Dean Tuttle's Trinitoninan Columns

Dean's List

<< PREVIOUS | HOME

Nov. 4 , 2005

NEXT >>

Vandals prompt response

On behalf of the good residents of Thomas and Lightner Halls, I am challenging a student to a fight. This is unprecedented and a little unusual. I understand. The "Dean of Students Handbook" doesn't really recommend this as an effective way to cultivate student relationships. It doesn't even mention it.

OK, there isn't a handbook.

Someone, or a group of "someones," has been busting up ceiling tiles, tearing up the elevators, throwing things off balconies and urinating in the public areas in these buildings. So, I am calling you out, whoever you are.

The Residential Life staff is working with the residents of these buildings - the ones who are tired of this un-Trinity-esque behavior - to develop a strategy to deal with it. What we know from experience is that signs and posters as part of a clever publicity campaign don't work. They are torn down, and people pee on them. Which brings up another issue: I have spent more time talking about urine at work than I have at home while potty training our two-year-old this year. There's nothing about urine in the "Dean of Students Handbook."

We also know that forums or discussions don't work. The vandals either attend to make a farce of the meeting or don't show up.

The residents are fed up, and we have lots of options to make life miserable for the students who live there. We can designate the buildings as dry, limit access to the building to only residents, shut down elevators during prime weekend urination time (but there are always stairwells) and much more. But this punishes the students who respect the buildings.

And so I take the unusual step to offer to fight. This is pretty drastic, as I am against violence and have never really been in what I would consider a bona fide fight. (OK, I am basically a coward, but so are vandals.) I do have a few rules: One, even though it has been overplayed, I would like to play the song "Collide" by Howie Day during our melee. Two, all parents, Dr. Paine and my wife can't know about this. And finally, weekends and evenings are bad for me since they are primarily family time.

Thomas and Lightner Halls have a long history of problems, which is too bad because they are two of our most popular residence halls. The buildings are very social, and social apparently means alcohol, and alcohol apparently means urine and vandalism.

The staff has tried group billing, placing Community Initiative floors in the building, adding residential assistant staff and making floors coed - but to no avail. I lived in a twin-tower, 13-story dorm named Ogg Hall when I was a student. It had a reputation as "the Zoo," and those reputations are hard to shed. Ogg is being torn down soon, though I would hate to see Thomas and Lightner meet the same fate. But I am prepared to do almost anything else to deal with this.

I'm even prepared to fight.

HOME | TRINITY | TRINITONIAN