In addition to the disappearance of spare time, money (spent on mostly coffee these days), and perhaps a bit of our sanity, furniture from the University Center and Butler Pavilion have been disappearing over the course of this semester. We don’t know who the perpetrator of such vile acts is — students on a vandalism lark, students too poor to furnish their house this semester or a dastardly villain that isn’t a student at all. Regardless of the culprit, however, the humor in this situation is fading fast.
An e-mail was circulated on campus last week regarding the thefts and the estimated costs of replacement for the items stolen, including ten bar stools from the Marketplace and a booth seat from the Tavern. That figure currently hovers around $7,000, a fortune to us students that often find ourselves paying to intern (for credit and transportation).
Better yet, if the items are not returned, the costs of replacing these items comes out of our tuition money. While $7,000 dispersed amongst a student population of over 6,000 seems insignificant, it’s really an issue of the principle of the matter — we’re paying for furniture rather than our education.
To be fair, we have no idea who is to blame. It could be a student, an employee or a random individual who came across MGC open late on a week/weekend night and decided they needed some Butler Board Room chairs. Despite the lack of a scapegoat or responsible party to hold accountable, the underlying issue remains: Even if we students are not directly responsible (or even if we are) for the damages done to this campus, we are held financially accountable for them. Past and present residents of the dorms can attest to this, having paid for numerous damages done to ceiling tiles, bulletin boards and pulled fire alarms at some point in time. While the majority of us are not running around on a Saturday night punching out ceiling tiles or stuffing Tavern booths into our trunks, people out there are. And we are the ones paying for it.
In addition, this string of thefts could one day mean a change in our ability to use MGC late at night. MGC is open 24 hours a day and has served not only as source of food and center of learning, but also as a study area and place of refuge during middle-of-the-night fire alarms for many of us. Thefts of this magnitude tend not to occur in those buildings that are locked up at night, such as Ward. If MGC continues to be pillaged and plundered in the middle of the night (or another time of day that someone can sneak a Tavern booth out the back door unnoticed), then our ability to use these facilities may be jeopardized. While some of us can spend hour upon hour in Bender Library, those of us that get that soul-crushing feeling from spending too much time there will be unduly impacted by the disappearance of this favorite late-night alternative study location.
While these thefts appear at first to be fairly insignificant or even humorous, the reality is that unless the items are returned and the actions cease to occur, the effects will have repercussions for us all.
If the culprit or culprits are students, we ask you: Please return these items. Please do not steal any more items. Not to mention that you’re bringing down heaps of bad karma upon yourselves. This is our community. Our home away from home, if you will. We all live and share in it, and by doing stupid stuff like this, you’re hurting all of us — and may whatever higher power you believe in help you if we find out who you are after we spend all night in the library.
