Campus Alert Archive
Purdue

Schleman Hall's Two-Hour Evacuation: Purdue's Quiet September 2015 Bomb Threat

INbomb threatemergency notificationmedium confidence

On the morning of September 23, 2015, Purdue University Police responded to a bomb threat at Schleman Hall of Student Services, an academic-services building on Purdue's West Lafayette campus. Police and fire crews arrived around 11:45 AM CDT, evacuated the building, and conducted a two-hour sweep. PurdueALERT messages directed students and staff to avoid the building and follow shelter instructions. After roughly two hours, no explosive device was located and the building was reopened.

Alerts
3
Response
5 min
Killed
—
Injured
—
Institution
Purdue University
Public R1 · IN
~41,000 studentsPurdueALERT
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstruction141 chars
PurdueALERT: Bomb threat at Schleman Hall. Evacuate Schleman Hall immediately. Avoid the area. Police and fire responding. Updates to follow.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed from Fox 59 reporting that Purdue PD and Fire responded to Schleman Hall around 11:45 AM and that PurdueALERTs were issued
PurdueALERT SMS messages are typically very short (~160 characters) to fit pre-2017 carrier constraints
Schleman Hall houses the Office of the Registrar and admissions/student-services functions; evacuating it during the academic day disrupts hundreds of staff and student interactions
Initial PurdueALERT messages name the building and the threat type but not the specific location of the suspected device
UPDATESMS
Approximate reconstruction191 chars
PurdueALERT: Schleman Hall remains evacuated as police and fire continue to search the building. Avoid the surrounding area. Other campus buildings unaffected — classes continue as scheduled.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed from Fox 59's note that the investigation lasted about two hours total
The 'other campus buildings unaffected — classes continue as scheduled' framing is essential on a 41,000-student R1 where most students never see Schleman Hall on a typical day
Sending an update after about an hour reassures students that the absence of further news is not bad news
ALL CLEARSMS
Approximate reconstructionReconstructed from Fox 59 reporting that Purdue PD and Fire finished their investigation after about two hours and found no device157 chars
PurdueALERT: All clear at Schleman Hall. Police and fire have completed their search. No device was found. Building is reopened. Thank you for your patience.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Per Fox 59, the all-clear was issued after about two hours of investigation — consistent with a single-building bomb-threat sweep without a found device
PurdueALERT all-clears are concise — explicitly state 'No device was found' to short-circuit rumor
No arrest was publicly announced in the immediate aftermath
Context

Background

On September 23, 2015, Purdue University Police and Fire responded to a bomb threat at Schleman Hall of Student Services on the West Lafayette campus. The building was evacuated around 11:45 AM CDT, with PurdueALERTs sent via SMS, email, and Twitter directing students and staff to avoid the area. Schleman Hall houses Purdue's Office of the Registrar, admissions, and other student-services operations — a high-foot-traffic but academically peripheral building whose evacuation disrupted services without canceling classes elsewhere. Police and fire conducted a two-hour sweep, found no device, and reopened the building in the afternoon. The case is a quiet but representative example of an R1 single-building bomb-threat response: the PurdueALERT system sends campus-wide notifications even for localized incidents, the standard three-message arc (initial + update + all-clear) is preserved, and academic operations elsewhere on the 41,000-student campus continue without disruption. The 2015 Schleman Hall incident sits between Purdue's January 2014 Andrew Boldt shooting in the Electrical Engineering Building and later bomb threats targeting the campus, illustrating how a single university's alert system handles a spectrum of incident severity over a multi-year window.
Analysis

Key Findings

Schleman Hall houses Purdue's Registrar and admissions operations; evacuating it disrupts student services without affecting classes elsewhere
PurdueALERT's three-message arc (initial + update + all-clear) is preserved even for a single-building, two-hour investigation
Other campus buildings explicitly continued operations during the evacuation — an important framing on a 41,000-student R1
Two-hour sweep duration is consistent with a single-building bomb-threat investigation without a found device
No public arrest was announced in the immediate aftermath; investigation referred to Purdue PD and federal partners
Outcome
Schleman Hall evacuated for approximately two hours. No device found, no injuries. Building reopened in the afternoon. Investigation referred to Purdue PD and federal partners; no public arrest was announced.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Purdue University police and fire finish investigation regarding bomb threat on campus, nothing found — Fox 59 (September 23, 2015)
    fox59.com
  2. Official
    PurdueALERT — Emergency Preparedness and Planning (Purdue University)
    purdue.edu
  3. Official
    Emergency Procedures Guide — Emergency Preparedness and Planning (Purdue University)
    purdue.edu
Tags
bomb-threatevacuationpurdueschleman-hallpurduealertpublic-r1indianasingle-buildingfalse-alarmseptember-2015
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion