Furniture thrown from fifth floor McMurtry

By Seth Brown     10/22/09 7:00pm

After a table and wooden chair were thrown from the fifth floor of McMurtry College, Housing and Dining levied several thousand dollars' worth of fines at McMurtry and Will Rice College. The incident took place sometime between 3-8:30 a.m. on Oct. 12. Though the wooden chair survived the fall, the table sank several feet into the mud in the McMurtry quad.

That night, an emergency meeting was called by Will Rice President Kyle Clark.

"We needed to take responsibility for what had occurred, and there was a good reaction from students," Clark, a Will Rice senior, said.

---

---

Clark used the meeting to explain the situation to his fellow students, and asked them to take responsibility for their own actions and those of the college.

The incident is not the only act of vandalism seen at the college this year. Several $250 ceiling tiles and $650 exit signs, which are more fragile than those at Will Rice, have been damaged this semester. However, Clark said he believes the furniture incident is unrelated to previous damages.

"I think the table-throwing is a separate incident - a major escalation," Clark said.

He had already discussed the problems of smaller damages in the preceding weeks with members of the college, and said that those responsible had corrected their behavior.

Dean of Judicial Affairs Don Ostdiek said that if the cases of property damage are not solved within the college, the case would be sent to him or to University Court, depending on the circumstances. He said the incident was potentially harmful to others.

"Anything that can harm individuals like that is very serious," Ostdiek said. "There needs to be a boundary."

Rice University Police Department Chief Bill Taylor said the department did not do an investigation, and is currently not involved.

"Future involvement depends on the circumstances," Taylor said. "If it's the same people, there may be charges."

At this point, though many of the students responsible for the prior damages to the college have come forward, those responsible for the table-throwing incident are unknown.

Will Rice Chief Justice Joshua Ozer said efforts were made by the Will Rice and McMurtry communities to assuage the present issues.

"If anything positive has come out of this, it's that it galvanized the community into being very prepared for the public party," Ozer, a Will Rice junior, said.

Both Clark and Ozer described the circumstances in which Will Rice has found itself in a difficult cultural shift.

"We have struggled with coming to terms with the environment," Clark said. "There's a very hall-based culture here and that takes adjustment, but we've made it clear that we need to take responsibility. Due to a lack of the community identifying the building as our own, and that 50 percent of the building is freshmen from two colleges, we didn't know how to react."

Ozer said he agreed, and that the unique combination of circumstances contributed substantially to the incidents.

"This is kind of a perfect storm," Ozer said. "We were moved into an unfinished building, and what would otherwise be unacceptable was acceptable."

Clark suggested that one possible reason Duncan College has not experienced this sort of incident is the presence of Baker President Kathy Kellert and Chief Justice Connor Hayes on Duncan's fifth floor, the college's top floor.

Ostdiek said the presence of upperclassmen is key in the development of Will Rice with McMurtry.

"Will Rice provides the upperclass leadership and helps show the incoming students the boundaries," he said.

However, the damage has still occurred, a situation that Ozer said all colleges should be concerned with.

"This shows how fragile our cultures are, and how they can be changed by changes to the university," he said. "We have to be aware of the issues present."

A comment from Will Rice Master Mike Wolf "It is way too easy to collect a variety of quite different issues into a single misleading description of actors or events. The 'damages' range from pretty standard college-age rowdiness and excesses in a new building with a few uncommon fragilities - while under exceptionally heavy scrutiny by folks whose usually have their attention elsewhere - to one situation that appears to have gone somewhat beyond that, and then to a final incident over fall break that seems simply bewilderingly reckless. I am presently unaware who was behind the most serious acts. On the other hand, the folks who caused some of the earlier and more minor incidents are taking public responsibility for their actions to an extent that is unusual on this campus. I'd certainly caution that sweeping generalizations about a community of 400, a freshman class of 160 or even smaller subcommunities are neither fair nor helpful. The colleges are a collection of good people who occasionally make mistakes. Making mistakes is not the test; it's what one does afterwards that's crucial, and so it's important for everyone to understand that folks are taking responsibility, with the leadership approaching the problems seriously, deliberately and thoughtfully - amid much support from the college. Our college has always risen to challenges before. Will Rice and McMurtry are rising to this one and taking ownership of the problems as a united community, and while there may be further tests, I'm quite confident the colleges will emerge even stronger than they were because of this stress."

---