Several public areas in a Village II dorm were vandalized earlier this month, leading to complaints from residents, Residence Life staff and housekeeping staff. Students living in Gum Hall were awakened early Saturday, October 2, by their resident assistant to find a trash can overturned, their computer lab broken into, their shower room covered in dirt and grass and their bathroom floor smeared with feces.
"I’ve been pretty easy on you guys so far," said resident assistant Seth Brady in a hall meeting the following Sunday, "but this is disgusting. The cleaning lady has even threatened to stop cleaning our hall."
Brady, who was on duty and awake until after 3 a.m. Saturday, said that he heard the trash can get kicked several times that night, but every time he went out to investigate, there was nobody in the hall.
"When something like this happens," said Brady, "all I can do is knock on doors and ask if anyone knows anything." Unfortunately, nobody offered any information about the incident. When asked during the hall meeting, none of the residents said they knew who may have been at fault. All were, however, vocally appalled at the state of their bathroom. Junior Jack Lingo gave his thoughts on the situation.
"Stupid--ridiculous! Who does that?" Lingo said. As for the threat of their housekeeper quitting, several responded, "Isn’t that her job?" One resident said that students paying $20,000 a year should not have to clean toilets.
Assistant Director of Residence Life Kerry Strnad pointed out, however, that the housing agreement signed by every resident student prior to moving in states that "students are expected to keep their rooms in relatively clean condition, to include kitchen/living spaces." Therefore, Strnad said, if students refused to clean their dorm, they could be put through the arbitration process. Strnad added that the school contracts three employees from a group called Service Masters to clean Village II, and if excessively dirty conditions prevent a cleaning staff member from completing other tasks, they can ask that the school take steps to deal with the problem.
Strnad also explained that the point of the arbitration process was to allow students the option of "taking responsibility for their living area." She admits that the threat of charging everyone on a hall 75 cents, plus labor, for a broken window is not a great one but hopes that students will confront their peers personally, since the damages were of such a repellent nature.
"If the person gets caught," said sophomore Bill Lingo, "They should have to clean the bathroom for the rest of the semester." However, when the perpetrator is unknown Lingo felt that the damages should be dealt with by the school.
"The school should pay for it if they can’t catch the person," Lingo said. "If my window at home gets broken and I don’t know who did it, I can’t charge the whole neighborhood. Other people use our computer lab." Some students do agree that the threats from Residence Life work as deterrents.
"Since we were threatened by Seth I think things have been better," said sophomore Ted Stanton. "I’d rather pay, though, than get up and clean it myself."
When asked about the frequency of such vandalism on campus, assistant director of security Bob Pope said, "Minor destruction of that sort... happens every other weekend to some degree, generally following parties."
This kind of vandalism is then written up in a report and turned over to a member of the residence life staff, said Pope. As for the vandalism of a more fecal matter, Strnad claims it was the third incident in her five years as a professional. Currently nobody has come forward to claim responsibility for the damage. Security is continuing to patrol campus with three to four officers at night.
Another incident occurred on Gum Hall fall break weekend and is still under investigation.
"It's theft," said Ruehlmann. "It's also an attempt to suppress information. I'm proud of the newspaper; but I'm not proud of its adversaries." In an e-mail sent from Ruehlmann and editor-in-chief Christy Kincade to all faculty and staff, they regarded the "suppression of the news as a moral offense not only against the Chronicle but also against the campus community."
"The actions taken against the paper restricted the first amendment rights of the Chronicle staff and writers," Kincade said. Although Virginia Wesleyan has not had many problems with school newspaper theft, Old Dominion University has. At least two incidents of newspaper theft that happened led to The Virginian-Pilot writing stories on the incident. If a theft such as this one happens again on campus, Ruehlmann has threatened to notify the Pilot. In comparison to the Marlin Chronicle's readership, The Virginian-Pilot audience is over 250,000. Ruehlmann noted that the risk people take when they steal a college newspaper is that the information they didn't want getting out ends up being spread all over the place.
News editor Michelle Rogerson feels that those who stole the paper completely disregarded the fact that students put a lot of work into producing it. "Writers, editors and photographers spent a lot of time contributing to that issue," Rogerson said. "It's disheartening to think that someone would steal our work." Web editor Jim Baker agrees. "I feel that it is rude," Baker said. "As an editor of the paper, I realize the amount of work that goes into the paper and to see it stolen really aggravates me." Freshman Sarah Mallard was one of the many students featured in the stolen issue of the Chronicle, and while she wasn't personally upset that her accomplishments went unnoticed because of the incident, she did feel that the act was wrong.
"If someone was unhappy about something in the paper there's a better way to handle it than stealing the newspaper from the student body," Mallard said. The Chronicle staff did note the one thing the robbers overlooked was that the Marlin Chronicle is now online and anyone interested in seeing the October 8 issue can look on the Chronicle web site at www.vwc.edu/chronicle/.