A person died Wednesday morning inside Old Dominion University's Batten Arts & Letters Building, prompting the school to cancel classes in the building for the rest of the day and send crisis counselors to multiple spots across its Norfolk campus. University officials said in a campus update that there was never a threat to the broader campus and that there is no ongoing threat, even as the emergency alert rattled a student body still raw from a deadly shooting just seven months earlier.
Old Dominion sent its first community alert at 9:25 a.m., followed by an update at 10:11 a.m. confirming the death, according to 13News Now. The university said all other campus operations would continue as scheduled, per the same account, even as classes specifically in the Batten Arts & Letters Building were called off for the day. The building is the primary home for ODU's College of Arts & Letters and houses 29 classrooms fitted with media display systems and proximity-card locks, according to Old Dominion University's own facility specifications.
A Campus Still Healing From March
The fear that spread across campus Wednesday did not emerge from nowhere. As Rolling Out reported, many students feared another active shooter situation before officials confirmed there was no ongoing threat, a reaction rooted in Old Dominion's recent history. Seven months earlier, in March 2026, a gunman killed an ROTC instructor at Constant Hall before being subdued by students, according to the outlet's reporting.
An independent review by law firm Cooley LLP, released in July 2026, concluded that the March 12 shooting at Constant Hall was a targeted terror attack on ROTC students and instructor Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah, and that it was handled effectively by ODU Police but was virtually impossible for the university to have prevented, per WHRO. ODU commissioned that external review in the wake of the attack, which left the instructor dead and two students injured.
Counseling Resources Deployed Across Campus
Old Dominion moved quickly to offer counseling and support services to students, faculty and staff following Wednesday's death, the university said. The Office of Counseling Services, located in Suite 2403 on the second floor of the Student Recreation and Well-Being Center at 4700 Powhatan Ave., remained available, while Andrew Hall at 712 Fairfax Ave., Suite 274, offered walk-in appointments, per the same account.
Students can access telehealth by calling 757-683-4401, and the same number connects callers to urgent or crisis support by selecting option two, a line the university said is staffed 24/7. ODU also opened a reflection space from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Potomac and York River Rooms inside the Webb Student Center, staffed with counselors and support professionals on site.
Virginia law requires the response the university mounted Wednesday. Under Code of Virginia § 23.1-803, public colleges and universities must maintain a comprehensive first warning notification and emergency broadcast system capable of alerting students, faculty and staff via text, email, phone and website postings during campus emergencies, a mandate the General Assembly first put in place in 2008.
Open Questions And A Bigger Student Body
Details about the cause of death and the identity of the person who died remained unconfirmed by authorities as of Wednesday, leaving the exact nature of the morning incident unresolved. The scale of who was affected by the alert is notable: ODU's total enrollment reached 24,112 students for Fall 2026, surpassing 24,000 for the first time in five years, the university reported in September, crediting a 14.5 percent surge in new student admissions.
Wednesday's incident lands amid a period of broader tension at Old Dominion. Last Friday, Hoodline reported that ODU's Faculty Senate passed an 85 percent no-confidence vote against University President Brian O. Hemphill over proposed academic course restructurings, even as the Board of Visitors extended his contract through 2032. Days before that, Hoodline also reported that Smithfield Police had shared automated license-plate reader data with federal agencies without a required warrant during the investigation into the March shooting, a move that violated state privacy statutes.
The university's academic footprint extends well beyond its Norfolk campus. As a Carnegie R1 public doctoral research institution, ODU's operations and academic initiatives contribute an estimated $2.6 billion annually to Virginia's economy, according to the university's official institutional profile. The Batten Arts & Letters Tower itself was designed by Williams and Tazewell & Associates, a Norfolk architectural firm responsible for roughly 95 percent of its projects in the area, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which also designed the firm's better-known local landmarks, Norfolk's Scope arena and the Harrison Opera House.
