The
The Award-Winning Grove City College Student Newspaper
Collegian
Grove City locks down
Friday, Oct. 3, 2025 Vol. 111 No. 5
From skeptic to speaker Olivia Petty
Contributing Writer
JOSIAH DETRICH
Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) members answer a ‘swatting’ call Sunday claiming there is a gunman on campus.
‘Swatting’ call prompts lockdown
False report forces students to evacuate public buildings on campus Matthew Purucker News Editor
KETURAH BLASER
A report of a man with a gun near Buhl Library disrupted Sunday afternoon on campus, drawing a heavy police presence, scrambling students around the area and leading to a three-hour lockdown. Grove City Police received the call at 3:55 p.m. and dispatched officers, who arrived on campus a few minutes later alongside Pennsylvania State Police from Butler, Mercer and New Castle. After searching across campus and reviewing security camera footage, police found “no evidence of an active shooter, or victims or witness-
es claiming an active shooter was ever present at the library” and said the incident is “believed to be a computer-generated swatting call,” according to a Pennsylvania State Police news release. Swatting is the act of making a false emergency call to police to draw law enforcement to a location, usually with the intent of causing chaos and harm, as well as distracting or wasting police resources. “We could not be more thankful for how quickly these local resources arrived or how well they all worked together to bring this to a swift conclusion,” Director of Campus Safety Seth Van Til said. Soon after arriving, Grove
Coca-Cola CEO gives Sticht Lecture Matthew Purucker News Editor
J. Frank Harrison III, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, gave the annual Sticht Memorial Lecture in Business and Ethics on Sept. 24 in Sticht Lecture Hall. Harrison spoke to students and other attendees about how the role of Christian faith and volunteer service interacts with the bottling company’s business vision and practices. “Just walk in God’s purpose for your life. … That is true success, whatever that is, and you’ve got to figure that out,” Harrison said. “But go be incredibly successful, walking in your purpose, and then I promise you, you will leave a powerful legacy.” Harrison began the lecture by discussing Open Eyes, a
Christian service organization which aims to plant churches, provide relief and development and spread Christianity in East Africa. Harrison’s son, James, inspired Harrison to help found the organization after he died while serving as a missionary. “We (Open Eyes) travel to the most remote parts of the world, remote Sudan, Tajikistan. We go back in these villages,” Harrison said. “They had no idea who Jesus is, but they’re back there drinking a Coke. How does that work? If they can get that answer, I mean, the world would be evangelized.” Harrison emphasized the necessity of a good corporate culture and the company’s chaplaincy program for its employees, highlighting how it has improved lives. He also reiterated the value of stew-
GCC
Coca-Cola CEO J. Frank Harrison III addresses students in Sticht.
Former atheist and environmental activist Paul Kingsnorth will visit Grove City College on Tuesday as the keynote speaker of the annual Christian Writers Conference. Kingsnorth will expound upon his faith and writing in an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English, in the Breen Student Union Great Room at 3:30 p.m. He will lecture at 7 p.m. in Harbison Chapel with an 8 p.m. reception and book signing following in Rathburn Great Room. Faced with the opportunity to host a writer admired for his “moral seriousness and intellectual acuity” in the words of Bilbro, the college elected to host the event a semester early. After meeting Kingsnorth at a conference in Wisconsin in 2023, Bilbro hoped to invite him to the college, and two years later, Kingsnorth’s book tour will bring him to campus. Arriving in the wake of the last guest, the well-known Andrew Peterson, Kingsnorth’s conference may find it hard to stand out. Although Peterson focused on the relationship between people and the natural world, Kingsnorth will examine the relationship between people and AI, according to junior English major Sophia Pelsue. “Most fields are and will continue to be changed by AI and its uses,” Pelsue said. “It’s easy to get sucked into technology and the ways it makes life easier (to our detriment). Kingsnorth could help clearly line out the dangers of AI and specifically the human aspect of relations to technology.” Kingsnorth ran into God while thinking he was running away, forsaking diverse religious pursuits and a life of activism as he admitted in his article, “The Cross and the Machine.” Kingsnorth would say he had nothing to do with this transformation. “I only knew that I could argue a good case for the injustice of the world made by this ‘God,’ and the silliness of miracles, resurrections and virgin births. I knew I was cleverer than all the people who believed this sort of rubbish, and I was happy to tell them so,” Kingsnorth admits in his book, “The Cross and the Machine.” A life of activism burned Kingsnorth out. He began to consider not just how to respond to the treatment of the earth but also how to improve it, according to Bilbro. “In the Kingdom of Man, the seas are ribboned with plastic, the forests are burning, the cities bulge with billionaires and tented camps, and still we kneel before the idol of the great god Economy as it grows and grows like a cancer cell,” Kingsnorth said. “And what if this ancient faith is not an obstacle after all, but a way through?” In a life made dangerously effortless by technology, it is tempting to stray from natural lifestyles. Kingsnorth will seek to answer that concern.
Wolverines best the Barons
Under the lights
Striking the right balance
Check out photos from last week’s night game.
A student considers technology’s uses and drawbacks. Women’s tennis improves to 5-0 in conference play.
THROUGH THE LENS 6 & 7
PERSPECTIVES 8
SPORTS 12