Pomona College officials spoke to a small group of students at Rose Hills Theater Monday regarding the college’s response to three separate indecent exposure incidents that occurred on Saturday morning, Sept. 18, and Monday, Sept. 20.

The speakers present—Pomona’s Vice President and Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum, Associate Dean of Students for Student Development and Leadership Daren Mooko, Dean of Campus Life Ric Townes, Director of Campus Safety Shahram Ariane, and Director of the Monsour Center Dr. Fiona Vajk—responded to audience members’ concerns about the college’s and Campus Safety’s effectiveness in keeping students notified about the events throughout the weekend. They also drew attention to innovations in notification and security procedures enacted in reaction to the events.

Some audience members said they felt the early reports were unhelpful, and criticized the tardiness of the notifications. Three incidents occurred in total: two early Saturday morning and one Monday morning. Students received a text message Saturday night and an e-mail Sunday morning, both of which warned students of an “indecent exposure suspect,” with a physical description and a warning to keep dorm rooms locked.

Feldblum sent out another e-mail on Wednesday, Sept. 22, revealing that the suspect involved in the incidents was a Pomona student, and that the student had been arrested by the Claremont Police Department (CPD).

The speakers defended the college’s handling of the situation, arguing that the notification process had been constrained by the timing of police discoveries and the procedure of the CPD.

“Our investigative part took a back seat to the police,” said Feldblum, explaining that she was not even aware of an active police investigation until Sunday.

Mooko also informed the audience that it was not until Tuesday afternoon that the identity of the suspect was confirmed by an eyewitness, providing evidence to justify decisive disciplinary action and disclosure of the individual’s identity.

However, Anna Bax PO ‘13, a member of the Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault, was concerned about the coordination of the college and police responses to the incidents.

“I appreciate that [the college] had this meeting, even if not a lot of people came,” Bax said, “but I think [the speakers] deferred a little bit too much to the CPD.”

The presenters brought attention to the administration’s current efforts to centralize the incident notification process, a change intended to rectify the supposed inefficiency of the college’s response.

From now on, incident notification will be left largely in the hands of Campus Safety, which can send messages to all five colleges at once, rather than to each individual college separately.

“Now, at a couple of keystrokes, ten thousand people can know of something,” Ariane said.

Additionally, the speakers said that students subjected to residence hall suspension will no longer have card access to residence halls. This policy change is in response to the fact that Derek Lowenberg, the student who was arrested in connection with the indecent exposure incidents, had card access to the dormitories despite having received residence hall suspension as a result of previous, unspecified acts.

However, some audience members expressed a lack of confidence that the proposed policy changes satisfactorily addressed defects in the notification system.

“People need to know what the school does when legal proceedings are going on,” said Eliane Smith PO ‘12, a member of the Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault. “How does the college interact with the police department in these situations?”