The Greensboro University’s Ghost

The school was established as a women’s college by legislative enactment on February 18, 1891.  First, it was a State Normal and Industrial School and it opened October 5, 1892. The school provided instruction in business, domestic science, and teaching with a student body of 223 and a faculty of 15 in its first year. R. S. Pullen and R. T. Gray gave the original 10-acre (40,000 m2) site in Greensboro, N.C. where the first building was erected with state funds totaling $30,000. It is the first and only public university in North Carolina founded for the purpose of educating women. In 1949, it became the largest all-female institution in the United States.

The school has seen many names over the years, changing from the “State Normal and Industrial School” to the State Normal and Industrial College in 1896.

In 1919 to North Carolina College for Women. In 1932, it changed to the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina. Finally, in 1963 to University of North Carolina at Greensboro when men were first admitted.

It is remembered fondly by many graduates of the Woman’s College simply as “the W.C.”

The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master’s and 26 doctoral programs.  The university’s academic schools and programs include the College of Arts & Sciences, the Joseph M. Bryan School of Business & Economics, the School of Education, the School of Health and Human Sciences, the Joint School of Nanoscience & Nano-engineering (one of the first such schools in the nation), the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the School of Nursing, Continual Learning, Graduate School, Warren Ashby Residential College and Lloyd International Honors College. The university is also home to the nationally renowned Weatherspoon Art Museum, which features one of the largest and most impressive collections of modern American art in the country. Plus one of the best university in North Carolina.

Since it is rich in history, it also has their hauntings.  Here are few locations on campus that you can experience paranormal activity and ghostly sightings.

In the late 1960s, the Spencer Residence Hall ghost was known simply as “The Blue Ghost” or “The Woman in Blue.”  In the early 1980s, students gave her the name “Annabelle,” possibly alluding to the subject of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem “Annabel Lee.”

It said that , Annabelle is the spirit of a student who hanged herself many years ago in one of the building’s bell towers; The strange part is  there was no suicide recorded. Who is haunted the building?

A member of the residence hall staff reported that Annabelle had “appeared as a blue shadow on two occasions in the Spencer’s main parlor and when the building was closed for the Summer in 1976, the same staff member heard the ghost “dragging something on the floor out in the lobby. ”There have been other reports of a blue haze passing by a second-floor laundry room and of objects being flung across rooms.

In South Spencer in the early 1980s, an apparition reportedly awakened two different staff member on two separate occasions by walking into their rooms. The building had been closed for vacations both times. It is not known whether this was Annabelle or another ghost or ghosts.

Mary Foust Residence Hall, build in 1928, was named for Mary Foust Armstrong, daughter of the college’s second president, Julius Isaac Foust.  Mary was a member of the class of 1920, and she died when giving birth in 1925. Some believe that her ghost took up residence in the dormitory that bears her name. Students who have stayed in the dormitory have heard crying and footsteps running in the middle of the night when the students were asleep on the second floor.

There was a picture of Mary Foust portrait, which was hang above the fireplace, but it, disappear some time ago without a trace.  In the 1950’s three nursing students hanged themselves from the rafters in the attic, it was impossible of how they were hanged and how did they get up there?

The Aycock Auditorium (1927), located on the corner of Spring Garden and Tate Street, the Aycock Building was built. Before that, the college bought the land and demolished a small old house that was on the property to accommodate the building. The spirit of Jane Aycock hanged herself and now she haunts the building.

In 1988, theater professor, Tom Behm was spooked when he encountered Jane. He was directed Bye, Bye Birdie, and had accidentally left his briefcase at his office in the theater. It was late when he came back to pick it up.

“It was late that night when I forgot to grade some quizzes. I was with friends early in the evening and didn’t notice the time. It was quite dark and rainy. I thought it I would pick up my briefcase. When I entered the building, it was quiet. The stage was dark.  My office was across the stage, there were some lights on the side of the seats. Not that dark enough, but I could see where I was going. No one was there. I was the only one there.  When I approached the middle of the stage, the stage lights came on. Then it flashes on and off for a while. Then a white kind of apparition smoke like thing passed across the stage and came down the steps and it was walking towards me.  I ran quickly to my office. Opened the door. I saw my briefcase and picked it up ran across the stage. Everything was gone. Nothing was there on the stage. I ran out of the building.” Tom Behm said.  Telling his story to a local newspaper reporter.

In 1995, a student spotted a very fair, white –looking woman with light colored hair walking past the window, from the outside.

In 1997, a student was in the basement of the building during the staging of a musical. He saw something white walking up the stairway into the orchestra pit.  Another student who was getting props for a musical felt a hand on the shoulder. She was startled and turned around but no one was there.

In 2006, a technical crew and costume shop supervisor, they encountered stories of lights and radios coming on and flashes of light mysteriously flickering on and off.  Some even hear footsteps across the stage late at night.

Better chance don’t go into the basement alone at night!

Boo! What’s that behind you!