Shortly after beginning to work as a patrol officer for the Department of Public Safety, part-time worker Kate Miller found herself walking through Addison Hall. It was late at night, and as she looked into a classroom, she saw a face staring back at her through the glass. At first, she thought it was her own reflection. When she looked again, she came to a chilling realization: another woman was staring back at her, clad in all white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a very common myth,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to see her, you\u2019re not supposed to look through the doors of the classrooms or at the end of the hallways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the experience spooked her, Miller said that she didn\u2019t feel threatened by the woman in white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t get close enough to make you feel like you\u2019re in danger,\u201d said Miller. \u201cShe just makes you know that you\u2019re not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its 162-year history, CUC has its share of ghost stories. Though some longtime members of the Concordia community like Director of Public Safety Dave Witken and assistant professor of theology Kirk Clayton say they have never had any run-ins with the supernatural, many, like Miller, say they\u2019ve encountered the paranormal on-campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While some experiences may be unique, others have been experienced by multiple people. Eduardo Hinds, a 2024 CUC graduate, said that he experienced something while alone in Krentz late at night. Hinds said that he was staying late in the e-sports room, which used to be located on the first floor of Krentz. He went to use the bathroom, and while using the bathroom, he said that the lights shut off on their own, and he heard a woman scream at the top of her lungs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hinds said that he immediately left, and when he went to the DPS desk to ask who was on patrol, he was told that the worker on patrol wasn\u2019t anywhere near Krentz when Hinds heard the scream. Miller says she had a similar experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was on patrol, and I knew e-sports was gone because the keys had been returned and the room was all locked up,\u201d said Miller. \u201cI went to use the bathroom, when suddenly there was a blood-curdling scream from the corner of the bathroom. It sounded like a banshee. I can deal with voices and bumps, but a banshee scream in a locked building? I\u2019m good, no thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miller said that \u2018voices and bumps\u2019 make up a large amount of the supernatural activity around campus, especially in the network of underground tunnels that stretch across campus. DPS uses the tunnels to get across campus quickly, and they are allegedly a hotbed for paranormal activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe tunnels have a creepy feeling,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIf you\u2019re walking down the tunnel in the Mary Martha basement, it eventually splits off, and you can hear whispers coming from the left-hand tunnel. It\u2019s very hard to mistake the sound of footsteps running right behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just DPS workers that have run into ghostly former students. Several faculty members claim to have experienced the unexplainable. One such faculty member is Elisabeth Unruh, an adjunct professor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne fall evening I was in the adjunct office [in the West Annex] grading at the desk and waiting for the evening class to start,\u201d said Unruh. \u201cOut of the corner of my right eye on the floor moved past a black raccoon-sized thick black shadow by my feet. It scared the crap out of me\u2014it was definitely there and my heart was beating very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is not Unruh\u2019s only potential experience with the supernatural at CUC. Her other experience also comes from the West Annex, and features a shadowy figure waiting for a meeting to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was walking from the adjunct office to the staircase heading to class,\u201d said Unruh. \u201cAs I walked past the meeting room I noticed someone was sitting in the dark in one of the chairs at the long meeting table. As I kept walking I thought well that was strange, who would be sitting in the dark? I decided to turn around and check because it just seemed so peculiar. But when I looked in the room no one was there. I even stepped in and looked around but there was no one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some people make a game out of seeing who can get in touch with the supernatural, and one of those people is Dave Golitko, an assistant softball coach. As part of the \u201cCougolympics,\u201d he has done three campus ghost hunts over the past 12 years. Golitko explained that before the athletes are let loose on the campus, they are first educated on what they could potentially find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey first would listen or watch some past evidence my son’s group had found and we test them on what they heard or saw,\u201d said Golitko. \u201cAfter that I explain some of the tools we and most groups use and I show them what they are used for and then they have an hour to go to the places of their choosing to investigate around campus.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Golitko says he has heard several stories from former players about what they encountered in their ghost hunts, as well as what they encountered in their daily lives. Some of the encounters even happen very close to the athletics offices, as Golitko said that students told him they heard voices, noises, knocks, and scratching sounds in the south gym and at the doorway leading to the tunnel system below the baseball offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One former softball player and staff member that claims to have had some paranormal encounters of her own during her time at CUC is Sydney Vizi, who was a student before serving as a pitching coach for the softball team, as well as in the athletic communications department. Vizi even said that one ghost latched onto her room. More specifically, her television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was convinced while living at CUC that a ghost attached to my TV,\u201d said Vizi. \u201cI would play music on it and songs would skip or turn up and down depending on what started playing. The ghost had preferences!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ghost that haunted Vizi\u2019s TV is not the only ghost to have allegedly enjoyed music. Golitko said he heard stories about students hearing the sound of a piano playing in the KCC, while Miller said that when she\u2019s been doing her rounds in Bergmann Theater, she has heard disembodied theater scores coming from the green room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vizi said that one of her experiences was a bit personal, and that she was able to use a spirit box\u2013a machine that picks up radio waves and converts them into white noise, in theory allowing the user to communicate with ghosts\u2013to speak with a spirit in the Kohn basement. According to Vizi, she got some answers about who the spirit was in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI asked the ghost about its life and it explained it was a professor and had two remaining children,\u201d said Vizi. \u201cThey also confirmed they were around during the Addison Hall fires.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1970, Addison Hall was nearly destroyed in an act of arson. It was the second time Addison was ablaze, the first time being February of 1914, just four months after the building was dedicated in the fall of 1913. It is speculated that those fires could be the cause of the ghosts that allegedly walk its halls today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just the older buildings that are rumored to contain the supernatural. Miller says that she has encountered a ghostly child that runs around the Early Childhood Education Center in the Christopher Center, one of the newer buildings on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToys will turn on in the ECEC and you\u2019ll hear fast footsteps,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIf you turn around fast enough, you\u2019ll see a kid looking around the corner at you. It\u2019s not a bad kid, it\u2019s a mischievous kid that has free run of the building and runs all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the common connotation denoting ghosts with the creepy or scary or eerie, Miller says that the ghosts aren\u2019t malicious or evil. In fact, Miller thinks it is the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSpirits stay with places that hold lots of emotional value,\u201d said Miller. \u201cPlaces that people love so much or have lots poured into it, those are hotbeds. It\u2019s wherever there is a lot of emotions or pride, which is why 99% of experiences are completely benign.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Miller, the spirits that may walk Concordia\u2019s campus are not here because they are stuck here, they are here because there is nowhere else they would rather be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt holds people here,\u201d said Miller. \u201cNot in a bad way, it just holds them here. Because they have a connection, they stay so close.They have that connection to the place and what it represents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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