Secret history
If the angle of light is just right on a sunny December morning, an eerie message appears on the side of Sever Hall. “Kent State 4 dead” is just barely visible in capital letters. At some point the number four was crossed out and replaced with the number seven. Defying the University’s efforts to completely erase it, the remaining, ghostly graffiti recalls a tragic day in American history. Sever, the red brick Romanesque-styled work of Henry Hobson Richardson, also contains a mysterious crypt (an architectural quirk of its designer) and a curious arch at the entrance that looks onto Tercentenary Theatre. Those who stand to one side of the rounded entryway and whisper while facing the building can be heard clearly by those standing on the other end of the wall’s curve. If one looks closely at Widener Library across the way, they might notice its steps are not as steep as those...