Burglaries drive need for surveillance
An attempted burglary in Widtsoe Hall and a possible theft in the Geology Building have given faculty cause for heightening security measures.
Associate professor of biochemistry Joanie Hevel said after being out of town for the weekend, she sat down in her office in the Eccles Science Learning Center on the morning of Monday, Feb. 7, and realized something was amiss.
“I had a biochemistry class that I was giving an exam to on Friday,” Hevel said. “On Wednesday, I let them know I was going to be out of town and the exam would be proctored by my assistant. Unfortunately that’s the same time it happened.”
Hevel said she notified police when she saw a gadget made from duct tape, electrical wire and a coat hanger dangling from her office door handle. She and her colleagues attempted to speculate against an attempted burglary by guessing a janitor could have used it to prop the door open.
She said the biochemistry course is a two-semester course and both semesters are very tough. Students who are majoring biochemistry are encouraged to take the 5000-level course at their junior level. Sometimes students wait until they are seniors.
“One should – you would think – understand that’s something you ought not to be doing,” Hevel said.
“There were all kinds of suggestions about what I should do when I go to class on Monday. What I said was I more or less had CSI in my office, it was quite hectic taking pictures, fingerprints and all kinds of stuff.”
She said she figured if there was a guilty person present they would get the message, but she didn’t want to incriminate the whole class.
Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police said pictures were taken of the base of the door, where grooving was present from what could’ve been an effort to hook the wire loop around the door handle.
He said there were also pictures taken of the contraption, and police urged Hevel to show it to her class in order to scare the person who made it.
“It’s education’s fault in general, there’s this massive amount of information we want our students to know,” Hevel said. “The easiest way to give it to them is to ask them to memorize it, and the easiest way to evaluate them is to ask them to spit it back.
“It’s gotten to the point where that has lent itself to, ‘What do I need to do to get the A?'”
Hevel said she makes her exams extremely hard in order to get a good idea of who understands the material and who still needs help. She said students sometimes tend not to like her because of this.
She said the most recent exam took her at least 12 hours to write. A key to the exam was stored on her office computer, which is password protected. The exam itself was not in her office between Thursday, Feb. 3 and Monday, Feb. 7, when the attempted break-in would have happened.
“There are currently not cameras, but this incident is probably going to change all that,” Hevel said. “I think it’s very likely that we’ll have cameras. I know at other institutions’ biochemistry and chemistry programs the office doors are keyed (with electronic key-cards).”
Milne said, citing a police report written on Feb. 12, several minerals were stolen from a display case on the third floor of the Geology Building.
Geology department secretary Jean Daddow said Professor John Shervais valued the missing minerals upwards of $8,900. Among the missing pieces are iron meteorite and stony meteorite specimens that are valued at $2,000 to $3,000 a piece.
“We are surprised that anyone would remove educational property,” said professor James Evans. “These specimens were on display not only for the students, but also for the community at large.”
Milne said that Daddow reported that she saw the door to the display case on the floor which alerted her to the absence of the 11 missing minerals.
The investigations remain open, Milne said that if anyone has any information regarding either of these incidents they should notify the USU Police immediately.
“We are taking steps to ensure that this does not happen again,” Evans said. “We have removed specimens which are of value and are installing security measures.”
– dan.whitney.smith@aggiemail.usu.edu