It’s the last day of classes, finals are coming up — some of us have already started — and none of us can stop thinking about summer plans. But that hasn’t stopped us from noticing Chancellor Richard Herman’s untimely mass e-mail about the damage to the “Beyond the Chief” art exhibit. Ho…It’s the last day of classes, finals are coming up — some of us have already started — and none of us can stop thinking about summer plans. But that hasn’t stopped us from noticing Chancellor Richard Herman’s untimely mass e-mail about the damage to the “Beyond the Chief” art exhibit. However, we suspect that might have been his plan all along: let this e-mail slip by unnoticed as students await the last day of classes and study for finals.

He condemned the “recent” and continuing assaults on the Native American public art displays along Nevada Avenue. By the way, the first assault on the artwork happened almost exactly a month ago. Just because it’s a recurring problem does not mean it’s “recent.” An acknowledgement e-mail, to say the least, should have been sent a month ago when the first assault happened. But no word then, and Herman’s words Tuesday mean almost nothing: The small number of students who read the massmail pushed it to the back of their mind.

On the list of priorities, this e-mail was not at the top for students. Go figure. Herman didn’t mean for it to be a priority; he didn’t want to shed more light on the fact that he has all but denied the vandalism — at least, it looks that way.

That’s not to say the e-mail was useless. But why did it take Herman, the leader of our University, so long to send it? The vandalism has been going on for weeks, unacknowledged by our school’s chancellor.

In his e-mail, Herman said we need to think of these crimes as not happening to someone else, but happening to the University, and therefore, happening to us. If Herman really thought of these vandalism stunts as crimes personally against him, he would have addressed the issue much sooner.

This e-mail serves as lip service for the administration. They can now check a box and say they took care of the problem. But this e-mail accomplishes nothing. It lets Herman sound like he cares, but he hasn’t actually done anything about the vandalism. He never had an open forum about the vandalism; he didn’t invite students to talk about it. They didn’t put surveillance cameras around the house after the first assault and didn’t have extra police patrols. No wonder they haven’t caught the culprits yet — they haven’t tried. And this e-mail just affirms the fact that Herman doesn’t care himself.

After all, he didn’t even attend last Wednesday’s open meeting put together by the Native American House and American Indian Studies to discuss the damage of the exhibit.

The vandalism is a recurring problem because no one addressed the issue soon enough; it’s a recurring problem because the administration let it happen again and again without acknowledging the problem. Problems like this happen all too often and it takes the University too long to respond, which benefits no one. This was not a bad e-mail to send, but it was too little, too late.