Columbine. Virginia Tech. The utterance of these names continue to bring up emotions of sadness, anger and fear. In April of this year, the Department of Public Safety and university administrators developed a safety plan to ensure that quick, responsive and university-wide communication would take place in case a similar incident occurred on Marquette's campus.

Then, around 3 p.m. on Nov. 18, a man armed with a knife and a hand grenade entered campus and threatened students. The students called DPS and reported the incident. Within minutes, DPS and Milwaukee Police Department were on the scene. At about 7 p.m., MPD arrested the man and informed DPS. The Marquette Tribune reported that DPS was in the process of issuing a Safety Alert when they were informed of the arrest.

Four hours. An armed and dangerous man was on campus for four hours and the majority of campus was left in the dark.

That evening, all the major news stations covered the story. Monday morning, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article describing the incident. Tuesday, the Marquette campus finally read about it in the Marquette Tribune. No special text message, no special University News Brief. No contact from Marquette at all.

As a student, I am disgusted that university administrators allowed this incident to go so long without informing students. Even after the Tribune article, there was no mention of the incident in Wednesday's University News Briefs. This past Thanksgiving, I was thankful this man did not harm any member of our community; a stroke of luck considering any number of our 11,000 students, not to mention faculty and staff, could have lost their lives.