Dec 16, 2013 11:16 AM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Update: 12-16-13 - just before 1 p.m. the school said the report  of bombs on campus remains unconfirmed. Federal and state officials have joined the search.

An evacuation is underway for Harvard University after school officials received unconfirmed reports of explosives on the campus, the New York Daily News reported.

On Monday morning school officials received reports that explosives may have been placed in four buildings on the Ivy League campus: the Science Center, Thayer, Sever and Emerson Halls. The bomb scare triggered evacuations of the four buildings.

"Out of an abundance of caution, the buildings have been evacuated while the report is investigated," Harvard said on its Web site.

School officials said they have no reason to believe there is a threat to any other sites on campus.

Harvard University police and officers with Cambridge Police Department have descended on the four sites, sweeping the buildings for explosives.  Transit Police departments and bomb squad officers were also sent to the campus with bomb sniffing dogs, Reuters reported.

The Ivy League university is located in a crowded urban area adjoining Boston. Students were scheduled to take final exams this week, Reuters reported.

Established in 1636, Harvard is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States and has about 21,000 students.

This incident is the latest in a series of security scares at U.S. schools and universities, Reuters reported.

Three days ago a Colorado high school student went to school with a shotgun, a machete and three incendiary devices in his backpack with intent to confront a teacher, CBS News reported.  He severely wounded a classmate before killing himself.

Yale University in New Haven Connecticut, place its campus on lockdown last month for most of a day after an anonymous caller warned school officials that his roommate was planning to shoot people on campus. No gunman was found.

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