SOMERVILLE — Exams were postponed and several buildings were closed and searched at Tufts University after someone set a school employee’s car on fire and left a threatening note near the blaze early Monday morning. 
 
 Authorities responded to the burning car, parked behind the student health services center on Professors Row, around 4:45 a.m., officials said. 
 
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 The note, found shortly afterward hanging on a door on the side of the building, stated there were bombs in Cabot Hall, Braker Hall, Cohen Auditorium, and Tisch Library, officials said. The note also drew a link between the fiery vehicle and contentious negotiations between Tufts administrators, a private contractor, and union custodial workers. 
 
 State Police spokesman David Procopio said an investigation into the threats and the fire, and whether they were related, was ongoing, but the incident was being treated as a suspected arson. 
 
 All the buildings reopened just before 2 p.m., but only after many students missed exams, which will be rescheduled. 
 
 Ceili Hale, who lives off campus but around the corner from where investigators gathered to inspect the car fire, said she woke up to a series of e-mails from school officials that warned students to stay away from certain buildings and remain in their dormitories. 
 
 “I thought it was someone who didn’t want to do finals,” said Hale, a junior. “But I guess it was a lot more serious than that.” 
 
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 The investigation is being handled by State Police, the state fire marshal’s office, and Somerville, Medford, and Tufts police. Boston police K-9 units and agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were also at the scene. 
 
 Mary Jeka, senior vice president of university relations, said during a press conference that the school had received “confidential information” on Sunday that there would be a “disruption” of some kind on campus. The tip made no mention of a specific threat and was forwarded to police, she said. 
 
 EVAN SAYLES FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE Firefighters extinguished a car fire Monday at Tufts University. 
 
 Jeka acknowledged that the message on the door of the health services building made reference to janitors on campus. 
 
 Last year, the school reorganized its janitorial employees in response to recommendations from the company that runs the workforce, she said. 
 
 “It is not at all clear that that is the reason for this action,’’ Jeka told reporters. 
 
 “I really don’t want to make a statement and to tie what happened this morning to any current issue like that until the law enforcement has had the time to investigate it,” she said. 
 
 The union that represents the janitors and a student group that supported the janitors said they were appalled. 
 
 “This goes completely contrary to what we stand for,” said Roxana Rivera, vice president of Service Employees International Union 32BJ. “Our job is to peacefully advocate for working families, so we’re saddened by these events.” 
 
 A leader from the Tufts Labor Coalition, the student group, said it was in no way involved. 
 
 “I was shocked . . . Tufts Labor Coalition had absolutely no part in this,’’ said Anna Gaebler. “We find this tactic to be absolutely reprehensible and antithetical to our mission as a group.’’ 
 
 Classes concluded last week at Tufts, but many students were still on campus to take final exams and prepare for commencement later this month. 
 
 Greg Berumen, a freshman, said he was hoping to take one of his last tests to help boost his final grade, but he understood the need to put the exam on hold as police investigated. He was dismayed by the threats. 
 
 “It was a little alarming and kind of scary,” he said. 
 
 Senior Walker Kehoe had two exams scheduled on Monday. One of them, he said, was canceled, so he opted to play soccer with a friend on the field adjacent to where officials were investigating the car fire. 
 
 “It’s kind of inconvenient,” he said, unsure of when he could make up the test. “I’m ready to be done with school.” 
 
 More from the scene: 
 
 Dina Rudick/Globe staff Tufts University said a car fire was discovered Monday in the back of 124 Professors Row, and a note containing a bomb threat was also found near the scene. 
 
 Boston Police at Tufts with K-9 unit pic.twitter.com/lKwgJPPlKF — Steve Annear (@steveannear) May 9, 2016 ||||| Crews responding to a car fire at Tufts University on Monday morning found a suspicious note containing threats to several school buildings. (Published Monday, May 9, 2016) 
 
 A top official at Tufts University in Massachusetts said a threatening note found on campus made reference to a labor dispute involving the school's janitors. 
 
 Tufts Senior Vice President Mary Jeka said the threat found taped to the door of campus health services Monday morning remains under investigation. 
 
 Students were told to stay in their dorms, final exams were postponed and all non-essential staff was sent home. 
 
 The university in Medford and Somerville closed several buildings referenced in the note, which was found near where a car was found burning around 5:30 a.m. Threats were made against Cabot Hall, Braker Hall, Cohen Auditorium and Tisch Library. 
 
 The university said in a statement that the buildings were evacuated and "multiple law enforcement agencies are actively working to clear" them. 
 
 A decision on afternoon exams and activities has not yet been made. Classes have ended for the semester. 
 
 "The most important thing to us is the safety of our students, of our entire Tufts community and of our local communities. Decisions are being made with the safety of those communities in mind," Jeka said. 
 
 She said the note did make some reference to janitors on campus, but it is not clear if the threat was related to the ongoing debate about the elimination of custodial jobs at the school. 
 
 The union representing janitorial staff working at the university released a statement condemning "the violent actions." Meanwhile, the Tufts Labor Coalition, a student group referenced in the note, said it condemns the violent incidents. 
 
 Sophia Adams says her group is being set up. 
 
 "I have no idea whey TLC was framed for this," she said. 
 
 For now, students such as Danielle Poindexter are more concerned about final exams. 
 
 "Needed to take that [final] because I had to up that grade, so not great," she said. 
 
 Massachusetts State Police and numerous other law enforcement agencies are continuing to investigate. 
 
 Anyone with information is asked to call police. No arrests have been made, school officials said. 
 
 Copyright Associated Press / NECN ||||| Tufts University’s Medford/Somerville campus. (Tufts) 
 
 Tufts University resumed “limited operations” Monday after a morning bomb threat and car fire prompted the search of several campus buildings. 
 
 Police and firefighters responding to a car fire early Monday morning discovered a note, which Tufts described in a statement as “suspicious,” stating that bombs were present in about a half-dozen campus buildings, which were evacuated and searched throughout the morning. The buildings were cleared by early afternoon. 
 
 “Students, faculty, and staff are free to move about campus,” the university said in a statement about 1:45 p.m. “For the peace of mind of the community and due to the ongoing investigation, there will be an enhanced police presence for the remainder of the day.” 
 
 Classes for the semester have concluded, though many finals were postponed as a result of the investigation. 
 
 Arts and sciences and engineering exams scheduled for 7 p.m. will be held as planned, though the school encouraged students who feel unable to take those exams because of the morning events to contact their instructors and seek mental-health services. 
 
 The threat was discovered after authorities responded to a car fire at 124 Professors Row, on the main campus in Medford/Somerville, about two miles north of Harvard University. The Tufts website lists 124 Professors Row as the location of the school’s health center. 
 
 Bomb threats against Tufts probed after car fire https://t.co/TJZCKM50rr pic.twitter.com/DBpxVtmEOo — WCVB-TV Boston (@WCVB) May 9, 2016 
 
 The threat was found taped to the center’s door, the Boston Globe reported, citing the school and its own review of the note. The letter made apparent reference to a long-running dispute between Tufts administrators and the campus janitorial staff, the Globe reported. 
 
 The Tufts Labor Coalition, a group of students who protested the layoffs, distanced itself from the fire and threat, describing both as “completely contrary” to its values. 
 
 “TLC’s goal is to create fair and safe conditions for Tufts workers,” it said in a statement. “TLC would never act in a way that would bring danger to any member of the Tufts community.” 
 
 A Massachusetts State Police bomb squad assisted in the investigation, a spokesman for the state fire marshal told The Washington Post. 
 
 For five days last spring, several Tufts students went on a hunger strike to prevent the long-planned layoff of 35 janitors, The Post reported at the time. 
 
 The school posted an official announcement of the car-fire and bomb-threat discovery to its website shortly after 6:30 a.m. 
 
 This post has been updated. ||||| CAMBRIDGE — Joe Palana had just sat down for the last exam of his first semester at Harvard Monday when alarm bells pierced the silence at Emerson Hall. Like others around him, the freshman from Rockland thought it was just a fire drill, so he left his bag. But he grabbed his coat. 
 
 That made him luckier than some of the hundreds of Harvard students and faculty who were displaced at 9 a.m. by a bomb scare and walked out in their shirtsleeves or without their university ID cards, only to be locked out for hours as law enforcement swept the campus over what officials called “unconfirmed reports of explosives.” 
 
 Continue reading below 
 
 Police ultimately found no suspicious devices, but the threat, which officials said came via e-mail, drew an array of emergency responders and a throng of reporters to Harvard, eight months after the attack on the Boston Marathon. In Washington, President Obama was briefed. 
 
 Related Photos Police investigate reports of explosives at Harvard 
 
 But the mood on campus seemed to shift quickly from fear toward curiosity, annoyance, or indifference, long before the last of the four evacuated buildings was deemed bomb-free around 3 p.m. Almost from the start, officials called the evacuation a result of “an abundance of caution,” and many students speculated that the threat was an exam-period hoax. 
 
 “My guess is someone is trying to cause mischief during finals week,” said Nathan Pflueger, a graduate student who had just arrived at his office at the Science Center when the alarm went off, prompting a mass exodus. 
 
 “Ten-to-one it’s an obnoxious effort to stop an exam today,” said sophomore Connor Harris, standing outside the center five hours later, yellow caution tape and a cluster of emergency vehicles still blocking the entrance. 
 
 Harris said the atmosphere was “nothing like” that of last April, when the university and surrounding area was on lockdown during the manhunt in Watertown for the Marathon bombing suspects. “People were quite frightened” then, he said. 
 
 Continue reading below 
 
 But possibly because it took place at Harvard, the threat Monday made news worldwide. Harris awakened to read not just a university emergency alert message but also a text from his parents in Connecticut, hoping he was safe. Standing on the blocked-off end of Kirkland Street, he read a news story on his phone about the threat, in German, on the website of Der Spiegel. 
 
 The threat targeted Emerson, Thayer, and Sever halls in Harvard Yard and the Science Center, just beyond the yard. 
 
 Thayer and Emerson reopened after four hours, Sever after five, and the Science Center after six hours, though a heightened police and security presence remained well into the afternoon. 
 
 After the evacuation, officials closed Harvard Yard to the public, restricting access to those with university IDs. 
 
 By 11, a few dozen students were waiting along Massachusetts Avenue to return through one of the limited-access gates. Despite the helicopters overhead and the power cords for satellite trucks running down the sidewalk, the mood was the usual end-of-semester mix of jubilation and anxiety, with little evident fear. 
 
 Michael Casciotti, shivering in shorts and flip-flops, was just trying to stay warm. 
 
 “I’m very cold,” said the freshman from Pennsylvania, who had ventured barefoot and bleary-eyed from his Thayer dorm room into the hall at the sound of the alarm. 
 
 “I left all my stuff in there, didn’t have any clothes on, so my friend gave me a sweater and flip-flops,” he said. 
 
 As the three-hour mark approached, Palana, the freshman from Rockland, remained displaced from his bag and his dorm room, in Thayer. He had decamped for an upperclass dorm far from the yard — “I wasn’t too concerned, [but] I had some friends that were pretty scared” — but wandered back toward Harvard Yard for lunch, spotting a friend waving from the third floor of a dorm just inside the gate. A federal Homeland Security sport utility vehicle had just raced past, sirens blaring. But the friend, shirtless, appeared unconcerned. 
 
 “Hey, Adam!” Palana called. “You look not very cold. It’s not so warm out here.” 
 
 Palana glanced at his phone and saw an update: His exam had been rescheduled for a choice of 6:30 p.m. Monday night or the third week of next semester. 
 
 His classmate Emma Woo cringed; Monday’s new timing coincided with her chorus concert, so she would have to study again over break. “Dude, that’s the worst,” Palana said. 
 
 A Harvard e-mail advised students that afternoon exams would be held as scheduled, with exams in affected buildings moved but not canceled. 
 
 The Faculty of Arts and Sciences message advised students that if they felt unable to take their exams for any reason, “including anxiety, loss of study time, lack of access to material and belongings left in one of the affected buildings, or travel schedule,” they could skip the exam and take a grade based on coursework to date. 
 
 That prompted a group of graduate students to begin drafting a reply cautioning that the approach would “set up a new and dangerous precedent on campus, that bomb threats will get students out of final exam responsibilities.” 
 
 “We see the note as analogous to negotiating with terrorists,” doctoral student Alek Chakroff said in an e-mail to the Globe. “We sympathize with students who are distressed by the threats, especially in the wake of the Marathon bombings. But in responding to these threats, we think excusing students from exams should be the exception, not the rule.” 
 
 A subsequent Harvard e-mail reiterated the policy for students who skipped Monday afternoon exams but clarified that anyone who felt unable to take another exam this week as a result of the bomb threat would need evaluation and documentation from student mental health services. ||||| Dozens of students last night participated in a partially nude run in a protest of the cancellation of NQR. 
 
 Dozens of students last night engaged in a partially nude run around the Res Quad in a peaceful, sober protest against University President Lawrence Bacow's decision to end the annual Naked Quad Run (NQR), typically held in mid-December to celebrate the end of classes. 
 
 The students, brought together by texts, e-mails and Facebook event messages circulated throughout the day, were cheered on by clothed bystanders. Most participants were not nude upon arrival at the Res Quad, but many shed their clothes when they saw that the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) officers at the run were remaining inside their squad cars. 
 
 Participants and onlookers called the impromptu run a show of dissent against the administration's decision to cancel NQR because of safety concerns. 
 
 "I feel like this proves that they can't stop it. It's going to happen next year. You're going get more people than this, especially after people realize that nothing happened to anybody who ran tonight," one freshman male runner, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. 
 
 Sophomore Howie Levine, who did not participate in the run but came to the Res Quad last night to ensure there was an impartial witness to the run, said he was impressed with the TUPD's restraint. 
 
 "They decided not to arrest people and people protested without drinking and did a pretty responsible job of it," he said. "I respect the protests, and I respect TUPD for it." 
 
 The runners stopped after twenty minutes and the Res Quad was deserted by 10:30 p.m. 
 
 Programming Board and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate yesterday issued an e-mail to the student body announcing a contest to create a replacement event for NQR. 
 
 Programming Board Chair Sarah Habib and TCU President Sam Wallis sent the e-mail on behalf of their respective organizations, saying they hope to foster a new tradition to replace NQR. 
 
 Students have until April 1 to submit their proposals, which will then be judged by a group of students chaired by Wallis and Habib. 
 
 Wallis and Habib, both seniors, emphasized that they want the student body to take the lead in conceiving this new event. 
 
 "There are so many creative people on this campus; let's put our heads together and come up with something new," Habib said. "Traditions are made everyday … we can create an event that strikes a balance between safety and students' morale." 
 
 Wallis hopes that this will be a unifying process. 
 
 "This allows us the opportunity to engage alumni who were here and had other traditions, which may have died; we'll look at some of those," Wallis said. "We want to tie the community together with a new replacement, rather than split us up into different groups, and come to a nice consensus at the end." 
 
 Wallis stressed that the organizers had no preconceived notion of what the replacement event would entail, although criteria like creativity, viability and the embrace of school spirit and tradition would come into play. 
 
 Habib cited examples like a winter carnival or concert as possible options but similarly emphasized that the organizers wanted to hear from students. She added, before the protest run, that she preferred students to concentrate on a constructive solution in wake of NQR's cancellation. 
 
 "I don't think it's representative of the entire student body," Habib said. "I understand why students are upset; I'm right there with them. But personally, I think the best solution to the problem is not to protest, but use that energy to move forward and come up with a new event." 
 
 Wallis is confident that the replacement event will take hold as a new component of the Tufts experience, adding that events like Fall Ball and Winter Bash had been created in a similar fashion. 
 
 Habib said that with the right support, a new event would take root. 
 
 "I think that if we are committed to putting resources behind the event, it will still exist five years from now," she said. 
 
 The organizers plan to announce the winning event proposal by the end of the semester at a celebration in Hotung Café. The winners will receive an Apple iPad. 
 
 Both Wallis and Habib expect to receive a significant number of proposals and said that response to the competition has been positive so far. 
 
 -- 
 
 Head over to Jumbo Slice for video and additional coverage.
– Tufts University students who'd crammed for their last tests of the year found out they got some extra study time after a car fire and bomb threat resulted in the college shuttering multiple buildings and putting off finals Monday morning, the Boston Globe reports. "All morning activities, including final exams, are postponed," read an email sent to Medford/Somerville campus staff and students around 9:35am, asking staff to return home and students to stay inside their living quarters; the school's Twitter account has likewise been posting instructions and updates. The email added that a decision about afternoon exams would be made "pending reopening of the affected buildings," including those listed in a "suspicious" note, Tufts confirmed shortly after 6:30am Monday. The school went into postponement mode after police and fire officials checking out the reported car fire at the university's health center found the handwritten note taped to the health center's door, the Washington Post reports. The note stated there were bombs in four buildings on campus, and, per NECN, a senior VP at the school says the message made reference to the school custodial staff. The site adds it's not clear if that reference is in regard to an ongoing labor dispute between administrators and the school's custodial staff, which has been upset about a reduction in their working hours and other changes to their work duties. The janitors' union sent out a statement saying it condemned "the violent actions," while a student labor group that has supported the janitors also denied involvement. Sophomore Evan Sayles, who works for the Tufts student newspaper, was one of those students studying for finals in a residence located near the car fire when he "heard a series of loud bangs" around 4:30am, ran outside with his camera, and took pictures of the burning car and the note. (Tufts was in the news a few years back for canceling the annual Naked Quad Run.)