Published: October 10, 2008 08:43 am         

NEW: Vandals hit OSU campus

By Darla Slipke

Stillwater NewsPress



Oklahoma State University and Alumni Center workers are cleaning up after vandals shattered windows and ripped down Center signs and spray-painted the student union and a sidewalk just days before Homecoming Week.

Campus police arrested Robert Lowell Harris, 21, Thursday morning on complaints of obstructing an officer, public intoxication and malicious injury to property.

Alumni Center Operations Director David Cates said someone used pruning shears to cut metal letters off the Alumni Center’s west side and then hurled the foot-tall letters through windows into a lounge.

A window at Gundersen Hall next door was also smashed, and the phrases “ZM” and “Zeitgeist movement” were spray-painted on the sidewalk and walls outside the Student Union and in the Alumni Association parking lot. Webster defines Zeitgeist as “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.”

A witness who saw two men leaving the area outside the Alumni Center at 2:30 a.m. contacted campus police. Officers said they stopped Harris as he was heading toward University Avenue and Hester Street, but they were unable to find a second person. Chief Michael Robinson said the witness identified Harris. Robinson could not say whether Harris was a student, but OSU student database searches produced no results for his name.

Cates estimated it would cost about $2,000 to replace the glass, custom lettering and window blinds damaged at the Alumni Center. He said he wouldn’t be able to replace the lettering in time for OSU Homecoming festivities that kick off next week, bringing thousands of alumni and family to campus.

“I was saddened that someone would wantonly destroy something that was meant for the enjoyment of others,” Cates said.

Student Union Director Mitch Kilcrease was also disappointed. He said instances of vandalism were rare and usually limited to petty acts like writing on restroom walls. Usually the vandals have no ties to the university, he said.

“Our students are extremely respectful,” Kilcrease said.

     

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