Office break-ins on StFX campus
February 4, 2010 3:54 PM
The offices of two StFX professors were broken into on Friday, January 22.
Dr Yvon Grenier, a political science professor whose office is located on the seventh floor of Nicholson Tower, says that he arrived at work to find his door handle broken, but nothing was missing from the room.
Dr Jennifer Sullivan, however, was not so lucky.
The psychology professor whose office is in the Annex says that she returned to her office after a StFXAUT meeting on January 22 to find that her laptop and wallet were missing.
“I had gone to the meeting at 4 p.m.,” Sullivan explains. “I know I locked my door behind me.” When she came back at approximately 7:20 p.m., her office was locked and closed, but her MacBook Pro and her wallet - which had been in her purse - were gone.
A facilities management employee who had emptied Sullivan’s garbage at 7 p.m. told the professor that when she [the FM employee] entered there were papers scattered on the floor.
“I had had some papers sitting on top of my laptop,” Sullivan says, inferring that the FM employee must have entered after the theft had occurred.
After StFX security directed her to call the RCMP, police officers arrived to survey the scene. Sullivan’s case is not the first time burglaries have occurred in the Annex.
Last year, Jennifer Gauthier, a lab instructor in the psychology department, had a camera stolen from her office, while another psychology professor, Dr Petra Hauf, also had her office broken into.
While Sullivan was told by campus authorities that the theft was likely committed by a person who has a key to her office, she wasn’t entirely convinced by that scenario.
She argues that there is enough space between the door and the door jamb for someone to have manipulated the lock to gain entry.
In fact, Sullivan says after the break-in, a colleague demonstrated to her just how easily this could be accomplished.
After the theft, a metal plate was installed on the door which covers the lock. Other offices in the Annex already have this plate affixed to their doors.
At the time of print, the individual(s) responsible for the theft had not been caught.
