The ice skating rink on the Fraternity Quad was vandalized on Feb. 3, making it unusable before it had even been opened.
“This is very frustrating,” Director of Wilson Commons and Student Activities Anne-Marie Algier said. “We were excited to partner with the Greeks and thought the whole weekend looked great. It was sad that students had to cause this damage.”
The rink was installed a week prior to the celebration of Spirit Week and WinterFest Weekend 2005. UR Facilities built the rink across the Fraternity Quad to be unveiled on Sun. Feb. 6 for free ice skating.
Instead, on the morning of Fri. Feb. 4, three large metal garbage cans and a rush board had been thrown onto the ice and breaking the lining, causing the unfrozen water to leak out.
“Facilities had donated their time and energy in order to make this skating rink a success,” Director of Greek Affairs Monica Smalls said. “We were doing something fun that had never been done on campus before.”
The rink had been previously vandalized on Feb. 2 as well, but was repaired in time for the weekend.
Despite increasing the monitoring of the rink by security and facilities crews, the rink was vandalized again. Currently, the vandals’ identities and motives are unknown, but there is an ongoing investigation.
“We are trying hard to find out who did this,” Smalls said. “A message is being sent to the community to get someone who was responsible to come forward. It’s a community issue and hopefully students will give whatever info they have.”
WinterFest was not ruined by the vandalism, according to Algier.
“The rest of the weekend went really well,” Algier said. “Mo Rocca was sold out before the event even started, a lot of students attended the basketball games and the Black Students’ Union’s Step-Off had a packed house. It’s really a shame that people couldn’t go skating as well.”
Student reaction to the vandalism has been one of frustration. Many students were looking forward to using the rink.
“I really wanted to skate,” sophomore Mike Riffle said.
According to Smalls, one sorority postponed an annual trip to the Genesee Valley Park Skating Rink to use the rink on the Quad.
“I was disappointed,” senior Christine Stoleting said. “It’s a shame a few people have to ruin it for everyone else.”
Other students claim that they thought that having the rink on the Fraternity Quad was a bad idea from the beginning simply because of it’s location.
“Regardless of whether the ice rink is a good idea or not, vandalizing it was uncalled for,” sophomore Dana Tievsky said. “People should have more respect for UR property.”
Edwards can be reached at cedwards@campustimes.org.
