by TRACEY LINDEMAN

Thomas Shortliffe is angry that his nine years at Concordia have bought him exactly what the university promised - a real education for the real world.

An art therapy student, he received an abrupt lesson in reality last month when he became a victim of theft. He had left five paintings in a studio of the Visual Arts (VA) building June 16; when he returned three days later, only three remained. He frantically searched the building for hours, but to no avail. Currently in the process of writing his Master's thesis, Shortliffe will be bidding Concordia a bittersweet adieu this fall. "It's ruined my educational experience," he says. "This is basically how I'm ending my degree - by getting ripped off."

Shortliffe claims to sell 80 per cent of what he paints and estimates that he has sold approximately $20,000 worth of art in the past eight years. He says that he had actually sold the missing "Freud and Jung" and that he was bringing his client to the building to pick it up the day he discovered it missing.

This wasn't the VA building's first security breach. When a colleague's work had been stolen in mid-May, Shortliffe, 30, spoke out in class against theft. "The word is spreading that you can get free art at Concordia," he says.

In a June 20 letter to Christopher Jackson, the dean of fine arts, Shortliffe asked for $1,500 in compensation, while also making security recommendations. His bid for compensation was denied, but Concordia security operations manager Darren Dumoulin confirms that the fine arts administration has begun looking into Shortliffe's suggestions, which include the installation of surveillance cameras in the VA building. As it stands, students are expected to haul their works home every night, as there are no locked storage spaces in which they can keep them. However, Shortliffe says that students are required to have their work readily available for display, as being critiqued is a degree requirement.

According to Dumoulin, with only eight personal thefts in the VA over the past year and a half, "It didn't seem like necessarily a priority - there wasn't really a need for it." However, he sympathizes with Shortliffe and says that a security camera proposal for the VA has already been drawn up.

While his request for compensation has been denied, Shortliffe is still considering pursuing the matter in small claims court. He says that the administration told him that if they reimbursed him, they would have to reimburse everyone who has had their work stolen from the VA building. "By doing nothing, [the administration is] saying that because it doesn't have a dollar value, that it's worthless," he says.

"The fear [of having work stolen] is shaping the creative process of everyone in that building." And while the VA building's security may change for the better, Shortliffe is unimpressed. "It's too little too late. This has been going on for years."