Faculty, students victims of casual theft

Personal items should be closely guarded while on campus

By Francesca Chambers

Published on Fri., March 28th, 2008

When Carol Holstead, professor of journalism, opened her office door after class in March 2006, she immediately noticed that her laptop was no longer sitting on top of her desk.

Holstead’s door was closed, but not locked. She also had her class schedule and office hours posted on the door. Holstead said the theft was depressing because she worked with college students and did not want to think of theft as part of their value system.

“What happened to you growing up that makes you think it’s okay to walk into someone’s office and take their computer?” Holstead said.

Only 14 people reported having items stolen from their backpacks, classrooms or offices to the Public Safety Office this semester. However, Capt. Schuyler Bailey, Public Safety Office, said theft of unattended property was probably the biggest crime committed on campus, but he said the number of thefts that occurred was low compared with the number of students and buildings at the University. He also said the Public Safety Office had no way of accounting for thefts that occured on campus that were not reported to the office.

Holstead said because she has worked in Stauffer-Flint for 18 years, she started to feel like it was home and took for granted the security of her property. She also said it was a hassle to lock her door sometimes, for example when she was going to the restroom, which is right across the hall from her office.

Bailey said most thieves at the University were opportunists. He said anyone who simply happened somewhere that items were left unattended could be motivated to become a thief because of the ease in which unattended items could be stolen.

Bailey said most thefts are small items: iPods, books, calculators and unattended backpacks. He said most of those things look normal for a student to be carrying them and so bystanders are not aware a theft has occurred.

Robert Osburn, a custodian at Haworth Hall, said many items are stolen from Haworth. He said it’s because too many people have keys to get in out of the building. Osburn said many of the students who work in the labs have keys and if they lose their set, anyone could find the keys and enter the building.

Haworth is also supposed to be locked by the Public Safety Office, but Osburn said he knew of other ways thieves could get into the buildings without keys.

“The security is just really lacking,” Osburn said.

Osburn said he expected that people would eventually have to use their KU IDs to gain entrance into buildings like the ID based system the residence halls began using this year.

Osburn said many items have been stolen from janitors in Haworth before that were not reported like mop buckets. Recently a vacuum was reported stolen from a janitor’s closet in Haworth, but it was later found.

Mark Gottschall, supervisor of the Journalism Resource Center, said he thought most of the people who stole items were not KU students. He said he thought they were homeless people.

Recently Gottschall reported the theft of a projector from a Stauffer-Flint classroom. Gottschall said he knew the projector was stolen, not misplaced, because he e-mailed all the professors who taught at the school and because whoever stole the projector left the plug-in cord, signifying that they were in a hurry.

“You’d think they would have gone ahead and unplugged the dang thing,” Gottschall said.

Gottschall said the door was locked and closed when he got there, but he suspected that the door had been left open the night before by the last class that was in the room. He said that was the only way someone could have stolen the projector from the room, unless the thief had keys to the room.

Gottschall said on the weekends he locked Stauffer-Flint, but on the weekdays it was locked at 10 p.m. and unlocked at 7 a.m. by the Public Safety Office.

Bailey said the Public Safety Office locked most of the campus’ the buildings at night, but sometimes students and other people were still working in those buildings at that time. He said those people often propped the doors open so they could get in and out when they were coming and going.

Holstead’s computer was also returned. Holstead said the student who stole her computer did not wipe the computer’s hard drive before he sold it on eBay. She said a week after her computer was stolen she was contacted by the man who had bought it and the computer was returned to her within the next week.

Holstead has taken her class schedule off her door since her computer was stolen, but she said she felt at home enough in Stauffer-Flint to leave her door unlocked when she is not in her office.

“It’s unlocked right now and the door is open,” Holstead said.

— Edited by Jared Duncan

Discussion

The Kansan.com staff reviews comments regularly. Please be respectful of your peers. For our full user policy, click here.

Headlines

Video