Last weekend, St. Olaf’s senior class completed a long-celebrated rite of passage as the group assembled for the annual 100 Days’ March. In light of events last year, this year’s planner took measures to ensure that the class of 2010 would represent St. Olaf in a way that Dean of Students Greg Kneser would be proud of.
For the most part, the event was a classy one and our seniors comported themselves well. Not all members of the community, however, displayed such maturity. Students returning to classes Monday morning found that one of the windows in Holland Hall 307 had been smashed over the course of the weekend.
Such flagrant vandalism of an academic building is shocking, but unfortunately, the abuse of school property – that is, property belonging to all of us – is not uncommon.
Sometimes, the vandalism is relatively harmless. Humorous graffiti regularly punctuates fliers in residence halls, and no SGA publicity campaign is safe from the biting satire of our resident political commentators, armed with Sharpies in hand.
Too often, however, our local reprobates reach astonishingly low standards of respect for themselves and the community, and such vandalism seems to be occurring more frequently. Last spring, the glass in one of the doors in the south entrance of Buntrock was smashed. Vandalism riddled campus this past fall, especially on Halloween, when a sink was torn from a wall in a men’s bathroom in Hill-Kitt, along with a stall wall. This spring, we may add the Holland Hall incident to our increasingly embarrassing list.
This much is clear: any and all vandalism of such magnitude is unacceptable and intolerable. Smashing windows and tearing sinks from bathroom walls far outstrip frustrating JCs and RAs or poking fun at SGA’s PR efforts. They are a profound show of disrespect not only for the policies of the college, but also (and more importantly) for the 3,000 students that call the college home.
Students must confront egregious acts such as vandalism for what they are and hold their perpetrators accountable. While it may fall on the administration to step up Public Safety patrols or even to install security cameras, confronting vandalism requires a clear statement from students that they will not tolerate such blatant disrespect.
Ultimately, student enforcement and a student-led statement opposing vandalism depends on individual actions. Do not condone these actions by refusing to hold individuals accountable. Encourage those who chose to break the window in Holland Hall or chose to destroy a bathroom in Hill-Kitt to take responsibility for their actions.
This week, SGA launched a three-day campaign to combat alcohol abuse on campus. Regardless of your perceptions of the student government or its efforts, its slogan for the campaign is sound advice: “Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Take care of this place.” Vandalism of such extremes is not simply defacing some college building. It is an insult to the faculty, staff and students who work, study and reside here.
A simple message to the miscreants themselves: You are a member of this community. Take responsibility for what you have done and turn yourself in. But mostly, knock it off. We are tired of your insults.
Managing Editor Cody Venzke ‘10 (venzke@stolaf.edu) is from Manly, Iowa. He majors in religion.
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