Dormitory damage recurring but limited

College students make their mark on the north country every year, but some of those marks are more indelible than others.

Annual damage to student dormitories and residence halls costs several thousand dollars or more at each of the four colleges in St. Lawrence County. Although reports of malicious destruction and vandalism are rare in dormitories at SUNY Canton, SUNY Potsdam, St. Lawrence University in Canton and Clarkson University in Potsdam, minor dings and dents are common at all four colleges.

“Having two thousand students living in residence halls, it’s the normal wear and tear you’d expect,” said Matha E. Thornton, assistant dean of student life and director of residence life at St. Lawrence University. “I think the stronger the community, the less the students want to go out and do that damage.”

Ms. Thornton said that most damage in St. Lawrence’s dormitories seemed to be a result of poor choices or accidents, with the total cost of repairs averaging about $5,000 each year. Among the most prevalent instances of wear and tear are chipped paint and carpets stained by salt from shoes in the winter.

The college also sees occasional instances of graffiti in dormitory hallways, and two or three exit signs are knocked down or otherwise damaged each month. According to Ms. Thornton, pranks are rare, but there is still one perennial favorite among students.

“The thing I see most often — and this is once or twice a year — is that they fill a trash can with water and lean it up against a door,” she said. “I wish students would think a little more about what they’re doing, but I don’t think it’s malicious. I don’t think we have an extreme problem; I think it’s pretty typical.”

At Clarkson University, Associate Dean of Students Mark J. DeRitis also said the extent of student damage is fairly typical. According to Mr. DeRitis, most damage occurs in shared residential spaces and includes graffiti, cracked glass in doors and overfilled trash cans in shared bathrooms.

Although the college also sees its fair share of broken exit signs, its annual repairs far exceed St. Lawrence’s. Mr. DeRitis estimated that damage to the dormitories costs the college $20,000 to $25,000 each year, an amount that translates to approximately $10 per student. While Clarkson will bill students who are responsible for individual damage, it does not impose fines on entire residential floors for damage to public spaces.

“It’s not an outrageous amount. With the cost of repairs these days, it doesn’t take much to drive up that number,” Mr. DeRitis said. “We’d like to keep the number of unnecessary repairs to a minimum, but there’s simply going to be some damage. It doesn’t seem debilitating to us in terms of the resources we’re allocating for it.”

While neither SUNY Canton nor SUNY Potsdam has problems with damaged exit signs or outstanding repair costs, they do experience the same general scrapes and scuffs in their student dormitories.

“It’s just the normal wear and tear stuff,” said Courtney Battista Bish, SUNY Canton’s director of residence life and assistant dean of students. “We get the usual things like putting tape on the wall to hang up a poster, which will pull off some of the paint, or some things like towel bars needing to be replaced or a peephole being missing.”

According to Ms. Bish, the school typically spends up to several thousand dollars annually on repairs to its residence halls. Although SUNY Canton does not segregate its dormitories by age or year, Ms. Bish said she expects there to be significantly less damage in the new Grasse River Suites, which feature well-painted concrete walls and reinforced glass.

At SUNY Potsdam, dormitory damage is similarly restricted to basic wear and tear and is less prevalent in the college’s newer, nicer residences.

“The damage that students may do during the year is minimal,” said Eric D. Duchscherer, SUNY Potsdam’s director of residential life. “It’s pretty insignificant in the big picture. Our students are respectful of their living environments.”

Mr. Duchscherer estimated the college spends $6,000 to $7,000 on repairs each year, with chipped paint and gouged flooring among the most common occurrences. While students are billed for moderate to major damage and are penalized for tampering with fire extinguishers and other safety equipment, they are not charged for minor incidents over the year.

“We certainly don’t go through with a white glove and look for every tack hole,” Mr. Duchscherer said. “There’s a certain amount of wear and tear you come to expect.”