As is tradition, hundreds of UNC students lined up at the Old Well on Cameron Avenue throughout Monday to celebrate the start of the new academic year.

Just hours before, however, the famous fountain’s bowl was reportedly used more like a toilet bowl.

An Instagram post from the account @tarheelbarstool on Tuesday afternoon shared a photo supposedly taken in the early morning hours on Monday. The image showed defecation or mud in the bowl of the water fountain with the caption: “Rip to everyone that drank from the well after 6am yesterday…wish I was kidding.”

The university confirmed to Chapelboro that Monday morning, before classes began, there was a report of vandalism at the Old Well. UNC said the campus symbol was “immediately cleaned and completely sanitized prior to the first scheduled class.”

The annual tradition of taking drinks from the well continued uninterrupted through the day. UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, College of Arts and Sciences Dean James White and others joined the students as they took their sips with wishes of 4.0 GPAs.

Monday’s vandalism is not the first time the fountain was defaced with feces. The university shut down the Old Well for a day in November 2018 after excrement was found in its fountain bowl by a CBS 17 reporter hoping to get a lucky sip of water.

The Old Well was constructed on UNC’s campus in the late 1790s, just a few years after the university had opened. Initially used by students, faculty and staff for drinking and bathing water, the well’s current was designed in 1897 and most recently updated with studier materials in 1954. The drinking fountain at the university symbol was reportedly installed in 1925.

 

Photo via UNC Barstool.

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