Campus Alert Archive
Rhodes

Bomb threat empties an already quiet pre-holiday campus

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On Saturday evening, November 22, 2025, Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee received a bomb threat that triggered an immediate campus lockdown and building evacuations. Memphis police arrived around 6:20 PM CST and conducted a thorough sweep with Campus Safety. No explosive devices were found. Because the campus was nearly empty ahead of Thanksgiving break, only a small number of people were affected. The threat remained under active police investigation.

Alerts
3
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
Rhodes College
Private Liberal Arts · TN
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Rhodes Alerts
Official alert policy
Read when and how Rhodes says it will use Rhodes Alert: summarized, quoted, and analyzed.
Documented Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

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Some messages in this sequence are documented (their existence, timing, and channel are sourced) but their exact wording is not preserved in the public record. Those entries appear as placeholders; only confirmed text is displayed.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Wording not yet recovered

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ALL CLEARSMS
Wording not yet recovered

A message was sent at this point in the sequence; its exact wording has not yet been recovered from the official record, so no text is shown. This site never paraphrases or reconstructs alert wording. Markers like this one keep the emergency's true shape and become word-for-word messages as recovery reaches the source.

FOLLOW-UPEmail
Verified verbatim2066 chars
Dear Rhodes Community I am writing to update you about the bomb threat we received last Saturday evening, November 22. An unknown individual called Campus Safety and stated there was a bomb on campus. Campus Safety took immediate action to notify the community, evacuate our buildings, secure law enforcement backup, and conduct a comprehensive sweep of every campus building. I am very grateful for their calm and quick response. As part of Campus Safety’s comprehensive and regular training program, officers had recently attended the FBI’s training program on bomb threats and swatting calls, so they were well prepared and knew exactly how to proceed. I am also very grateful to the MPD, FBI, ATF, and the many local police departments who responded so quickly to assist us and help with the search. The FBI is taking the lead on the investigation and I will share additional information if they are able to identify a suspect, although the individual appears to have used a spoof number originating from thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, bomb threat hoaxes and false reports of active shooters have plagued dozens of college campuses this fall, including at Centre College the day before we received our call and at the University of Tennessee Knoxville earlier this fall. If you have any information about our threat, please contact Campus Safety immediately so they can pass the information on to the FBI. These kinds of events can be extremely disruptive and anxiety-inducing. If you need support processing your emotions related to this event, mental health support is available to students 24 hours a day at 855-850-4301, and the Student Counseling Center is available Monday for drop-ins in Moore Moore Hall until 5 p.m. to provide counseling and support services for students. Faculty and staff may contact Concern 24/7 at 901-458-4000. This service is free and confidential. Thank you all for responding so calmly and thoughtfully in this challenging situation. I wish you all the best with the end of the semester. Jennifer Collins President
Verify this quote
Rhodes College Critical Campus Safety Communications: President Jennifer Collins letter on the November 22 bomb threatrhodes.edufind archived copies
2026-09-13 catch-up b23 P2 .edu. Dual HTML extract of the Dear Rhodes Community letter through Jennifer Collins / President. Independent second-blind sha agreement. Seq 1-2 reconstructed Campus Safety alerts stay unconfirmed. First burst not newly confirmed: no 25-pass.
Context

Background

Rhodes College, a private liberal arts institution with approximately 2,000 students located in the Midtown neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee, received a bomb threat on the evening of Saturday, November 22, 2025, shortly before Thanksgiving break. A campus dispatcher received the threat from an unknown person. The college immediately placed the campus on lockdown and evacuated buildings. Memphis police arrived at approximately 6:20 PM CST and conducted a systematic sweep of campus. No explosive devices were found. Because the campus was nearly deserted ahead of the holiday break, the incident affected only a small number of people who were on campus. Rhodes Alerts uses Blackboard Connect to simultaneously text, email, and call students, faculty, and staff during emergencies. The threat remained under police investigation; no suspect was announced in the immediate reporting. The timing -- pre-Thanksgiving weekend, with minimal campus population -- is a known vulnerability window for bomb threats at small residential colleges.
Analysis

Key Findings

Pre-holiday timing with near-empty campus conditions significantly reduced the operational complexity of the bomb threat response and the number of community members directly affected
Rhodes Alerts via Blackboard Connect illustrates the standard small-college mass notification approach: a single platform covering SMS, email, and voice simultaneously
This is the second Rhodes College case in the archive, alongside the 2021 Drew Rainer home invasion murder -- illustrating distinct threat types affecting a small liberal arts college in an urban environment
Outcome
No explosive devices found. Campus cleared and reopened. Investigation ongoing as of the initial reporting.
Provenance

Sources

Every claim on this page is meant to be checkable. Open the links below (and the Verify this quote control under each confirmed alert) to read the original university, news, or archive page yourself. Hostnames are shown so you can see where you are going; archived copies survive when live pages move or disappear. See also our methodology.

  1. News
    Rhodes College receives bomb threat, no explosive devices found (Fox13 Memphis)
    fox13memphis.com
    archived copy
  2. News
    Bomb threat reported at Rhodes College, no explosive devices found (WREG Memphis)
    wreg.com
    archived copy
  3. Official
    Critical Campus Safety Communications (Rhodes College)
    rhodes.edu
    archived copy
Cite this case

Campus Alert Archive. "Rhodes College: Bomb threat empties an already quiet pre-holiday campus." Incident of November 22, 2025. Added May 2026; last updated September 2026. https://campusalertarchive.com/case/rhodes-college-bomb-threat-2025-11-22/

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Alert text quoted on this page remains the work of the issuing institution; the archive is a secondary source.

Tags
bomb-threatevacuationno-device-foundthanksgivingmemphistennesseeprivate-liberal-artsblackboard-connectpre-holiday
Added May 2026Updated September 2026Via ingestion