By QUINN ANNIS
At the beginning of the fall semester, something was absent from the porch of Beloit’s oldest sorority. In previous years, prominently displayed on the railing of Theta Pi Gamma had been three flags: a progress pride flag, a Black Lives Matter banner, and, more recently, a Palestinian flag. But during the summer, the flags were put into storage. And now, they’re missing.
“Before the summer, one of our members had taken them off to just put them in the house to stay stored and safe over the summer,” Alex Fondrk’28, Theta’s house manager, said. “And then we got back, and we couldn’t find them where they said they would be… We reached out to ResLife and Facilities, and they didn’t know anything, really.”
A number of other things were also moved to new locations within the house, according to Theta’s president, Anna Dailey’26. “We found them, they were just in different spots,” she said.
During the summer, the only people with access to the houses are staff members, with the most regular entrants being Housekeeping. Most likely, the flags were removed either by them, during cleaning, or by Facilities, during maintenance.
Anthropology House, meanwhile, has had an ongoing issue with kitchen items disappearing. In previous years, it was specifically spoons; this year, the problem has expanded to forks and bowls. “When I first moved in, a month early before everybody else did, our silverware pullout, our forks and our spoons were missing,” said Ewan Hall‘28, Anthro’s vice president. “So when I moved in, I bought a handful of each. And then slowly throughout the month, until about last week, we had lost every single fork and every single spoon that I bought.”
It’s SAGA, though — the Sexuality and Gender Alliance — who have lost the most. When SAGA members returned to campus, they found a myriad of items missing; worth, by their estimate, about $900 collectively. Things unaccounted for included the house’s kitchenware, whose replacement was paid for out of pocket; various cups, mugs, and utensils; a substantial number of personal items, which make up a bit over half of the price; and their pride-themed decorations.
“Some old photos from earlier exec teams and other events that had happened throughout SAGA’s history were missing,” Ela Heywood’25 said. “We had graduation stoles that were for the next group of graduates this year, or even some that had been left behind by last year’s graduates. Many pride flags, many trans flags and gay flags, little ones that we would hand out at events and things, as well as condoms. One of our club things is to have condoms and sex positivity, and those all were gone.”
Among the photos taken, according to Ben O’Connor’26, SAGA’s vice president, were polaroids of a queer kissing booth that the club organized around 2010. The most visible decorations removed were the large pride flag that was situated on the back staircase outside and an indoor decoration with a rainbow made out of strings. Like in the case of Theta and Anthro, the items were likely taken during cleaning or maintenance.
“First day back when we realized that things were just missing in general, we reached out to Randi,” said Heywood. “Randi was not helpful in her response, nor really receptive to the idea that it was an institutional issue, because it wasn’t as if a member of the club was able to come in over the summer and take these things. It had to have been a staff member of some sort, who had access to the house when we weren’t here.”
SAGA’s treasurer, Joy Figueroa’25, has made consistent efforts to communicate with the college about the incident. The back-and-forth hasn’t yielded much. “ResLife has said they know nothing, and to ask Housekeeping,” she said. “Housekeeping hasn’t gotten back. I feel like Facilities wouldn’t know, and Security clearly has just been giving us the runaround.”
According to Figueroa and Heywood, Security says they’re investigating the issue. But so far, they’ve seen little in the way of progress. “I feel like I’m definitely being strung along,” Figueroa said. “We made our first report the first week back, and I want to say, probably, like the first few days of classes. I’m still having to be in communication with no real answer from Security, and it’s been six weeks later.”
There’s also the issue of who to reach out to, because for special interest houses like SAGA, there isn’t a precise chain of command. “[Randi Mogul]’s been pretty clear about not having responsibility for this house,” O’Connor said.
Still, it’s clear that the situation is deserving of outside intervention — intervention that it’s not getting. “There’s usually an agreement between Housekeeping and themed houses that if something was labeled house or the name of the club, like SAGA, it’s supposed to stay here over the summer,” said Figueroa. “All our cabinets labeled house still also had everything removed from them.”
“For me, it’s just kind of disheartening, because we had all this stuff that was integral,” O’Connor said. “Having things taken away from you, especially from the perspective of being a part of an identity-based club is, regardless of if it’s intentional or not — specifically a bias thing — the fact that it’s still allowed to happen and able to happen with little to no communication to us is demoralizing and disrespectful, and not having that priority really sucks.”
There’s a general sentiment among SAGA’s membership that, whether or not the act was malicious, it feels like the result of negligence. “There’s that feeling of just, we can’t rely on the institution to protect us and support us,” said O’Connor. “My time in SAGA has kind of just reinforced that, unfortunately.”
Featured image: Beloit College, Quinn Annis’29
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