JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Thursday's evacuation at the University of North Florida ended about two hours after campus police found four black boxes with a telephone and wires and called the bomb squad.

The bomb squad X-rayed the items and identified them as "perfectly harmless." They were later identified as a student's multimedia art project.

"A black box with a phone on top with a lock and wires and inside was electronics. Clearly, that would be very suspicious," UNF spokeswoman Sharon Ashton said.

About 11 a.m., a campus policeman found "a very suspicious-looking package" in a breezeway in front of Building 9. Police requested assistance from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office bomb squad, which reported finding three more suspicious packages in nearby public areas.

"Because it did look so strange -- it wasn't a backpack or something left behind -- he decided to call in some backup, and that's when the evacuation began," Ashton said.

Initially, buildings 8 and 9 and part of Building 2 were evacuated. That was later expanded to about half the campus.

The university sent electronic messages to students letting people know to avoid the south end of the campus.

One student who received the e-mail was Jason Mannon, who was in the library doing research on campus safety.

"I thought it was really ironic that I doing a project on school safety for a speech project I've got," Mannon said. "I look online to look up some statistics and I get an e-mail from UNF saying that portions of school are shut down and there's a possible bomb threat."

As the police were investigating the boxes, a student approached an officer to say they were part of an art project, but officials did not lift the evacuation until the bomb squad examined them and found nothing but CD players in the boxes.

Ashton said that the campus was reopened as of 1 p.m. and classes would resume as quickly as possible. She also said campus emergency would be evaluated and possibly revised based on what they learned from this incident.

That student and others were being questioned by both campus police and the JSO. Channel 4's Jim Piggott was told that no charges would be filed in the incident.

University officials said they were attempting to get in touch with the professor who runs the art and design class to learn more about the nature of the assignment.

"It sounds like something that our art department would do -- like, have three-dimensional projects like that on campus," student Jessica Gellerstedt said.

The campus president's office said the evacuation affected thousands of students, faculty and administrators. Even students admitted that the evacuation was handled well and everything went smoothly.