Students and teachers are in a state of shock after thief/thieves broke into Room 173 of the Learning Resource Center a couple of weeks ago and stole thousands of dollars worth of computers that contained programs that students needed to access in order to complete their school work.

The theft resulted in eight Mac computers being taken. The incident has left students and teachers at an inconvenience.

“Nearly half of the computers are gone, ” art professor Kirk Miller said. “Without a computer for each student, it is difficult to maintain consistency in the classroom. It’s really difficult to teach. It’s nearly impossible.

“I have no idea what (the thief/thieves) motives were. I hope they really needed them. The school is facing dire economic times and we certainly didn’t need this.”

As a result, Miller had to shorten his lecture and extend his lab time to help make up for the loss.

He told his students to try to share computers, but that proved difficult since projects can take several hours to complete.

According to Miller, some students just walked out of class to either work at home or because they had no choice.

“There will be no reduction in the workload,” Miller said. “We still need to cover all of the material that is required. It’s going to take longer to get things done.”

For students, some are uncertain about their grades.

“It sucks,” film science major Donovan Taylor said.

“(The thief/thieves) are selfish and only thinking about their pockets. It wasn’t called for. Students aren’t going to get the 110 percent they should get from this class.

“Instead of getting the three hours to work on our projects, we have to rush through in an hour and a half so others can use the computers,” Taylor said.

Taylor was the last person in his class to leave the lab on Oct. 3. He stayed after to finish the music video he was working on.

“Some students lost all of their work and now they have to start from scratch,” animation major Robert Carrete said.

“We need this class for our majors. (The theft) is slowing our projects down and the quality drops because we don’t have the time.”

Other classes were moderately impacted by the theft.

Professor Bonnie Barrett had her design for a desktop publishing class on Monday morning following the theft.

She found out about the break in only 30 minutes before class.

“I was shocked and unable to concentrate. It cost me an hour to get something set up,” she said.

The thief/thieves had taken the instructor’s station. Barrett said she had to take one of the remaining student computers and hook it up to the class projector.

“This criminal activity undermines our feeling of a safe learning environment. I’m worried that this will happen again.

“We adjusted and got on with what we could. Everybody got back to work with what we had left,” she said.

Fine Arts Dean Gary Pritchard said that new computers have already been ordered. He does not know when they will arrive on campus.