EDITORIAL: Breaking and entering

the students who broke into Stouffer are an insult to all undergraduates at this university. Instead, they found a group of students partaking in some sort of meal. And when told that it was part of Stouffer's regular midnight breakfast, the officers gave the students the benefit of the doubt. Yet, in fact, the dining hall was still closed for fall break. According to witnesses and Dining Services officials, the students took the cafeteria's food, used its kitchen appliances and went into the building's administrative offices and storage areas. While this escapade is amusing on the surface, one cannot ignore that the approximately 50 students who broke into Stouffer committed a crime. If it had been someone not affiliated with the University wandering around Stouffer, that person would most likely have been arrested on the spot for trespassing. In looting the premises, trying to take appliances such as a television and by leaving with boxes of food, the students showed themselves to be immature and irresponsible. Their use of the Stouffer kitchen also presented heath and safety hazards. Someone leaving his or her dormitory room unlocked does not give people an open invitation to ransack the apartment. Similarly, these students' actions are by no means justified by the fact that Dining officials left the facility open. In discussions ranging from alcohol consumption to supervision in residences, students on this campus spend a lot of time asking to be treated like adults. Acts such as the one that occurred Tuesday morning undermine the credibility of all Penn undergraduates. We don't want to go back to an era of in loco parentis, where the University acted as a substitute parent. We ask that students don't give administrators reason to consider such a move.