Issues concerning the skateboard policy have been brought to Assistant Vice President
for Student Affairs. Skateboard policy states that skate boards are meant
to be used as transportation. The campus is not designed for students to do tricks. 
The Lion's Roar / Alex Brainard

There have been recent concerns with students and their ways of transportation. At the beginning of this semester the Coasting Devices Policy banned all electronic coasting devices. Recently, problems with skate boards have been brought to Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs James McHodgkins’ attention.

“Skateboards are not banned from campus, but we have in our policy stating skateboards are to be used as transportation to and from wherever they’re going,” said McHodgkins. “Our campus is not really designed for people to be doing tricks and jumps and stuff like that. When people do things on our campus to rails, to walls, to cement things, the chance of them breaking is a lot better because they’re not designed for that.”

While the budget cuts have been a recent issue in many news stories, it also plays a role here with the skateboarding policy. 

“When students break things on our campus, we have to spend money on those things to try and get them fixed,” said McHodgkins. “That’s money we could have used for other things, especially when we’re in a tight budget situation.”

According to McHodgkins, there is no problem if students ride their skateboard around campus, however, the university is not a skate park. Tricks are not allowed because of injury risks to others around them, themselves or property damage.

Many damage reports have been sighted and reported to McHodgkins.

“Lots of damage that we see are the stairs, the fountain area, you’ll see some bricks missing in different places, the performance circle is an area where we’ve had some issues,” said McHodgkins.

McHodgkins’ goal is to make students aware of the damage they are causing and to make sure students follow the policy that the university has in place.

“We’re asking our students to please work with us,” said McHodgkins. “If you want to do these things, we encourage you to go to the skate park.”

 If students are caught doing any tricks on campus there will be consequences. 

“If we find students on campus that are doing tricks, we will enforce “If we find students on campus that are doing tricks, we will enforce our conduct and send them through student conduct,” said McHodgkins. “There could be fines. Students could have to replace whatever was broken. It could lead to probation. It depends on the severity of the case and how often we have to stop the individual from doing what they we’re doing. There’s a skate park less than a mile from us. We’re asking students to keep our campus looking good and not destroy the property.”