Multiple doors in Davison House were damaged over the weekend of April 11, according to an email by Lathrop and Davison House Advisor Dylan Stratton. “Over the weekend one student room door was punched or kicked, leaving a hole, and the door and stall door of the basement bathrooms were kicked in,” Stratton wrote in an email sent to Davison House residents. He explained that the cost of the repairs would be split among the residents of Davison. In a second email sent a few hours later, Stratton explained that the cause of the damage to the basement had been discovered, and the charge for that specific issue would be removed from the total.
In a third email sent on April 15, Stratton wrote, “The estimated cost of the repairs comes out to less than 2 dollars per student.” Therefore, since residents are only charged if the total exceeds around $10, Davison residents would not be charged at all. Stratton did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to The Miscellany News, Dean of Student Living and Wellness Luis Inoa wrote, “If damage can be attributed to a specific student, the charge is assigned to that student.” When that is not possible, Inoa continued, repair costs are split among the residents of the house, but only when Residential Life cannot absorb the cost of repairs. “In practice, we would not typically consider charging residents for common-area damage unless the cumulative cost averaged about $10 or more per student in the affected house. It is rare for common-area damage to reach that threshold, and I cannot recall the last time we needed to assess such a charge,” Inoa wrote. In Stratton’s April 15 email, he also mentioned this $10 threshold. Inoa added, “That said, if a student is facing financial hardship, they can always reach out so that we can talk through their situation.”
Davison resident Rajveer Singh ’28 commented, “They just told us that somebody broke somebody’s door and then the whole house has to pay for it. Which, I kind of felt like it was unfair because it was not directly us, or we’re not directly involved in the conflict. So why have all the House pay for it?”
Inoa responded, “Charging an entire house is not the default practice and would only be considered in rare cases where the responsible party cannot be identified and the cumulative damage is significant enough to warrant it.”
Should the responsible parties come forward after students have already been charged, Inoa stated, “Students would not be able to appeal a common-area damage charge.”One student had other concerns. In a statement to the Miscellany, Davison House Vice President Noah Pockriss ’28 wrote, “Obviously the first email was a bit worrying, not only because we were being charged but because multiple random doors in Davi were being punched or kicked which is just a little crazy. Pockriss explained that he was aware of the policy to collectively charge House residents if the perpetrator could not be identified and was not concerned about being charged. He stated, “I was more concerned about what happened to cause that damage.”