The phrase “this is why we can’t have nice things” was coined by comedian Paula Poundstone in the late 80s and has more recently become a song title of Taylor Swift’s. Regardless of its origin, the phrase has the same meaning: Positive things can be taken away due to the negative actions of others, and this is what happened at Albion’s Whitehouse Nature Center (WNC).
According to WNC Manager Misty Brooks, the StoryWalk at the WNC was a series of numbered signs with book pages on them that people could follow to read a story, placed in partnership with the Albion District Library. She added that the StoryWalk was “cute and festive,” and a “cool program.”
On two separate occasions, including Homecoming weekend, the story boards at the WNC were vandalized – signs were thrown into the river, with one ending up in a tree during the second incident.
“It’s just people chucking things into the river, unprovoked,” Brooks said. “The signs didn’t do anything to hurt anybody.”
Because of the vandalism, Brooks said she had to reach out to the library and let them know the WNC can no longer leave the StoryWalk signs up all the time.
“I do want to be able to keep going with it, so moving forward we might put it up the day they do the guided tour with it and then take it back down,” Brooks said.
Assistant Professor of Earth and Environment Joe Lee-Cullin, who is also a member of the CSE Advisory Committee, said the vandalism is disrespectful to “something that’s a really nice feature of the community.”
“I know lots of community members hike around there; it’s not just faculty, staff and students,” Lee-Cullin said. “It’s really disrespectful to the youth of Albion.”
Brooks said the vandalism “makes the college look bad,” and added that she wants to hope students didn’t do it, but she has no way of knowing. The vandalism has affected other operations and events at the WNC as well, including a recent jack-o’-lantern walk along the trails with pumpkins that had battery-operated lights within.
“The student workers and I made sure after everybody left to pull all the candles out. I was afraid pumpkins would end up in the river, and we didn’t want the batteries or the candles in them still,” Brooks said. “We have to worry about it, we can’t leave anything out that might end up in the river.”
In the future, when signs are added to the WNC, Brooks said they may need to be buried deeper or cemented in. She added that in the past, before she was hired as WNC director, map signs had been pulled out of the ground, and benches had been thrown in the river.
Brooks said that it’s difficult to monitor the WNC after hours.
“There is a discussion about adding some cameras out here,” Brooks said. “I think trail cameras would be a good idea. That won’t stop the vandalism, but it will give us suspects.”
Brooks said that she is still willing to set up the storyboards for the library’s guided walks, but would then take the signs down once the walk ends to prevent vandalism.
“It’s a free activity that gets you outside. I hate that this happened because I want to keep doing it,” Brooks said. “Maybe we do it again in six months and it won’t happen, who knows.”
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