Raf Week

Once upon a time, in an area across the woods there was a small, yet renowned, college called Transylvania. President Thomas Jefferson likened it with Harvard and said "We must send our children for education to Kentucky [Transylvania] or Cambridge [Harvard]... if we are to go begging anywhere for an education, I would rather it should go to Kentucky...". All was well at Transylvania College until one fateful day in the year 1826, disaster struck. Botany Professor, Constantine Rafinesque (pictured left), was fired by Transylvania President Horace Holley. Officially his dismissal was in response to "unprofessional conduct." Myth, however, suggests that the Botany professor may have been 'tending the gardens' of the President Holley's wife and the enraged President Holey sought vengence. Upon departure from Transylvania, Rafinesque exclaimed a curse on the hallowed school in Kentucky...

Rafinesque died years later in 1840. At this point he was so poor he was only afforded a pauper's grave with other bodies already present. Before his death, even, the curse had already manifested itself. In 1827, a year after Raf's departure, Kentucky cut all funding from Transylvania College, stunting any growth the University had hoped to acheive. President Holly resigned in protest and died a few months later.

In 1924 in an attempt to cease the curse that would, as time passed, be blamed for fires, economic troubles, and deaths at Transylvania every 7 years, friends of the University launched a massive fundraising effort to exume Rafinesque's body and have it entombed in the administration building Old Morrison. The problem? Rafinesque was, as previously mentioned, burried in a plot with numerous other bodies and the people in charge of moving the body may have got it wrong...
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Now, back in the present, Transy students celebrate this ghastly tale during the week before Halloween and name it "Raf Week". Scary movies are shown every night, ghost tours are given, bonfires are had. This past weekend, to start it all off, Transy students were given free tickets to ScreamPark, a massively fun 'haunted' attraction a few minutes away from campus. I went with my friends and had an absolute blast! Transy doesn't have a homecoming (no football!) so this kind of takes its place.
The best, and perhaps scariest, part of Raf week is that 4 (un)lucky students are selected to spend the night in Raf's tomb. The question is, though, will they make it out? I love Halloween, so this whole week, I already know, is going to be a blast! I'll definitely let you know how it goes (maybe I will get to spend the night with the body believed to be Old Raffy!)

Have a Haunted Week! (Don't forget, Transy has an open house on Halloween for prospective students! Come by and definitely say Hi if you see me!)

- Jake Ryan Hawkins

*The source of information for the history of the curse of Rafinesque was "Haunted Halls of Ivy: Ghosts of Southern Colleges and Universities" by Daniel W. Barefoot