A three-foot-tall dinosaur, one of two handmade cardboard and spray paint creations, was stolen from Emerson’s fourth floor at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year. The Jurassic Park look-alike, since returned to its usual spot, was part of Resident Advisor Rhiannon Kuns’ dinosaur floor theme.

“When I saw the first dinosaur went missing, I was sad but not shocked, honestly,” said Kuns, a second-year studio art major. “Both of the dinosaurs have gone missing and been returned a couple times.”

The blue dinosaur – named Bert – was returned after weeks of absence, with the thieves promising to leave him and his counterpart alone on one condition.

“I thought he wasn’t going to be returned, but then he was with a sort of ransom note attached to the wall,” Kuns said. “It said they would give me one week to get a cowboy hat for Bert. I thought that was actually really funny and now the dinos have lots of different hats.”

This floor is not the only one to deal with missing items. Elizabeth Delgado, a third year majoring in physiology, lives on a “Mamma Mia”-themed floor. A poster, based off of the theme, was stolen early in the quarter.

“[The poster] was one of the most important things representing our floor because that was our theme, ABBA. It was sad and funny at the same time because we think it was a prank from one of the other floors,” Delgado said.

Where the poster and extinct cardboard creatures went and why someone took them is still unknown. However, stolen items are more rare than items falling down – which is all the time.

Jaida Jones, third-year RA majoring in sociology and political science, chose “Legally Blonde” as her floor theme, hand making over thirty posters and other intricate decorations to get the look she wanted.

“I have a light-up sign and it fell off the wall. It’s okay, kids still use it and they would just turn it on and off, but now it just glows on the couch,” Jones said.

RAs spend a lot of their own time in the summer preparing decorations, devoting countless hours to handmade projects, posters and sculptures. They picked their floors’ themes with the hopes that students would enjoy them.

RA Analiese Bondar, a second-year majoring in cross-cultural psychology, gave her two cents on decorating her floor’s theme: Studio Ghibli.

“I just thought it’d be cute and I like all the movies. It took a lot of thought, like how you want the boards to look and what you want to buy, and getting a good picture of what you want overall,” Bondar said. “I had some friends come and help, but it was mainly by myself.”

With weeks of training before school, RAs do not have much time to prepare their decorations, and many put in their own free hours. Delgado helped RA friends with posters and has a newfound gratitude for their effort.

“It’s hanging things, standing on a chair, trying to find the right angle but not knowing if the decoration is up straight when you step down,” Delgado said. “I know people who have stayed up until 4 a.m. cutting paper of all things because they needed to.”

RAs are students too, with additional burdens of late hours, missing dinos and decorations falling as often as dead leaves in the fall.

“The dinosaurs are currently here, they’ve been happily in their home for a few weeks now,” Kuns said. “Hopefully they stay.”