George Dolgikh
On Tuesday, March 25, 2025, the students at Solano Community College received an announcement from David Williams, Vice President of Academic Affairs, addressing a student sending harassing emails to other students, club presidents, and faculty members.
“Hi Falcons, Some of you have been receiving multiple emails from a student asking to be your friend or build relationships at the college. The messages are incessant, inappropriate, and increasingly hostile. We do not believe, however, that there is any physical threat to your safety.” Williams wrote in the statement.
He went on to say, “We are aware of this situation and have blocked this student’s access to emails in Canvas. The student has now dropped his classes. Please do not respond to the student. If you want, you can block messages from him. Thank you for your attention; I understand the inconvenience and anxiety this has caused.”
Students who had not received harassing messages were confused, as the messages sent out by Williams did not contain any other information regarding the situation.
The messages were sent by a student, Atish Patel, who has been sending messages to faculty and students as far back as May 2024. The attitude of his messages ranged from asking about clubs or inquiring about friendships, getting progressively more hostile if unanswered.
The messages were often to people who are heads of clubs, asking to gain more information to join the club. These messages soon gave way to increased hostility rather than cordiality when the messages were left unanswered.
These messages reached students through Canvas and were often read as someone from their class reaching out to gain connections through Solano Community College. The emails themselves started tame, copied and pasted. Different clubs received the same message starting with:
“I would like to join the club at this college if it’s open to any students. I wanted to ask if I can join the club and be part of the announcements and events happening?”
Patel would then follow up with requesting information about meeting times, being added to mailing lists, social media group chats, Discord links, and WhatsApp group chats. Finally signing off with
“Warm Wishes, Atish Patel”
Depending on whether the student chose to respond to Patel, when the messages were left unresponded to, follow-up emails were sent.
The subject line read “So you’re upset and won’t talk to me?”
While it was clear that Patel wanted to reach out to students and faculty to make connections, it hurt that no one was responding. He decided to reach back out again. “I reached out to you through email, but never heard back from you. I’m wondering what I said that upset you in the previous messages? All I asked is to be friends and build connections, did I hurt your feelings in my way or upset you?”
The messages read as erratic and worried, sounding concerned and personally hurt. Patel wrote, “You don’t want to be friends with me because I reached out individually, or you don’t believe I have a nice and kind heart and a good person.”
Students have wondered if there was even a real person on the other side of these messages they were receiving on Canvas; there is. Following students contacting administrators, Patel soon dropped all his classes for reasons unknown.
Since the announcement was made on Canvas, these harassing messages have now stopped.