Tech tradition causes problems for students

The Tech Tower’s “TECH” letters are a familiar beacon to students, visible not only from the tower itself but on many photos of Tech and on Tech memorabilia.

Almost equally prominent in Tech’s culture is the “tradition” of stealing the T from the Tower.

The theft of Tech Tower T’s has been strongly discouraged by campus authorities over the years. Students who attempted to steal the T can face expulsion as well as criminal charges.

However, T theft continues to occur campus-wide on a smaller scale – at least smaller when the size of the T ’s themselves are concerned.

Many T’s mounted on buildings and signs throughout campus are stolen every year, and the cost and amount of effort that goes into replacing these missing letters is anything but small.

“The actual cost of the material is around $5,000 a year,” said Francis Gillis, associate director of Housing, Facilities, about the cost associated with the stolen letters to Housing.

“There are lots of other background costs. That doesn’t take into account all of the people who have to replace them...and our carpenter’s shop,” Gillis said.

According to Daniel Morrison, the director of Residence Life, some of the expense is also in the renting of cranes and lifts to replace letters on the upper floors of residence halls.

The latest theft was the T’s in the sign designating The John and Mary Wesley New Media Center in the library. According to Carol Senf, the associate chair in the Literature, Culture and Communication department, the quote to replace each T was $250.

The university is taking various measures to reduce the number of stolen letters.

“I try to mount them in a way that they can’t be stolen after they are installed,” said Dennis Adams, from All American Specialty, a company that does lettering for the campus.

“We glue the backs of the letters so that they really have to work at getting them off, or...they break, so they don’t get what they wanted. We incorporate the GT logo in the plaques as much as we can, so we avoid having the T’s taken off,” Adams said.

Campus improvements are also affecting the type and number of letters being stolen.

“All the letters on the buildings are being removed as part of a new signing system for campus. In the past, all of the addresses for the buildings were on the buildings, and now they will be on the signs in front of the buildings,” said Warren Page, director of Operations and Maintenance at Tech.

These new monument-type signs in front of most dorms and buildings have contributed to the theft of T’s.

“At the end of the semester, we had mostly T’s, vinyl T’s, taken from the monument-type signs, and during September and during the summer, we had some of the white T’s we had mounted on buildings taken too,” Gillis said.

“It was an increase with the new signs because they’re so easy to get at, because they’re down on the ground. They can be peeled off easily rather than sawed off, like the letters mounted on the building.”

However, the vinyl T’s on the monument-type signs have an advantage over the older

type of lettering: they are cheaper to replace.

According to Page, the theft of letters was “not part of the reason” for the new signs.

However, in comparison to the older type of letters, the vinyl T’s on the new signs “are easily replaced and not very expensive,” said Page.

The number of T’s stolen, compared to other letters, makes it obvious that stealing small T’s has become a substitute for stealing the Tech Tower T.

“For the most part it’s T’s, unless they’re trying to spell something. Sometimes more letters are taken,” Gillis said.

The reason administrators fought to halt the tradition of stealing the Tech Tower’s T is primarily the danger to students who attempt it.

The fight to keep smaller T’s on campus signs and buildings from being stolen is because of the cost in terms of money and effort to the university.

“It causes us issues because it’s diverting our attention from real needs to what we classify as vandalism,” Gillis said. “It detracts from the university’s appearance to parents and visitors when [it] is done.”