The presence of an unattended black bag in 116 Roger Adams Laboratory caused a statistics class of about 200 students to be evacuated Monday.

The bag was not present in the room at the beginning of the speech communications class at 11 a.m., but the professor noticed it at the end of class on a chair behind the teaching podium, said Hannah Prince, freshman in LAS.

“He didn’t notice it when he came in, but he saw the bag on the chair behind him and held it up and asked whose it was,” Prince said.

No one claimed the bag, so the professor set it down on the podium and asked Prince to call the University police’s non-emergency number.

Prince said the professor worried that the bag contained a bomb.

After receiving Prince’s call, the University police responded just before noon and evacuated the students who were gathering for the next class.

“It looked like a laptop bag and people are used to that,” Prince said. “But it was suspicious because it was there and no one was standing by it.”

Once the class cleared the room, the police examined the partially opened bag. Lt. Skip Frost said the bag, only holding some papers and a notebook, was not a threat.

“It was really no big deal, but it’s better to err on the side of caution,” Frost said.

Police did not evacuate the rest of the building.

The statistics class, taught by professor Ellen Fireman, continued at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

After police informed her that the room was clear, Fireman and her class returned to the lecture hall.

Although she thought her class handled the half-hour long evacuation process very calmly, Fireman wondered if the disruption was necessary.

“People are so nervous now,” Fireman said. “Usually if you saw a case, you wouldn’t think anything of it. It was unheard of in the past to call the police, and it’s sad that people have to think like that.”

Frost said there is no specific policy for dealing with unattended, suspicious items left in classrooms because each situation is different.

“There’s been times where something is left out in the open and it makes people nervous, especially after what happened at NIU and Virginia Tech,” Frost said. “Everyone is hypersensitive right now to any item that’s not claimed, but we’re happy to come and evaluate it.”