Compton Pre-1978
Compton horror stories would have been nothing new to anyone living in the Eastern Townships. As far back as 1969 - when King’s Hall was still operating as a private girls school - there were tales of a sexual predator living in the Compton village. On at least two occasions students were attacked by this predator; but when the girls tried to report the sexual assaults, the incidents were hushed-up by school officials. In 1975, a Champlain student living at King’s Hall was given a horse tranquilizer and nearly died of exposure sitting in a snow bank. This lurid history would have been well known by the Champlain administrators, and undoubtedly contributed to their sense of uneasiness with having to use the King’s Hall facility for “one more year”. Nevertheless, whenever Champlain wanted to put a positive spin on the situation, they would point to the virtue of student self sufficiency at Compton. “King’s Hall is completely run by the students…” boasted former Residence Director Gordon Glass. Under the guise of “self-management” students were responsible for first aid, bus scheduling, room checks, and even the preparation of the facility’s meals. Glass was probably too preoccupied to be bothered with such mundane matters as supervision. One former student said Glass had so many marijuana plants in his apartment that the place looked like the Amazon jungle.
Beullac uncovered more problems with substance abuse. Champlain offered a course in transcendental meditation. The class was widely alleged to be merely an excuse for the teacher and students to do drugs. The class would get together, smoke pot, trip out, and then talk about the experience as it related to the subject of meditation. Some of the classes got down right bizarre. One teacher, Graham Moodie, offered a course called Death and Dying. Students –sixteen and seventeen year old students – were offered the enriching experience of going to the morgue to look at dead bodies. Moodie is still on the faculty at Champlain.
posted by John Allore @ 11/29/2006 01:09:00 PM
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