LEWISTON – Like other students, Aimil Parmelee is sick and tired of bomb threats prompting evacuations and canceled classes at the University of Southern Maine and Lewiston-Auburn College.

“It’s very frustrating,” Parmelee of Westbrook said. “Most of my classes are behind. We’re not going to finish on time.”

Students and faculty expressed frustration about bomb threats when they met Tuesday with Joe Austin, USM dean of Student Life, at the Lewiston-Auburn College.

Since February there have been six bomb threats at the USM in Portland that canceled classes. The last one was Monday. The Lewiston-Auburn College has had three. Monday’s bomb threat did not close the Lewiston campus.

Bomb threats not only postpone classes, they cause chaos and disrupt student study groups that are supposed to meet and work after class, Parmelee complained.

She asked Austin, are there plans to help students organize after a bomb threat?

Other students asked:

Why can’t teachers teach online after a bomb threat?

Why can’t teachers collect student papers at police barricades?

How much in lost tuition is this costing?

Why all of a sudden is there an increase in bomb threats?

What do other universities do when plagued by bomb threats?

In part, Austin responded: Not all faculty members are able to teach online, but other alternatives are being considered. He didn’t have a cost analysis of lost tuition, but said the overall costs from bomb threats “is huge.”

Safety is the top concern. “The bomb threats are all taken seriously,” Austin said.

USM is checking with other universities to see how they’ve handled bomb threats, he said.

Austin said he doesn’t know why USM campuses are being hit with what so far have been false bomb threats.

“The bottom line is we don’t know if it’s one person or multiple people,” Austin said. “In other places there is a rash. We’re not alone. It feels like we’re alone now.”

So far, there have been no arrests.

Police and the FBI are investigating and do have leads, Austin said. There is a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, Austin said, offering the phone number people should call with information: 753-6595.

At the L-A College when there’s an evacuation, faculty and students are told to leave by word of mouth. Someone comes to every classroom announcing there’s been a bomb threat, everyone must take their belongings and leave. But at one bomb scare, people in offices were missed and stayed inside for hours, one woman pointed out.

Dan Philbrick, director of information, media and Web services for L-A College, said there isn’t money for an intercom system at the college, which is why people must go room by room and tell everyone to leave.

Missing people in some rooms has been identified as a problem, Philbrick said, adding that after a bomb threat he and others go over procedures to see what could be improved.

Austin asked the group what action would they like to see happen?

“String them up,” one student said of whoever is calling in the threats.

Austin agreed that everyone is tired of the bomb threats. At the beginning they were a disruption. “As it goes on they’re much more than that.”