EDITORIAL: DESTRUCTION

Stupid acts by a few students make life less pleasant for everyone else

Sometimes it begins with a few bored people out looking to have some fun. Other times it is rooted in simple carelessness. And all too often, it ends up a problem for someone else to deal with. Senseless disregard for property is rampant on this campus.

And every day, armies of Facilities and Engineering employees and Food and Housing staff spend their valuable time cleaning and repairing senseless destruction inflicted upon this campus -- not by Houston vandals but by its own inhabitants.

Rice funnels thousands of dollars each year to bankroll the cleanup of everything from litter strewn around after a party to butt prints and broken glass after a Club 13 frolic. Not to mention uprooted street signs, vandalized cars and trampled shrubbery.

But not only is damaging Rice property and littering financially costly to the university -- costs, incidentally, which are passed on to everyone associated with this campus -- but it also furthers the image of this university's students as elitist and sheltered. And that price, while hard to measure, is one that is insidiously assessed against the reputation of the student body and ultimately the university at-large.

So next time you have that urge to destroy our property, reconsider.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the November 3, 1995 issue.

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