Vandalism Temporarily Closes Lounge

By Ben Wilner

The doors were torn off the stalls in the men’s room. Tables were overturned. The piano was damaged. These are only a few results of some students’ unruly behavior in the Cyber Café of Raritan Valley Community College in October.

Reinhold Woykowski, safety and facilities manager at RVCC, couldn’t estimate a dollar amount of the total damage done, but he said the damage to a table in the lounge would likely be at least $250. The student lounge had to be closed for a few days afterward.

“After I saw the extremely rowdy behavior and the broken table (in the Cyber Café), I made a judgment call and closed the lounge to send a message that unruly behavior and abusive language just wasn’t tolerated,” said Woykowski.

This is the first time an incident like this has occurred this year, although out-of-line behavior is not uncommon throughout the many areas of RVCC. Complaints to the campus security team sometimes result from offensive language or behavior.

“I’m not surprised,” says Ray Larosa, a student at RVCC, upon hearing about this incident.

Neither was Kate Wells, a former RVCC student. “If only people could do something more constructive,” she said. “They need to find something better to do with their time.”

It is curious to wonder what implications incidents like these have for RVCC. It’s possible that students are generally unhappy with themselves and taking it out on whatever they can, or are simply unruly out of boredom and looking for entertainment. Regardless of the reason, what does that say about this college, its students and its campus?

“I think people do it because it makes them feel tough or to express hate,” says Larosa. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Such lack of respect is a major concern of the administration. “The bottom line is that certain students must understand that their behavior is very offensive to others,” says Woykowski. “I myself have witnessed a student jumping completely on top of a table. Using the tables to put your feet up shows no respect for college property. It’s brand new furniture and it’s just being abused.”

Since incidents like these do not occur very often, it is disturbing every time they do. They keep the campus from being recognized, even by our own students and faculty, as a safe and enjoyable place to spend time, take classes, study and socialize. Incidents like these can raise peoples’ suspicions about who is committing these acts and why. Nobody wins unless everybody wins, and these types of acts are keeping everyone from winning.

This event caused some distress, but it was not enough even to warrant an incident report.

“There are two things that security does,” Woykowski says. “If there is a small complaint or incident, there is an entry in the log book. But if there is something that is more involved, security will then make a special incident report and call the squad, police or any others who may need further assistance beyond our own security staff.”

For this incident, Woykowski says, “there is not an official report. I received a call from security and just went down, spoke to them and made the decision to close the lounge.”

Woykowski encourages students to be respectful. “I am only asking three things: respect the furniture and sit like adults, stop with the vulgar language, and show respect to others who walk by that area everyday. Our security has tried on numerous occasions to ask the students in the lounge area to tone it down.”