Students at Wadham College awoke on Monday morning to find that expensive items of electronic equipment in their JCR had been damaged.
Wires in the TV and every console had been pulled with enough force to break, and a projector donated to the college by a Fellow rendered unresponsive. Several thousand pounds worth of damage is thought to have been done.
SU President Anya Metzer said of the incident, “On Monday it was discovered that various pieces of equipment in our JCR had been broken, including expensive new electronics. Thankfully, the dedicated and patient IT team, together with our Tech Officer Sam, were able to fix everything.
“The idea that this may have been external vandalism has not been ruled out, and I am working with the Dean and other College officials to try and get to the bottom of the matter. College have been sympathetic to the fact that even if this was caused by a student it is not reflective of the attitudes of the SU in any way.”
No culprits have yet been identified but college staff are reviewing CCTV footage to gain a clearer picture of who might be responsible.
One Wadham undergraduate, who wished to remain anonymous, speculates that those who did the damage “were probably just drunk, although there hadn’t been a bop or anything that night.”
In an email sent to the whole Wadham SU, Metzer urged students to consider the impact of misuse of communal property on relations with the college. She said, “The SU are in the middle of crucial negotiations about rent and the rights of suspended students. Acting like reckless and spoilt children makes lobbying College on these things extremely difficult; how can we urge the Domestic Bursar and Dean to take our views seriously, when we can’t be trusted with communal consoles and electronics.”
Wadham JCR is currently in the process of lobbying for the right of rusticated students to continue using college as well as faculty libraries during their suspension. Negotiations concerning living costs follow protests by Wadham students in 2008, led by then-president Leonora Sagan, who claimed that living costs at Wadham had risen 46 per cent in six years, “far out of line with national interest rates.”
Commenting on the trashing of equipment one Wadham student said, “It’s a shame, I wonder how can people be so irresponsible in a place like Wadham, when so many things are always available to you, for free.”
A second year at Wadham told Cherwell, “I think it’s disgusting that someone would do that, especially given that the projector was a gift.
“The JCR should be a space for all students to enjoy and it’s really selfish that someone would do damage to it like this.”
