Theft: Local but not Sustainable!

Ordinarily I would not vent on my blog. Many do vent on blogs and quite honestly I go to blogs for pleasurable readings about subjects that interest me, not to hear (at least in my head) someone carrying on about their views on certain things that generally have no impact on me and mine. However, lately there's been a problem with theft in our food service program at RISD. Actually, it's more constant than simply lately. It's causing me to get overly paranoid and it makes it difficult especially for people like myself, who want to be able to develop relationships with students, but are forced to be a little leery. I find myself wondering will this person, possibly on their own or now because they know me, think that they are deserving of more than their dining points buy. There is a level of frustration caused by this unearned sense of entitlement that some students use as their logic shield to justify theft. It makes us (myself and my chefs) ask questions of ourselves; are we good role models, do we have enough available, are the prices too high? All potentially valid questions but as we watch students not merely take food but also flatware, sleeves of napkins and "plastic" cups and treat washable plates and cups as disposable it's difficult to fathom how this school has such a loud voice for local and sustainable. Contrary to popular actions, theft does not help to sustain anything and the only thing that makes theft local is that you are in a sense taking from your own.

Now, I've just started working with some ceramics students to see if we can have a closed loop recycling program using student made coffee mugs at the our dining facility the Portfolio. We had a similar program at the Freshmen dining hall, the Met, the only problem was that all the mugs got stolen. So, maybe we're hoping against hope that this other program will be more successful or maybe that the students won't want to take or destroy the work of their peers. Maybe it's too much to hope for.