Amanda Crouse
News Editor
In May of 2025, my roommate and I awoke one morning to find that our beloved statue of a pig, which had sat outside our Holden dorm for the entirety of the school year, was gone. Despite efforts to shame the perpetrators for what was clearly an act of petty theft into returning our emblem of friendship and community before the end of the semester, our treasured statue has remained missing. In January of 2026, one of my friends experienced a similar violation when his Lego Boba Fett alarm clock was stolen from his room. He made fliers imploring the return of his clock and requesting information regarding its whereabouts. The clock was anonymously returned a week later, but in a broken state. Such acts of theft are particularly disheartening and frustrating to me as a member of the Wooster community because I think they are indicative of a disjointed student body.
In a communal, dormitory-based residential setting such as Wooster’s, it is an unspoken social contract that can render one hall an ideal gathering place, while another gains the reputation of a hovel. This basic social concept (i.e., that one’s behaviors affect one’s environment and fellow community members) is one that I think most college students learn during their first semester. But apparently, an understanding of the principle does not guarantee that it is respected.
When I lived in Holden last year, the kitchen was always in dismal shape –– this, not due to any lack of effort on the part of the janitorial staff, who repeatedly left signs begging students not to jam food down the drains or leave unwashed pots and pans in the sinks for days. The bathrooms were usually in a similarly sorry state. I’m not going to be so dramatic as to claim that relatively normal displays of teenage and young adult laziness are fracturing the college community, because I understand the most basic desire for convenience that underlies them. What I am saying is that the frequency of these displays of laziness or lack of care for public spaces could be avoided if we spent a bit more time thinking of our roles as members of a community.
I mention these seemingly innocuous examples of bad etiquette to support what I see as a larger trend of behavior that turns even the smallest symbols of community into prey for individual distortion. My roommate and I bought our pig statue not just because it was a cool decoration that we wanted for ourselves (although that was an important factor), but also because we wanted to frame our room to outsiders as a fun and inviting appendage of the Holden community at large. What is especially disappointing to me is that, before this most recent theft, our pig had been stolen once before. During the first incident, I was heartened by the contributions of my peers to the search effort; friends and strangers alike reposted mine and my roommate’s initial pleas for the statue’s return on social media, and some sent private messages of support. When the pig was returned a few days later with a short note of apology, I saw it as evidence of the strength of even a small percentage of the student body rallying behind a cause. But since the second occurrence took place during finals, and everyone including myself was understandably more focused on exams and moving out, there wasn’t as concerted an effort to advocate for the statue’s return. I do not mean to say that I expected other students to give more attention to a situation that probably paled in comparison to the prospect of summer vacation. What I really mean is the opposite: The problem to me is that in cases of theft like this, the main deterring factor seems to be potential for punishment or backlash, rather than the moral implications of the act itself.
All of this is to say that I think the spirit of community can make a big difference on a campus like this, in which we all have no choice but to live with each other for four years. This article is also my way of framing my desperate search for the beloved pig statue as an altruistic effort. If there is anything you should take away from this article, it’s this message to the perpetrators of the crime: I will find you.
