As Taylor Vargo, instructor of psychological science, started her 9:10 a.m. psychology class in Wallace 401, she looked at the back wall and saw something peculiar: a bat. Her initial reaction was to get out of the classroom immediately.
“It wasn’t doing anything, it was just hanging out on the wall, but I still didn’t like being in the same room as it,” Vargo said.
Vargo ended class early and released her PowerPoint for the day to her students. She then enlisted the help of Ryan Rehmeier, department chair of natural sciences and professor of biology, to help relocate the bat.
“I handle bats fairly commonly, and I get a call all the time on campus. I already had a net that I use for monarchs, so I just got some leather gloves and pulled it off the wall,” Rehmeier said.
The bat was moved outside of Wallace and placed onto a tree. Daryl Sasser, director of the Iowa History Center and assistant professor of history, held the entirety of his 8 a.m. class while the bat hung on the wall.
“I knew that if I told 35 people there was a bat there, at least five of them would have screamed and run out of the room,” Sasser said.
There is no clear explanation for why the bat was inside the classroom. Perhaps the sleeping bat happened to crawl into Wallace 401 instead of the attic. The concern of being in close contact with a bat was minimal according to Rehmeier, “not to scare people, but there are a lot more cats and dogs and foxes that have rabies out there than bats.”
On Wednesday, professors and students were met with paper signs and caution tape on the doors of Wallace that read, “Stairwell closed bee swarm inside; elevator is not available”. Most went around to the south stairwell and continued on with their morning. Some ventured into the north stairwell out of curiosity, or perhaps they weren’t afraid of the bee swarm.
There was an attempt to remove the bees from the Wallace building. On Wednesday, returning bees were looking for a new headquarters to rebuild and had swarmed the north stairwell. Although the bee swarm had not affected Vargo’s teaching directly, it had closed off access to the bathrooms, water fountains and elevator. Multiple students with crutches had a class on the fourth floor, so they decided not to make the climb up.
Vargo said, “I did have students who were on crutches who couldn’t come to class because they weren’t gonna try to crutch it up four flights of stairs.”
Unless you were to brave the north stairwell, you had to go into Amy Robertson Music Center to relieve yourself or refill your water bottle.
