Another student agrees, saying, “The time was weird, because pretty much everything else but the IM game and the CPA ball was over. Coming outside and immediately seeing all the cop cars on Greek Row made it feel like it was specifically the CPA event.” While the college has reiterated that the bomb threat was “nonspecific” and “unspecified,” some still suspected it could be otherwise at the moment. However, as mentioned, CPA exec were later reassured that this was not the case.
Other students turned to the anonymous social media app, YikYak, to talk about the situation with levity, as some students were “unconcerned and joking about the whole thing,” according to one student. In the 30-minute lockdown period, posts were rapidly flowing. One student joked, “Is now a bad time to run the Flame?” Another student said, “Ik barb is on LOCK rn.” Other students joked about class cancellations the following day, with one student saying, “Centre would rather find and disassemble a bomb than cancel class.”
Unfortunately, Centre College is not the only college to be targeted by a hoax threat this semester. According to ABC7, just this past Wednesday, November 19th, the University of Southern California received a bomb threat which was determined to be a hoax. These sorts of threats have been affecting colleges across the country in the past months of October, September, and August. On October 1st, for instance, at least eleven colleges received a bomb threat, according to University Business—such as Alabama A&M University, Cleveland Institute of Art, Delaware State University, and others. In the past few months, West Virginia University, University of Colorado Boulder, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Arkansas, Iowa State University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the University of South Carolina, among others, have received threats as well, according to Time.
These threats have contained hoaxes about not only bombs but swatting and active shooters, with colleges sometimes receiving multiple false reports at once. Responding to these threats costs money and resources, and sometimes the threat can cause multiple institutions to respond at once. According to FOX News, these fake threats have cost $60 million dollars in campus operations, and have affected over one million students.
After Centre College determined there was no threat present, President Milton C. Moreland sent out an email thanking students, faculty and staff for their “calm and cooperation during the precautionary response to the nonspecific bomb threat we received earlier this evening.” The email emphasized that support is available for students feeling distressed after the experience, citing Centre Counseling.
The Cento echoes the college president’s sentiments, and is happy to act as a facilitator for students who wish to voice their opinions, experiences, and reflections about this frightening event. Please contact us at thecento.centre@gmail.com, or contact us through our Instagram messages at @thecento.centre.