AU Housing will make $32,000 worth of repairs to McDowell Hall to fix vandalized dorm restrooms that may have been inscribed with offensive graffiti since at least August 2012.
McDowell Hall residents each faced a $120 damage charge at the end of May, after facility staff found the words “F*** Pike” carved inside bathroom stall doors in almost every male and female bathroom in McDowell Hall, said Timothy Staples, assistant director of residential education for north campus. The majority of the damage was found in the men’s fourth floor bathroom, he said.
The University’s staff originally believed that the damage occurred during the 2013-2014 academic year, but several residents provided proof that the damages were already there when residents moved in during August 2013, Staples said.
In fact, the graffiti was present in the men’s fourth floor bathroom at the beginning of the 2012-2013 academic year, said Ben Wax, who lived on in McDowell Hall from 2012 to 2013 and is now a senior in the Kogod School of Business.
Residents will not be charged for the graffiti, and the University will cover the cost of replacing the stall doors, Staples said.
“It just has to be fixed,” Staples said.
The graffiti was carved deeply into the bathroom stall doors, but it was not visible unless a person was inside the stall, which is why the damage went unnoticed by residence hall staff and the Aramark cleaning staff, Staples said. The $32,000 was the estimated cost of replacing all the damaged doors, Staples said in the May 21 email to residents.
The carvings did not appear to be deep, but they were clearly readable inside all the stalls, said Carson Merenbloom, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences who lived on the fourth floor of McDowell Hall during the 2012-2013 academic year.
The graffiti was a foot tall and the width of the doors and approximately a foot tall, said Peter Maclver, who also lived on the fourth floor of McDowell Hall during the 2012-2013 academic year and is now a senior in CAS.
Staples originally sent an email to the 2013-2014 McDowell residents on May 20 requesting information regarding the damages, and residents responded within five minutes of the email being sent, Staples said by email.
“Knowing that the entire community was already negatively affected by the vandal’s act during the semester, it is important that this person’s error in judgement not affect each of your student accounts,” he told residents in the email.
About 15 minutes after the email was sent, Staples was provided with enough “proof” that last year’s residents did not cause the set of damages under investigation, he said by email.
“The damage was just not consistent with the behavior of McDowell hall residents this year,” Staples said in an email on May 30 to The Eagle. “The students in McDowell Hall this academic year were overall focused students respectful of the community.”
shogan@theeagleonline.com
