Probe into pranks continues

Published in the Lee Clarion.

As soon as custodian Jose Carrasquillo entered Bowdle Hall at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning, he knew something didn’t smell quite right.

“When I [first] opened the door it smelled bad,” he said. “It doesn’t smell too bad now.”

A student’s microwave which once sat on a shelf in the first floor kitchen of the residence hall had been moved outside, he said. He pointed to shreds of balloons scattered across the hall floor, mentioning that the same sight could be seen throughout the building.

Lee Prichard, resident director for Bowdle Hall, then warned Carrasquillo not to give any more information.

Nine hours before, at approximately 1:50 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19, a fire alarm woke the Bowdle-O’Bannon dormitory complex.

Four residents of third and fourth floor O’Bannon heated a cup of human excrement in the first floor Bowdle Hall microwave, freshman Quintin Chadrick said.

“They literally just walked in the lounge, put it in the microwave, just started it and walked out,” he said.

Michelle Steffenhagen, area coordinator for Residential Life, would not confirm the contents of the cup.

“Neither [the director of residential life] nor I have seen it, so we can’t confirm,” she said. “But it was a foul smell. We’re disappointed by what we think it was.”

Quintin said that the microwave set off the fire alarm, causing students from the connected dormitories to gather outside in the cold night’s air, waiting for the signal to return.

Tim Welber, a freshman business administration major and O’Bannon Hall resident, said he was in the shower when the fire alarm sounded.

“I can’t imagine anybody from my floor would do it,” Welber said.

After the fire alarm, freshman Corey Settles, an O’Bannon Hall resident, said he and some friends made water balloons. He threw about six of them as he ran through Bowdle Hall.

“It was good old-fashioned fun,” he said. “They woke us up, so it was payback.”

David Layer, a freshman O’Bannon Hall resident, said that around 12 residents on the fourth floor were dropping balloons from the balcony to the lobby throughout the night as residents ran back and forth between the halls.

Freshman Jordan Chadrick said that when he first entered first floor Bowdle after the incident occurred, he heard threats coming from the victims of the attack.

Welber said that one resident on his floor was walking around the dorm with a baseball bat trying to find whoever hit him with one of the balloons.

Although it turned out to be false, Settles said rumor quickly spread that the water in the balloons was mixed with urine.

After everything calmed down, Settles said he went to several of the students he had targeted and explained that they should “chill out” because it was just water.

Jordan speculated that the pranks were likely the result of an escalated rivalry between Bowdle and O’Bannon Halls.

Steffenhagen and Sonya Jackson, secretary of the director of residential life, said they were unaware of any similar prank in the history of the Lee University campus.

“It’s a college campus and pranks happen,” Steffenhagen said. “We’re not going to stand for this. We want to make sure that we find the people who are doing this and put a stop to it.”

Steffenhagen said that increasing the already strong presence of residential life staff in residence halls will help to prevent similar cases in the future.

“These guys that got pranked on, they were talking about ‘Oh, this is real war now,’” Jordan said. “They were mad…They wanted to beat them up.”

The residential life staff tries to be very careful with letting pranks get out of hand, Steffenhagen said, because of how quickly things tend to escalate.

“We don’t want students to be attracted to the idea of getting their prank in print,” she said. “I want to be careful with how many details we present to students. Yes, this is an issue; we need to talk about it. But…I don’t want that to encourage students.”

Steffenhagen stated that although she was still not sure how many were involved in the prank, Prichard and O’Bannon Hall RD Jason Moore are in the process of working to find the perpetrators.

Punishment, she continued, would be assigned by Dean of Students Alan McClung.

Settles said he still didn’t know the number of accountability hours he would receive for throwing water balloons, though he thought it would be between 5 and 10.

“It was totally worth it,” he said.

45 students didn't make the cut for the Lee Review

Published at the Editor's Weblog, the blog for the managing editor of the Lee Clarion.

The editorial staff of the Lee Review recently sent an e-mail to all 45 Lee students who failed to make the cut for the 2008 edition of the literary arts publication.

The e-mail encouraged students to try once more, and listed all 45 e-mail addresses so that the failed writers could write each other to either:

A. Console their grief, or
B. Conspire to start their own rival literary magazine where everyone gets published.

It was a brilliant move.

In fact, the e-mail was helpful in another way as well. With some work, now you too can figure out what your chances of being published in a literary magazine like the Lee Review are. Here's the math:

• 45 students were not accepted.

• And 29 authors were published in the final book.

• Of that, 6 were on the editorial staff of the book and 2 were faculty.

So essentially, based on last year's results, Lee students have a 32 percent chance of being published in the Lee Review.

All considered, that's likely better than any other literary magazine. Thanks to the Lee Review for helping with the math.

You can read the full letter to all rejected applicants (myself included) below:

Hello,

We at the Lee Review would just like to thank you again for your submissions last year. We regret that, due to the large amount of submission, more of you were not accepted. We would like for you to know that we appreciate your interest in us and Lee University's only literary journal. That said, we'd like to inform you that we are accepting submissions for the '08-'09 issue to be released at the beginning of next year. As you submitted to us previously, we'd like to extend to you the opportunity of submitting again. The final submission deadline will be October 30th, but we will accept your work as early as you'd like to send it. This year we are also broadening our accepted genres to include not only the standard genres of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, but graphic novel work, mixed-media art, screen plays, and scripts. We also have a particular interest in showcasing any creative work centered around the theme of place.The Lee Review is now open for

If you would like a copy of the '07-'08 Lee Review, please respond to this email with your name and campus box number.

Again, thank you very much for all you've done for us.

Sincerely,
The Lee Review Staff