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If these were actual combat drills, then yes, there would have been warnings e-mailed and posted well in advance of any such drill. This is standard protocol for any ROTC campus in the nation, and has been in place for decades.
But more than likely, such drills are actually held elswehere due to this very problem of people NOT reading or recalling said warnings. What she probably saw was something much more tame than she's describing: i.e. running/marching formations (drill and ceremony).
Any professor that has worked on any campus for any length of time would/should be aware of ROTC detachments and their potential to be seen everywhere. We once repelled off the sides of the taller buildings on campus as part of our training, and even allowed (at certain times) other students and professors to try it from more safer heights.
I'm sorry, but depending on how long she's been working there at UND, she should have experienced this already. The fact that she panicked either comes from a complete lack of awareness of her surroundings for most of her waking day, a burning desire to be seen as anti-military as possible, no recall that this has been occurring on college campuses far longer than she's been alive (probably), or... Hell, half a dozen other things that illustrate her incompetence in being in academia.
To defend her actions is ludicrous... unless you share her afflictions.
The Air Force base is at Minot and that's not exactly right next door to Grand Forks. Your point is well taken though in that there IS a university in Minot (Minot State) where there's a whole campus full of traumatized professors.
The AFB in Grand Forks just west of town is still in operation and is a UAS hub.
UPDATE: UND spokesman Peter Johnson just sent this in response to a request for information about how ROTC exercises are noticed on campus:
We did send an email notifying all students, faculty and staff that ROTC would be holding exercises throughout the spring in the Quad (or Mall) portion of campus (ROTC holds these exercises in the fall and the spring). But we recognize that the notification wasn’t sufficient. The University will now send a campus notification before each exercise, and we will also notify the faculty member each time there will be exercises. We provide a safe environment for our students, faculty and staff, but in this instance we could have done a better job of helping students and employees know that this was a safe training exercise.
UPDATE: UND spokesman Peter Johnson just sent this in response to a request for information about how ROTC exercises are noticed on campus:
We did send an email notifying all students, faculty and staff that ROTC would be holding exercises throughout the spring in the Quad (or Mall) portion of campus (ROTC holds these exercises in the fall and the spring). But we recognize that the notification wasn’t sufficient.The University will now send a campus notification before each exercise, and we will also notify the faculty member each time there will be exercises. We provide a safe environment for our students, faculty and staff, but in this instance we could have done a better job of helping students and employees know that this was a safe training exercise.
This is the issue... You can hang signs all over the north rim of the Grand Canyon stating the climbing on the rails is forbidden and dangerous, but you'll always a significant portion of the population that are so completely oblivious to the world around them - so self-centered that they can't/won't see anything that distracts them from themselves - that more warnings are needed. Like having to put warnings on hair dryer, telling people not to use them in bathtubs/showers.
I would venture that the email was sufficient enough, with a proper heading letting the reader know the importance of the message. I would also virtually guarantee the professor deleted it as soon as she saw from where the email came. Thus, she's at fault - not the ROTC commander - for not getting the warning. But for PC purposes, they will have to up the notifications to "annoying" levels for... ahh... "people" like this professor to be fairly warned.
Of course, now that she's been warned, the continued calling of 911 should result in here arrest and termination.
Such stupidity and belligerence should not be tolerated by either the university of the law enforcement officials.
Just wondering where you got that info? It's not in the link in the OP, which is just a letter from the professor (and I suspect most posters to this thread didn't even READ it).
She saw 2 people in camo fatigues WITH GUNS on her college campus. That is rather crucial info that you left out of that sentence.
(To those of you who are calling her a "whack job" or a "loon" or the like: assume your kid is away at college, and he looks out his dorm window and sees 2 people with guns ... should he do anything?)
I usually crosscheck these articles because they tend to be more inflammatory than they actually are. “We did send an email notifying all students, faculty and staff that ROTC would be holding exercises throughout the spring in the Quad portion of campus."
In this case, I will stand by my statement that the professor is a loon. I know it sounds mean, but the shoe fits, and I will explain why it does indeed fit:
ROTC and wearing Military uniforms are a common sight on most College campuses. There aren't tons of them but they aren't exactly a rare sight. They are not at all difficult to recognize. Drilling is a common practice for them, including drilling with guns. Furthermore, it isn't difficult to recognize soldiers drilling. I didn't serve, and didn't grow up in a military family, and I (and most people) can recognize it easily.
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