Locked due to vandalism. This was the reason given to Marcy Hall residents when Brian Barnes, resident director of the building, informed them two weeks ago that their study lounges would be locked on the weekends until further notice.
As of late, residents of the Mountainview dormitory have had no choice but to find other locations to pore over their texts, as their personal study lounges have been made unavailable.
According to Shane Meyers, a senior history major, “One of the reasons they closed were people had thrown food down in the stairwells…and there was some vandalism; some people stole end tables out of lounges.”
The lounges were locked “after several incidents of vandalism, including two food fights, stacking of lounge furniture and some theft,” according to Barnes.
“We try to work with the students as much as possible,” Barnes said. “We communicated to residents through e-mails and floor meetings…and did both what we hoped would be an educational and preventative measure.”
That measure made each one of the lounges located on Marcy’s five floors unavailable, respectively, from Friday nights at midnight until Sundays at the same time, as well as an additional damage charge of $4 to $5 dollars per resident to pay for missing furniture.
Barnes, who has been the resident director of Marcy Hall since its opening three years ago, described the decision to lock the lounges and impose the subsequent charge as “kind of a last ditch effort.”
The restricted hours of the study lounges have been particularly inopportune for students, with the end of the fall semester and finals just weeks away.
“It sucks that people in the building had to pay for other people’s stupidity,” said Meyers, also a resident of Marcy since its opening. “I know a lot of people who use the study lounges as their main study area.”
Barnes, who acknowledged the relative inconvenience of his residents not being able to study in their own residence hall on the weekends, nevertheless stood by the decision.
“85 to 90 percent of students didn’t have anything to do with it, but they also didn’t do anything to stop it,” explained Barnes, adding that attempts to stop their peers from behaving inappropriately “is really what we look for from students.”
Although the lounges have returned to 24-hour access for the remainder of the semester and finals week, Barnes hopes students take something away from the casual disregard for communal space, and the subsequent detriment it had on them.
“I hope that was enough of a deterrent for students not to allow this to happen again,” he said