Art students project vandalized; no police report filed
Student ceramics end of year projects were smashed by a classmate. In some cases, students were able to repair their project.
May 21, 2019
Art students in Kristen White’s ceramics class knew someone was purposefully destroying their projects when they returned to class and discovered their work smashed on the ground.
White had assigned the students to make mugs that were abnormal shapes to make them unique for a major year-end project. However, she discovered about 30 projects that were destroyed by a small group of fellow students in their class.
“I found (my ceramics project) smashed in the kiln room,” sophomore Liliana Casas said. “I didn’t have just one project smashed. I had multiple.”
White said that when she first noticed that student work was being damaged, she assumed that it was accidental. She said that she realized that it was purposeful when the incidents increased in frequency.
“I realized there was an actual group or person purposely damaging them about three weeks into the project, where every class period we’d find five to six projects smashed,” White said. “Some of them we could repair, (but) most of them we couldn’t.”
Sophomore Alexis Gillo said that she was frustrated when she found a hole in her project, but she was able to repair it.
“Most people had theirs completely cracked or broken,” Gillo said. “They had to redo a whole other project just to get their grade.”
White said that some students came to her with a video of an individual recording himself smashing a student project. She said that although she has this video, she is not sure that this is the only individual that damaged mugs.
“I think it’s really sad that they would purposely do something to hurt their peers,” White said. “It’s hard work. It takes a long time but just ruining something that someone made. I don’t know why they did (it).”
White reported the incident to campus administration. She said that she thought about having the students write apology notes or clean the room, but decided against it because she was not sure that she had a full understanding of who did what. The suspected students were given ISS by the administration.
“It was very stressful for me,” White said. “I felt really bad for the students because every day we kept coming in and seeing stuff smashed. The look on their faces, they’re just devastated.”
