2017-2018 Common Read Learning Activites

For background about Bomb Threats and Tear Gas at Mankato State College, read the following sections in Out of Chaos: 

1. Judith "Judy" Mans  (pp. 98-102)
2. Truman Wood  (pp. 168-169)
3. Jerome Zuckerman  (pp. 172-173)

A. On page 100, Judith "Judy" Mans talks about bomb threats that occurred on the Mankato campus in the 1970s.

1. Were any of the people who called in bomb threats identified?
2. Mans tells a story about Nickerson's office receiving a note under the door threatening a bomb threat.  Because of her position as Executive Assistant to President Nickerson, Judy Mans was instructed to lock the door and stay in the office, while other staff moved to different offices.
   • What would you have done in this situation?
   • What was Mans instructed to do if a bomb came in through the window?  Was this a joke or do you think it was good advice?

B. Professor of Political Science, Truman Wood talks about how bomb threats were received day after day.

1. Which building did Wood have to evacuate?
2. As bomb threats became common how did faculty and student behavior change?

C. Read the above article on pages 54-57 in the 1971 Katonian yearbook

1. Why were bomb threats taken seriously on the Mankato campus in 1971?
2. After six bomb threats in seven days what was the policy that President Nickerson developed to deal with further bomb threats?  Were faculty and students informed of the the threats? 
3. Did faculty and students have an option during a bomb threat to stay or evacuate a building?  Please explain.
4. Where were the bomb threat phone calls coming from?  Where were the mailed bomb threats coming from?

D. In his segment, Jerome Zuckerman, Professor of English, describes how he and his six students were in a classroom on the second floor of Armstrong analyzing the poetry of William Butler Yeats when a tear-gas canister was thrown into the first floor stairwell.

1. What did Zuckerman and his class do?
2. What would you have done?
3. What kind of triumph did Zuckerman attribute to their actions?

E. Read through the Bomb Threat web page on the Minnesota State University, Mankato website.

1. What should you do immediately after you receive a bomb threat?
2. If you receive or become aware of a bomb threat in a building on campus should you activate the red fire alarm box?  Please explain.
3. How far away from a building should you be once you evacuate?
4. What should you do with your phone as you evacuate a building?
5. What are some of the questions you should try to ask the caller of a bomb threat?
6. What other kind of information should record about bomb threat?