University-Sanctioned Vandalism
(sorry for the resubmission. I forgot to include my student number and telephone number)Dear Editor: I was pleased to see your opinion Wednesday regarding vandalism. I agree that vandalism is unacceptable in all of its forms. It creates eyesores on an otherwise attractive campus and shows disrespect to other students. I would like to mention a form of vandalism that is rarely considered. Ugly black marks mar our campus. Squares and triangles form the shape of a boot with a bloody figure underneath. As I understand it, these marks are made by Natural Resources students to assert their own presence and exacerbate a rivalry with the College of Engineering. Worse still, this year, they have expanded to much larger footprints. I am a student of neither college, but seeing these marks sickens me. Why deface our campus just for some half-hearted rivalry? It seems especially strange that a group usually renown for its concern with protecting the environment gleefully releases toxic chemicals into the air for such a triviality. I am unaware of the level of faculty involvement in the placement of these marks, but I know that the university regularly turns a blind eye to them. I don’t understand why more is not done to discourage this sort of vandalism. I am familiar with these “healthy” rivalries. There is a similar rivalry between computer science, and business information systems students. However, I have little doubt that students and authorities would be very upset if I were to take a can of spray paint and scrawl “CS rocks, BIS sucks” all over campus, but this is the sort of message that those bloody footprints are communicating. This tradition could be maintained by using water-soluble paint. If the NR students get their thrills from defacing the campus during their week, as long as they use paint that won’t scar our campus indefinitely, I wouldn’t mind tolerating their graffiti tags for a few weeks. I am impressed with the newest section of walkway on campus. It’s attractive now, but I can only wonder how long it will be until the some Natural Resources students tag it up with more ugly black squares and triangles.
Greg Roth518088306752-0573