Visitors to Mynders Hall are encouraged to greet the portrait of Elizabeth Mynders to maintain a friendly relationship with the ghost.

For the past 100 years, the ghost of Elizabeth Mynders has been seen numerous times in the women’s dormitory named after her by her father, Seymour Allen Mynders, the school’s first president. Elizabeth died in early 1912; President Mynders had the new women’s dorm built in the shape of an “E” to honor her. She has been “haunting” students ever since, but in a friendly way.

As the school newspaper, The Helmsman, reported: “Elizabeth has a preference for the third floor and will occasionally be seen sitting on a chair in someone’s room or standing at the end of a hallway. She is friendly and insistent on educational priorities. Students report returning to their rooms to find their textbooks opened to the chapters they should be studying; this apparently happens most to students who stay out late at night. Students are advised to stop by her portrait in the lobby and greet her with a friendly ‘hello’ each day.”

Danny Armitage, associate dean of students, tells a story in which students came into the hall around 4 a.m.

“They were trying to be quiet,” he said, “and they saw Elizabeth at the end of the hall. Upon seeing her, pipes started banging. It was almost like they were caught.”

Former Mynders’ resident Joy Coop “could have sworn” she saw her. “But when I looked back, she was gone.”