Seton Hill University (SHU) is, quite literally, for me and many other students, my home. I live here. And so do many other students – including those who live hours away, or even days away, depending how long their flights or drives are. It is really beneficial that SHU feels like home when we can’t actually be at home, but there are times when it feels like the complete antithesis of home – it feels like everything I know and love about this place is going to the dogs.
By Andrea Perkins
Senior Staff Writer
Seton Hill University (SHU) is, quite literally, for me and many other students, my home. I live here. And so do many other students – including those who live hours away, or even days away, depending how long their flights or drives are. It is really beneficial that SHU feels like home when we can’t actually be at home, but there are times when it feels like the complete antithesis of home – it feels like everything I know and love about this place is going to the dogs.
I must ask this blatant question: “What is going on?” And what do I mean by this? I mean everything on this campus that has occurred in the past few months that has made this university feel less like a home and more like an institution. For example, when I’m at home, no one would pour salt in my dish of ice cream. When I’m at home, no one would smash artwork that I had spent hours working on. No one would steal pictures off the walls.
That is exactly what is going on this campus. A few weeks ago, someone poured salt in the hard ice cream freezer and pepper in the desserts. Three weeks ago, someone stole all the signs off of a Resident Advisor’s (RA) duty board in Lowe Hall. Last week, someone broke the sculptures outside Lynch Hall. Furthermore, it was only Homecoming weekend that the beautiful fountain outside of Reeves Memorial Library was finally repaired. And it was just the other day that a truck plowed into a railing down in Parking Lot C.
Most people wouldn’t behave this way at home – however, some may make the argument that this isn’t home, but for some people, it is. Someone may make the argument that since they pay some $15,000 a semester to go here, they can do whatever they want. This behavior is just unacceptable. Not only is it frustrating to the students who are all just trying to get through class and work and just want some ice cream to be the end of a hard day, but it is embarrassing to guests who come in and have to see the destroyed artwork and the empty dessert tables. Imagine this conversation: “Where are your desserts?” “We had them taken away because someone poured pepper on them.” Or how about, “Why is all that artwork a mess?” “Because someone decided to break them in half.”
Last week I asked some of the dining hall staff when we’d get our desserts back; they replied when the security cameras in front of the dessert table gets put up. I thought most students were pretty much adults now, and we didn’t need to be watched 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I guess I was wrong about some students.
I asked the RA about her stolen signs – she said she worked hard on them, and that she would like them back. It wouldn’t just be the students on her floor, it is perfectly reasonable that it could have been any student in Lowe or Canevin Hall, as all those students can access each floor.
Where did such outright disrespect for public property come from? When did it become the norm to just destroy and steal everything within grasp, even if stealing or destroying the item made no sense whatsoever?
Maybe it’s not disrespect…maybe its boredom. Maybe some students at SHU are finding that there just isn’t enough homework to be had, so they take to salting the ice cream.
Do students seriously not have enough to do that they must destroy, steal and infiltrate everything? Maybe the teachers aren’t giving us enough work, that some students are so bored that to make up for extra time they have to add their own special touch of pepper to the desserts or to make sure that an art project has more than one message. I guess that message would be, “Hey! Some of the students don’t really care about their environment!”
Boredom, plain old disrespect or just being restless are no excuses for the vandalism. Whatever the reason for these inexcusable actions, it’s making people homesick more than ever.