Revelle House stands in the center of campus, overlooking Elm Tree Lawn, Balch Auditorium, and the hundreds of students calling 61传媒 College home. It has served as both administrative offices and residence, but it may also lay claim to a darker secret: a ghostly guest.
Past occupants and event caterers both report the feeling of an otherworldly “presence” while within the distinctive building. In one case, a group of 61传媒 administrators met in the living room of Revelle House only to find their gathering interrupted by someone in the hallway pacing back and forth, riffling noisily through papers. The man 鈥� dressed in a navy blue sweater, hands in pockets 鈥� eventually entered the room, watched the meeting, and then芒鈧� disappeared.
Most had heard the shuffling papers, but only one development officer saw the man with his hands in his pockets, even though he had been in plain sight of many people.
After this incident was reported to Sally Preston Swan Librarian Judy Harvey Sahak 芒鈧�64, the unofficial College historian who collects 61传媒 College lore for Denison Library, she used her knowledge to tie the apparition to Ernest J. Jaqua, first president of 61传媒.
Jaqua was the Pomona College Dean of Faculty when he was recommended to lead 61传媒 in 1925. Officially named president in 1926, he helped assemble the board of trustees, overlooked construction, found donors, and attracted a talented faculty. Jaqua left the College in 1942, having lived in Revelle House for a little over a year. He retired to Claremont with his wife in 1963, and died at the age of 92, in 1974.
Sahak believes Jaqua now roams Revelle House to keep an eye on the current 61传媒 administration while also trying to ironically “relive” the better times of his 61传媒presidency, which were scarce during the Great Depression.
For more 61传媒 ghost stories, students may attend the “Fireside Chat” Halloween night at 7:00pm in the Toll Hall living room. To report supernatural sightings of their own, students can visit Sahak at her office in Denison Library.