A plywood board covering a broken window in Larrabee House.
Anyone who lives on campus is acutely aware of the pain of dorm damages. This year the weekly Saturday night rampage is hitting certain dorms particularly hard. However, these “hilarious antics” are starting to step on too many camels’ toes.
It happens. It’s a Saturday night, you and a bunch of your bros have had one too many Natty Ices. Maybe you think it would be hilarious to steal an exit sign from Branford, or karate chop the ceiling in Johnson. Maybe you wake up the next morning in a haze reminiscent of The Hangover, not remembering anything and having to piece together why your hand is covered in ceiling tile and why there’s an exit sign mixed in with the empty cans in your trash.
Once the events from your drunken rampage start to flash back, the responsible and respectable thing to do would be to own up to your actions and pay for the damages. Now, I realize that spending $300 on broken exit signs sucks, but you know what sucks more? Making everyone in the dorm pay for it. Often times, the people who actually live in the dorm aren’t the ones damaging it; other people are coming in, wreaking havoc and ultimately paying nothing.
The small number of people responsible for all the damages is capitalizing on one tiny loophole: there is no way to prove anything. There are no dorm cameras, because I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. There are no designated dorm security guards monitoring the drunken escapades of students. So, in lieu of cameras, I have come up with a system of punishments for the dorm damagers.
First-time offenders will be forced to pay for the damages. Second-time offenders will be forced to both pay the damages and buy pizza for the entire dorm as the offender watches from inside a tank filled with snakes. Anyone who dares to inflict any more damage on a dorm must pay one million dollars, purchase pizza for the entire campus and be put in stocks in the middle of the green for the whole of winter break.
But seriously, at a school that makes each student sign the Honor Code pledging to the community that they will be respectful, why should any precautions or punishments be necessary? If you wouldn’t cheat on a test or punch a hole in the wall of Cummings, why do students think it’s acceptable to destroy the “home” part of campus?
This is a question that has haunted the minds of administrators for ages. Sure, it’s only a couple bucks a semester. But if there are 1,900 students at Conn, and let’s just say, for example, that dorm damages average twenty dollars per person a year, that’s $38,000 we’re unnecessarily spending. So, as a student body we are collectively spending enough money to buy a car or get a decent band for Floralia on something completely unnecessary.
Sure, accidents happen. A building holding up to one hundred college students is bound to experience some basic wear and tear. But exit signs being ripped down or bathrooms and common rooms being destroyed by puke and beer cans is not normal wear and tear. So clean up your puke, recycle those empties and don’t punch holes in the wall. It’s really not that difficult. If you’re smart enough to go to Conn, you’re smart enough to know not to act like a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Alan from The Hangover. •
