High above the sidewalk on the north side of the Science Building sits the “Fruit Vent,” a small, square hole, about six feet from the top of the building, designed to let water drain off the roof. As it sits, looking towards the dining hall, it’s in the perfect position for students walking from the dining hall to see as they make their way back to their dorms.
Starting in around 2015, according to Chad Coleman, director of campus safety, students began to take whole fruits from the dining hall and throw them up at the vent, attempting to put them through the small target.“It was just a handful,” Coleman said. “It was just enough to be annoying to phys plant. Like, ‘why are there oranges laying all over the place?’”
As time went on, and the new tradition took hold, the quantity of fruit increased.
“One day my safety officer had to do something on the roof of [the science building],” Coleman said. “There was a barrel’s worth of oranges on the roof … just nasty and spoiled.”
As time went on and the student body changed over, the amount of fruit being thrown died down again, eventually coming to a complete halt when dining services switched over to the Union building. However, when Westlawn reopened, the fruit was back, three times as bad as before, according to Coleman. AVI and Facilities, formerly known as Physical Plant, reported the problem to campus safety, and led Coleman to go look at the tapes.
“I went back and looked at video from three meals,” Coleman said, “I was like ‘oh my gosh,’ there were 30 or more people, and almost all of them were athletes.”
This, and several phone calls from the science department to Campus Safety saying that a piece of fruit hit an office window or describing teaching a class while fruit pounded on the roof, prompted the email sent to students on Wednesday Nov. 13. The email offered a clean slate for anyone who had done it in the past, but promised to investigate those who chose to do it in the future.
In a statement to The Record, Brian Mast, director of facilities, said, “Aside from the senseless waste of food, and the negative aesthetics created by trying to throw fruit into the roof scupper, the rotting fruit and plastic wrap that litters the flower beds, sidewalks, and roof must be removed by facilities staff who are busy trying to fix real issues on campus.”
“What may seem like a fun game has actual institutional costs connected to it beyond being a very frustrating, recurring issue.”
A recent trip out to the fruit vent revealed a clean flower bed underneath, and investigation with a drone showed only two pieces of fruit on the roof, implying the email had the desired effect.
If you Google “Goshen College Fruit Vent,” a Google business card for “Fruit Vent Ministries” appears, advertising a “Dental clinic in Goshen, Indiana,” with the tagline “if you make it in, chad will brush your teeth.”
Though it may be nearing the end of its days, the fruit vent has quite the legacy, specifically being named the “Best Employer” in the science and technology division of The Goshen News’ 2022 “Best of the Best” awards. It is unclear who nominated it, and who at The Goshen News let it slide through, but regardless it beat out Atlas IT, though it employs exactly zero people.
The Record managed to track down at least one person who claims to have made it in the fruit vent: Ben Troyer, ‘22, said that he made it at least once, maybe twice.
“It was the peak of my athletic career,” he said.
