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KBIA 91.3 FM will be at low power for a portion of the day on 3/29/2024 starting at 9:30 a.m. to accommodate a tower crew doing some maintenance on equipment

As University 'Turbulence' Continues, Some Professors Excuse Students from Class

  University of Missouri leadership released a mass campus email Wednesday afternoon stating in part “Our campus has experienced significant turbulence, and many within our community have suffered threats against their lives and humanity. These threats are reprehensible. “

In a separate statement to media, leadership added that currently, there are no threats to campus safety, and that MUalert.missouri.edu is the only campus source for emergency information.

The statements followed a tense day on MU campus Wednesday, as many students did not attend class following an anonymous online threat against black students at the university. Some instructors cancelled classes or said there would be no penalty for missing class.

Alicia Alviles Quinones is an assistant teaching professor in the romance language department at Mizzou. She says some students sent her emails detailing the threats last night.

"I think that the series of emails that the students started forwarding me last night were strange and made me concerned and dismayed at the same time," she explained. "So if they don’t feel safe, and I don’t feel safe, I think it was the right thing to tell them that they wouldn’t be penalized for being absent."

Early Wednesday morning, MU Police arrested Hunter Park in Rolla, Mo. for making a terroristic threat on social networking site Yik Yak, but did not confirm what threat is attributed to Hunter.

Sara Shahriari was the assistant news director at KBIA-FM, and she holds a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. Sara hosted and was executive producer of the PRNDI award-winning weekly public affairs talk show Intersection. She also worked with many of KBIA’s talented student reporters and teaches an advanced radio reporting lab. She previously worked as a freelance journalist in Bolivia for six years, where she contributed print, radio and multimedia stories to outlets including Al Jazeera America, Bloomberg News, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, Deutsche Welle and Indian Country Today. Sara’s work has focused on mental health, civic issues, women’s and children’s rights, policies affecting indigenous peoples and their lands and the environment. While earning her MA at the Missouri School of Journalism, Sara produced the weekly Spanish-language radio show Radio Adelante. Her work with the KBIA team has been recognized with awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and PRNDI, among others, and she is a two-time recipient of funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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