L
О
S
J • •
A
n
g
e ]
l e
s
LOYOLAN
VOL. 7 1 • NO. 1 7 LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY February 1 6, 1 994
Religious Statue Outside of Rosecrans Vandalized
Masks Painted on Faces Of Mary and the
Child Jesus Last Wednesday Night ; Suspect
Identified and Referred To Residence Life
By James Keane
Assistant News Editor
Bate last Wednesday night, the
statue located in the quadrangle
between the Rosecrans and
Desmond residence halls was van¬
dalized by several paint-brush wield¬
ing individuals, The statue, which
depicts the Virgin Mary with her
arms around the Child Jesus, was
painted on both faces with black,
white, and red paint, thus displaying
a startling post-crime resemblance
td' members of the glamour-rock
band KISS.
Щ
According to members of the
Rosecrans Housing Staff, one of
the perpetrators of the crime was
apprehended and referred to Stu-
dent Life for disciplinary action. The
Other suspects are apparently still
at large.
. The statue, formally known as
“The Seat of Wisdom” in reference
to an ancient church prayer honor¬
ing the Virgin Mary as such, was
donated to the University in 1964
by Anton Grauel, a German sculp¬
tor who also crafted the bronze stat¬
ues which graced the Berlin Olym¬
pic Stadium for the 1936 Olympic
Games. Grauel also has made
several wood-carvings which are
displayed in Xavier Hall, and nu¬
merous other works by Grauel can
be found in the University Ar¬
chives, according to Fr. T rame, S. J.
Late Wednesday night, the sus¬
pects purportedly climbed the statue
under the cover of darkness and
went to work with paintbrushes,
covering both faces with diagonal
slashes of black and white paint add
decorating the lips of both faces
with red paint. Red paint was also
splashed down the chest of one of
the two figures.
The vandalism appeared to be a
prank rather than a political state¬
ment, and entirely unconnected
to the incident last semester where
red paint was dumped on the statue
of Fr. Serra outside the library.
Numerous Rosecrans residents
gave the. resident advisors the iden¬
tity of the suspected perpetrators as
well as the time of the incident.
“The fact that people report these
crimes shows that residents care,"
stated Rosecrans Resident Advisor
Steve Hoffman. “There’s a sense
of pride in the cofnmunlty in
Rosecrans.”
The statue, which is situated^di-
rectly on the path to Loyola Apart¬
ments and the front doors of both
the Rosecrans and Desmond resi¬
dence ha|ls, attracted attention and
comment throughout the day on
Thursday as students noticed the
paint on their way to and from
classes.
“I live in Loyola Apartments, so|
sawthe statue right away on Thurs¬
day morning,” stated Patrick
Wuebben, a junior. “I think it's really
a disgusting reflection of the youth
of America today, that people would
do that, because of that statue’s
religious significance.”
The incident is one of a rash of
crimes in and around Rosecrans
this semester, including a smashed
window on a fire door, a broken fire
alarm on the same door several
weeks later, and a fire extinguisher
which was set off both inside the
220s wing and again outside
Rosecrans several hours later. In
addition, the first floor has been
defaced repeatedly by graffiti since
the start of the semester, and the
front door of the building is appar¬
ently being broken on an almost
daily basis by one of the residents.
“People are just being very incon¬
siderate,” commented Brennan
Horn, another Rosecrans Resident
Advisor. “They think it's all very fun
to do these things at the time, but in
the end it turns out to be really
stupid. These things are real cool to
do for about five seconds.”
The paint was cleaned off by
Operations and Maintenance early
on Friday morning.
The incident may have been a
copycat crime, according to Horn.
“It Seems like it might be from the
movie ‘Dazed and Confused,’ where
the same sort of prank was por¬
trayed. Maybe that was the origin of
this whole idiotic prank. How people
have the time to think about these
things and go through with them is
beyond me. The whole idea is just
stupid.”
Horn commented on the entire
incident, “These people just don’t
realize the consequences of their
actions. It's all a . matter of respect
and consideration of University prop¬
erty, as well as Of University em¬
ployees.”
Spirit Weekend Boosts Student
Morale Before USD, USF Games
By Damon Garcia
Assistant News Editor
Spirit Weekend kicks off on Fri
day, February 18, jn Hannon
Field. The Activities Programming
Committee of the ASLMU has coor¬
dinated a weekend full of campus
activities including a Park-n-Eat; a
barbecue, two Lions basketball
games, a half-time show, and the
return of the university’s annual
Charter Ball.
The weekend begins at 3 p.m. on
Friday with a Park-n-Eat, spon¬
sored by In-M-Out Burger. Beer kegs
will be tapped, and free sodas will,
be served. Coach Olive is sched¬
uled to appear and speak during the
Park-n-Eat, In addition to the food
and drink, different student bands
will be performing.
“This is an entire weekend dedi¬
cated to raising spirit. We all know
how much it means at this school.
This is the perfect opportunity to
prove just how much attending LMU
means to you and all those in your
organization,” explained Kristy Mar¬
tin, Chair of Special Events of the
Activities and Programming Com¬
mission.
At 7:05 that evening, LMU is
playing the University of San Diego.
The APC is charging $1 5 to reserve
a space for an organization’s deco¬
rated car. The most spirited group
will be considered by a panel of
judges to win a pizza party, cour¬
tesy of the APC.
“We are encouraging everyone
to participate in Spirit Weekend and
head over to the games,” Martin
remarked. ‘The rowdiest, most spir¬
ited club will win the first prize. There
will also be a halftime show in which
we have tentatively scheduled a
freethrow contest between some of
the faculty and Students. The Lioh
cheerleaders will also be perform¬
ing.” The faculty and students for
the scheduled show will be picked
in advance.
pom the hamburgers and
cheesburgSrs 1n-N-Out is bringing
to acquiring the liquor license, Mar¬
tin lias been bombarded with sort¬
ing Out the many details. While the
entire board has been working to
ensure the sucOess of Spirit Week¬
end, Martin credits Justin Busse
and Kimberly Rupnick as her chief
assistants, especially in the area of
Organizing the half-time show.
“We’re looking for a huge turnout
to this event. LMU is such a distinct
university in that it is one of the few
universities that makes such an ef¬
fort to include all of its students into
our community,” Martin observed.
"The Seat of Wisdom " early last Thursday morning , when the statue
still bore the distinctive masks which several residents painted late last
Wednesday nightr
Campus Suffers
Power Outage
By James Keane
Assistant News Editor
East Saturday at t:52p.m., Loyola
Marymount suffered a campus¬
wide power outage which left all
buildings dark for a period of sev¬
eral hours and caused computer
systems to crash across campus.
The outage, which occurred as a
result of a sudden jump in the elec¬
trical current which the campus re¬
ceives from the Department of Wa¬
ter and Power, actually only lasted
for three seconds. However, be¬
cause the surge tripped the main
breaker switch in the University
power plants the breaker had to be
reenergized and reset before power
could be restored to campusbuild-
ings.
“There was just a spike on the
DWP side of the line,” said Ralph
Tucker, Manager of Facilities Main¬
tenance. “It was just long enough to
cause glitches. It takes about half
an hour to reset the main breaker
switch.”
Each building then had to be indi¬
vidually brought back to full power.
The campus was not fully restored
with power for several hours.
All buildings on campus are
equipped with dim auxiliary lights
for such emergencies. These lights
are largely powered by batteries,
and have an endurance of any¬
where from ninety minutes to three
hours.
Iri addition, Seaver Hall has an
alternate generator which keeps the
campus telecommunications sys¬
tem running in an outage.
In the residence halls, glow sticks
were also placed in the bathrooms,
which have no emergency lights, to
allow students to move around
safely.
f n addition to problems with light¬
ing, computer systems across cam¬
pus crashed with the outage. Both
the registrar's office and the
controller's office reported that no
information was lost arid their sys¬
tems are normal, although thecom-
puters at the controller's office were
out for approximately fifteen min¬
utes on Monday morning.
According to Operations and
Maintenance, the outage was en¬
tirely unrelated to the ongoing con¬
struction of the new business cen¬
ter, which is being built directly be¬
hind the power plant.
