By ANDY GARDNER

POTSDAM -- About 100 SUNY Potsdam students demonstrated on Monday in protest of what they see as an inadequate response to security concerns and racial tension on campus, sparked by a recent death threat against a black professor, according to school spokesperson Alex Jacobs.

“Yesterday, a passionate group of students of color … joined together and held an impromptu demonstration,” she said. “To my eyes as I was following them around I’d probably say 100 if you add them all together, at one time 50 or so.”

She wouldn’t say if there was a particular student or students leading the effort.

“It seems like a grassroots student effort,” Jacobs said. “We have not seen [college-sponsored student clubs] formally backing this. I’m sure there are maybe some of those members who are part of it.

“I think many of them are tapped into national movements, Black Lives Matter, other campus movements throughout the country.”

The group marched through campus to the registrar’s office where they requested documents necessary to transfer out, then marched to Dean of Students Chip Morris’ office.

“There were requests for transcripts, which they received,” Jacobs said. “They went to Chip, spoke about their needs and the fact that many of them feel their security is threatened.

“We want to hear their concerns, we want to respond to their concerns.”

She said Pres. Kristin Esterberg met the students in the Barrington Student Union and talked with them as a whole and in smaller groups for two hours.

On Nov. 24, SUNY Potsdam officials said a message described as a racist, homophobic death threat had been discovered directed at Prof. John Youngblood and the larger campus community. Youngblood had received similar threats in the spring. A former student, Amjad Hussein, was arrested charged Nov. 12 with felony harassment as a hate crime.

“My family and I are devastated. That’s the best I can tell you. We are simply going through the pain of processing another death threat,” Youngblood said Tuesday. “We are a close campus. The students’ response and support has been overwhelming, as it usually is. And so has the support from my colleagues as well.”

The threats come at a time where SUNY Potsdam is enrolling markedly increased numbers of minority students. The number of freshmen who identify as non-white has grown from 18 percent in 2010 to 42 percent this year.

Jacobs said the school has been looking at beefing up University Police’s presence on the campus. SUNY police officers have authority to conduct investigations and make arrests just as state troopers do.

She said the school has ordered more UP officers on duty, as well as requested retired officers to return in a security officer role, and are requesting others to come help from surrounding campuses, such as SUNY Canton.

“We’ve put in a formal request with SUNY to get other officers from other campus to bolster security, possibly today,” Jacobs said.

She said federal authorities, including the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, are now involved, along with state and local police

“The third note, like the other two, included … more general vague threats against students of color, LGBT students and in general against people of the liberal political persuasion,” Jacobs said.

“I have full faith in the UPD and state police investigating,” Youngblood said. “They are easily accessible for me and I have full faith in the job they're doing.”

Jacobs said police did not deem the threat to be an imminent event, such as when SUNY Canton canceled classes and locked down their campus last year after a threat was made on the social media app Yik Yak to shoot at students in classrooms.

“It’s abhorrent, it’s awful. It didn’t have that level of information deemed an imminent threat by law enforcement when they do their threat assessment,” Jacobs said. “Students of color and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), they feel particularly worried about what’s been [happening] on campuses across the country. Many of them feel scared and uncomfortable … many students are looking over their shoulders and wondering at who may have done this thing.”

She said police are looking at Hussein as a possible suspect.

“Clearly, one of those leads is a person of interest would be the person arrested for those last two hate notes,” she said.

SUNY officials are sending their chief diversity officer, Carlos Medina, to discuss security and the overall response to the threats with school heads.

Medina is also to attend a town hall forum today addressing the threat and campus racial tension, Jacobs said.

“SUNY has offered their full support. He will assess the security on campus, the response to the investigation, help us understand what we may do to help students be welcome and safe here,” Jacobs said. “We’re looking at what we can do, to roll out in response to their (students’) concerns.”