Do you have a spine-tingling story to share about your school or alma mater? Submit it here, and we’ll publish our favorites in time for Halloween.
During my sophomore year, I lived in a haunted dorm.
I’ll admit, I have always loved a good ghost story. So you could say I was primed to have a ghost sighting, or at least, hopeful for one. And at Kenyon College in Ohio, where I went to school, ghosts are a big part of campus lore.
Every October, the security guards host a bonfire and recount, straight-faced, tales of disappearing footprints, disembodied wails and an elevator that operated on its own. One professor leads a haunted campus tour, and Kenyon alumni from different generations share versions of the stories at reunions and gatherings; it’s part of our shared language and a useful conversation starter.
The stories themselves are regularly embellished, and some have taken on mythic proportions, but the original tales come from a handful of tragic accidents over the last century.
One such calamity took place around 4 a.m. on Feb. 27, 1949, when a towering stone dormitory called Old Kenyon burned to the ground in a devastating fire that killed nine students. Two of those students died as a result of skull fractures they suffered after jumping from the windows. The fire was national news — it made the front page of this newspaper, along with a photo of a group of college men huddled before the building, its windows illuminated by the uncontrollable blaze.
The dorm — a beautiful 1829 Gothic Revival building with spires — had been the centerpiece of campus. So the school vowed to rebuild quickly, and by the next year Old Kenyon was ready for new inhabitants. The exterior was reset with the structure’s original stones, but the inside was reconstructed with concrete and steel to be safer and more modern in design.
According to legend, the ghosts of the dead students prefer to walk along the old floor plan. Allegedly, they silently traverse the hallways, visible only from the waist up. That, or their feet can be seen gliding over student heads.
When I lived in Old Kenyon, I never saw any meandering spirits. But sometimes, in the middle of the night, when not a Kenyonite was stirring, I’d awake to an odd pattern. The room would get very cold, and I would feel the presence of a slow-moving force, gliding toward me, past my dresser. My makeup cases, vitamin bottles and other dresser-top trinkets would clatter to the floor. But they wouldn’t fall all at once. Instead, the items would drop to the carpet, one by one, as if someone were pushing a hand slowly through them.
In these moments, I’d lay very still, paralyzed by an oddly cheerful terror. My ghost was back!
There were a few other poltergeist-esque encounters during the year. Once my roommate and I fled screaming after a disembodied voice woke us both at the same time. A college boyfriend once “dreamed” he heard the door slam before he was locked in place by cold hands, pressing him into the bed. I’ve held these stories up as proof of a genuine haunting.
Not surprisingly, there are logical explanations for all of my supposed supernatural encounters. But why tell them? It would only ruin the story.
Since the On Campus series began last year, I’ve been dying to solicit ghost stories from other schools in honor of Halloween. Did you live in a dorm like Old Kenyon? Or attend a school with a spine-tingling legend?
We’d love to hear about it. Please submit your spooky tales using the form below, and we’ll publish our favorites.
