Ghosts of professors past give students a playful fright

Barbara Corbellini Duarte/Contributing Writer

The Student Alumni Association hosted the Ghost Tours on Oct. 20. The tours took place on Biscayne Bay Campus principal buildings, Chaplin School of Hospitality Tourism Management, Marine Science Building and the Wolf University

Photo by Barbara Duarte

Center.

Students started arriving around 7 p.m. and were asked to sign a waiver, taking responsibility for the risks they were about to take. The SAA organized three tours, which had an average of 10 students participating in each of them.

“The Ghost Tours is a Halloween themed event when we transform the campus into a gigantic haunted house. This year we have a story that involves the School of Journalism and Mass Communications; it’s a tale of betrayal, murder and redemption,” explains the director of Ghost Tours, Gregory Jean-Baptiste, senior, computer science major.

This was the second year of the Ghost Tours in the BBC.

The tour guide told a story about a rumor involving Maxwell, a professor that used to change the grades of the grammar exam.

“Because of some miscommunications after the grammar exam, he got fired. Now Maxwell’s ghost haunts our campus every Halloween and claims three victims as an act of revenge,” explains Anastasia Seldinskaya, sophomore majoring in international business, in the beginning of the first tour.

During the tour, students received a survival kit, with snacks and candies. The tour started behind the Hospitality building and moved around Biscayne Bay. When entering the Marine and Science building, one of the tour guides, Zahra Arbabi Aski, SAA President, warned the students, “there are classes going on right now, so please be quiet.” Yet, the students were surprised and scared several times.

While walking around the bay area, the participants testified a staged murder scene, set up by the SAA. The ghost of Maxwell stalked the group throughout the buildings, and kidnapping random students during the tour.

The tour ended with a video testimonial from the students that accused Professor Maxwell of changing the grades.

After each tour, the participants were offered pizza, snacks, drinks and giveaways.

Jean-Baptiste affirmed, “We plan to make this a tradition. Hopefully next year, we will be able to side-step some of the technical issues we had this year.”