On Monday, Facilities Management notified residents that it had identified and removed campus access from the individual responsible for vandalizing community bathrooms in Renee Granville-Grossman Residential Commons (GGRC) throughout winter quarter. Incident reports have also been filed with Facilities Management, Residential Services, the UCPD, and the University’s Title IX Office.
According to first-year Katie Kahal, resident of Halperin House in GGRC, some residents noticed that the shower curtains had been cut in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms earlier last week.
Jim Wessel, assistant director of College Housing, notified GGRC residents of these incidents in an e-mail sent on Saturday. “This vandalism…appears to be an attempt to compromise privacy and make other students uncomfortable. This is a disturbing violation of our shared community standards and trust, and our facilities staff will continue to replace the shower curtains anytime they are found to be damaged,” he wrote. Wessel also asked residents to report any information related to the vandalism, as well as any future incidents, to housing staff.
Housing replaced the shower curtains on Friday, but by Saturday many of the shower curtains in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms had been cut again. “They were cut significantly higher than they were previously (from about one foot to now over two feet). This was when students began to realize that it was pretty much all of the female and gender-neutral bathrooms in the entire dorm, not just in West,” Kahal wrote in an e-mail.
Saturday afternoon, a resident head in GGRC reported an incident of suspicious behavior to UCPD. According to the UCPD incident report, “[an] unknown male subject was seen in 3rd floor washroom while resident was in the shower.” The incident report notes that the subject subsequently fled.
In an email sent to residents of Kenwood House in GGRC on Monday, Senior Associate Director for College Housing Heath M. Rossner addressed the incident. “The incident from this weekend has been reported to, and addressed by, the multiple offices involved,” he wrote in the e-mail.
