In College Buildings, Hauntings and Restless Spirits

It’s the season for ghost stories, and colleges always seem to be in the narrative. After all, while American society has had a tendency to tear down its buildings in spurts of renewal, college halls have been around for decades. A transient student population only adds to rumor and exaggeration.

But if anyone is going to see ghosts on a campus, it’s got to be the facilities crew, as their jobs carry them into abandoned buildings, old boiler rooms, and other creepy parts of campuses. At Anderson University, a ghost story has persisted for 100 years — and has scared the heck out of one former physical-plant director, Olin Padgett. Twenty-five years ago, he told the Independent-Mail that he would never go into the university’s music building at night. Others on campus claimed to hear piano music in the building when, folks thought, no one was in there. According to the Independent-Mail, people believe that the building is haunted by the daughter of a former university president.

Pianos seem to be a theme in campus hauntings. At the University of Maryland at College Park, people have heard a spirit playing a piano in Marie Mount Hall, even though there is no piano in Marie Mount Hall. Meanwhile, the ghosts in Morrill Hall are apparently flatulent; people report eerie smells and noises in that building.

Maryland colleges are in fact great hunting grounds for ghosts, according to an article about Beverly Litsinger, president of the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association. Mount St. Mary’s University, in Emmitsburg, is haunted by the ghost of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the nun who lived in the early 1800s and became the first native-born American saint. Ms. Litsinger says she has found hauntings at Loyola College, too.

The State University of New York at Binghamton is rumored to have a number of active ghosts. Students have heard loud noises and banging sounds in empty rooms in Smith Hall. Students have reported communicating with ghosts through their computers, which had cryptic messages left on them. One student found her chemistry book opened to the same page every time she came back to her room, and even saw a ghost standing over her when she napped.

For those inclined to believe in this stuff, there are also chilling stories from Central Methodist University and Appalachian State University.