Murder in the Ivory Tower
University murders are not isolated brutal events. Fears ignited on campus compromise student learning and personal growth. When violence disrupts a campus, the integrity of education is violated. Anxieties and uncertainties brought by harassments and threats impair the welfare of faculty, staff, students, and their surrounding communities. This case traces intricacies and impacts of a graduate student’s harassment and violent threats to faculty and staff for nearly a year. There is no intention to summarize all aspects of the analysts’ report on which this case is based, including descriptions of 955 distinct events related directly to this murder. Rather, the objective of this case is to capture the evolution of information, judgments, decisions, and actions during a crisis, as well as the contextual impact of organizational culture and norms, and to provoke readers’ insights and judgment regarding crisis management successes and failures.
1. To assess signal detection cycle throughout the evolution of a real crisis, including ways in which the impacts of noticing, reporting, and response are co-dependent.
2. To recognize the breadth of stakeholders who impact a crisis, as well as actual and potential ranges of their impacts.
3. To explore the evolution of a crisis in a setting that personally impacts hundreds of millions of students, staff, and faculty worldwide.
4. To compare how crisis eruption, evolution, and impact can vary across cultural settings.
5. To reflect about how both hierarchical and bureaucratic information management norms can impact solving problems, and attending and discounting crises.
6. To evaluate the impact of fragmented approaches when organizational threat erupts.
