Left, in Chicago’s North Lawndale: Roosevelt accounting student Bajesh Punjwani, Mansfield’s Lyly Harrington, Roosevelt sociology students Edgar Moreno and Shanti Brown, Roosevelt professor Edward Green and Mansfield’s Nancy Michaels.

A shift in thinking about how we deal with conflict, crime and violence is taking place in Chicago and beyond, and Roosevelt University’s Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation has a major stake in it.

Founded in 1999 as the University’s social justice arm, Mansfield got its start planning social-justice lectures that frequently have drawn hundreds of people to campus. Today, the organization is leading frank discussions, often called circles, on ways to fix our broken criminal justice system.

“We don’t get to know one another the way we used to,” said Heather Dalmage, director of the Mansfield Institute, which, since 2010, has been working to rescue vulnerable youths from the grasp of gangs, drugs, crime and prison. “We’ve got to be able to think together about how to create needed social changes. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to get at the root of what’s causing these problems.”

“We’ve got to be able to think together about how to create needed social change.”
Heather Dalmage Director, Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation

Now being tried with young people around the nation as a way to nip conflicts before they turn violent or criminal, this approach is called restorative justice, and it’s picking up steam from Chicago to London, and Colorado to West Virginia.

“We’ve been stuck in a cycle of punishment: black and brown young people getting in trouble at school and suspended, then being arrested in school and in their communities, unnecessarily criminalized and sent down the path to prison,” said Nancy Michaels (BA, ’07; MA, ’10), associate director of the Mansfield Institute.

“People all over are realizing that this way of doing things isn’t working. It’s damaging lives and communities, and we have to find alternative solutions,” she said.

Restorative justice has roots in indigenous cultures that for years have used circle practices to build relationships and strong communities. Building on these traditions, modern-day founder, Mennonite and American criminologist Howard Zehr, who in 1990 wrote Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice, encourages us to move toward building communities and away from building a world of punishment. For example, when wrongdoing or crime occurs , he encourages us to ask “Who was hurt?” and “What are their needs?” instead of “What laws have been broken?” and “What do the offender(s) deserve?”

“Our goal is to shift the way we think about and do justice,” said Michaels, who has been leading the development of restorative justice thinking and practices in schools, the criminal justice system, throughout Chicago and at Roosevelt University. “It’s about changing hearts and minds, and building public and political will that results in policy change. While this has been a slow process, we are certainly beginning to see a shift,” she said.

Court planning sessions include circle discussions.

There is a national buzz today, like never before, about the value of restorative justice: It’s been highlighted extensively recently as having potential to heal rifts and mend troubled lives by the New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal and USA Today; It’s also been piloted, primarily as an alternative to school suspensions, in places like New York City, Denver and Oakland, Calif.

“We’re at a point where we don’t have to spread the word quite as much on what restorative justice is all about,” said Sara Balgoyen, president of the Illinois Balanced and Restorative Justice Project. “Clearly, the Mansfield Institute is one of the players who has helped move the cause forward.”

Among steps taken, the Mansfield Institute has brought together under one umbrella called “The Embrace RJ in Schools Collaborative” more than 40 grassroots groups in Chicagoland that subscribe to implementing restorative justice in all schools.

Led by Michaels, the group crafted guidelines for using restorative justice practices, including circles, in the Chicago Public Schools, and also has been active in teacher and principal training.

“We’re moving toward a system-wide, restorative-justice school district,” said Jean Klasovsky, a restorative practices specialist at CPS, “and Embrace RJ helped us put together the framework.”

Now Mansfield is on the verge of impacting lives and policy as one of the advisers for the nation’s first Restorative Justice Community Court, opening in Chicago in 2017. The expertise and leadership of Michaels and the Mansfield Institute have been pivotal to the creation of this court.

In fact, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Colleen Sheehan, a 16-year veteran who has seen young people repeatedly cycling through her courtroom, emphatically stated, “We are entering unchartered waters with this innovative project, and I can tell you right now that there would be no court without Nancy and the Mansfield Institute.”

Roosevelt Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Edward Green and Cook County Circuit Court Judge Colleen Sheehan.

Sheehan worked closely with Michaels and Cook County Circuit Court administrator Michelle Day to develop a plan for the court that will be housed in Chicago’s west-side North Lawndale neighborhood where 70 percent of male residents have felony convictions.

The pilot court, which could become a model, will be for 18 to 26-year olds accused of nonviolent misdemeanors and first-time felonies committed in North Lawndale.

“We are entering unchartered waters with this innovative project, and I can tell you right now that there would be no court without Nancy Michaels and the Mansfield Institute.”
Judge Colleen Sheehan

They would be asked to voluntarily participate in circles/conferences with their victims, and the goal would be to: give them a better understanding of harm caused so they accept responsibility; award restitution repairing harm done to victims and the community; and provide resources, such as mental health or drug treatment and job training, that can put offenders on a positive track.

“This is huge. It’s a project that has international significance,” said Elizabeth Clarke, president of the Illinois Juvenile Justice Initiative, which recently put the Mansfield Institute on an international restorative justice delegation visiting England last spring. “We are giving the community ownership of the court and allowing them to deal with these cases as they see fit, and that’s something that’s not been done before,” she said.

The Mansfield Institute will evaluate the court’s effectiveness with help from approximately 20 Roosevelt students who will be surveying North Lawndale residents.

“I’m interested in this project because it’s near my home and I’ve seen the damage that’s been done with young people who have been convicted of crimes and can’t find work,” said Emmanuel Corde, a sociology student who will survey in North Lawndale as part of a Research Methods class. “I want to support our future and change the world we live in.”

The court project is but one example of the Mansfield Institute’s social justice work, according to Roosevelt University Trustee Meme Hopmayer, whose Albert and Anne Mansfield Foundation created and has financially supported the Institute.

Restorative justice court planners include Cook County Circuit Court Administrator Michelle Day, Judge Colleen Sheehan and Roosevelt’s Nancy Michaels.

“I’m proud of what’s been accomplished with this project, and I particularly love that Roosevelt has engaged students in going out, learning about and contributing to the work,” she said.

Looking forward, the Mansfield Institute wants to encourage neighborhood connections that can help transform Chicago into a restorative justice city.

“Our goal is to shift the way we think about and do justice.”
Nancy Michaels Associate Director, Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation

“We’ve talked quite a bit about it, using circles of healing to create positive values that we can live by – block to block, police to community, city hall to downtown and its neighborhoods,” said the Rev. David Kelly, executive director of the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation. “Roosevelt has been active in this, and is one of our partners in our campaign,” he said.

Now in its 17th year, the Mansfield Institute also is aiming to make Roosevelt a restorative justice university. “If not at Roosevelt, then where?” asked Dalmage.

So What is a Restorative Justice University?

Above: Roosevelt sociology student Edgar Moreno and Mansfield’s Lyly Harrington.

It can be a place where research, teaching, training and technical assistance for all kinds of restorative justice projects are housed, such as at Skidmore College in New York, which has its own Restorative Justice Project.

It can be a center for learning through webinars and videos, which the University of Minnesota’s Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking widely offers.

And it is a university that is steeped in the values and practices of restorative justice.

Use of restorative justice circles and peer conferences can be specific to student conduct proceedings, which the University of Denver advocates when cases involving student conduct are being resolved; or the use of circles can have a simple aim of relationship building, which is to put ALL people in a community, no matter rank or stature, on track to share values, uniting them to work together toward positive change.

“These were strangers I hardly knew,” said Roosevelt student Elizabeth “Lizzie” Sharp, who remembers being moved as she sat in circle during Mansfield’s Social Justice Summer Institute where students shared personal reflections on what’s wrong with and how to fix the criminal justice system.

“Once people started opening up, it became easier to share,” said Sharp, who believes a restorative justice university should be about building bridges. “There was this connection that all of us felt in that circle, and to this day, most of us are still in contact. We’ve become friends and activists working together.”

Roosevelt President Ali Malekzadeh had a similar experience when he joined a Mansfield-led circle seeking healing after the fall 2015 release of a video showing Chicago police shooting teen Laquan McDonald.

“There was a lot of pain being expressed, and I was just as angry and sad as everyone in the room,” said Malekzadeh, who remembers several students being uneasy about violence in their own neighborhoods, including police showing up with guns drawn.

“It was important for me to learn what some of our students are going through, and to know that they have a safe place at Roosevelt where they can go to heal,” he said.

“All of us in that room wanted to get beyond the shooting,” he added. “There was a bond and a commitment there to work together for something better.”

That is exactly the kind of spirit that the Mansfield Institute hopes to further ignite as it moves forward in transforming Roosevelt into Illinois’s first restorative justice university.

Among goals will be to: develop university-wide values, policies and procedures; create safe spaces for discussion of difficult topics and to address student concerns or conflicts; provide training for community members, including Roosevelt’s new eight-member student conduct board; and include restorative justice practices as part of coursework in applicable areas, such as for those studying to become counselors or teachers, said Nancy Michaels, associate director of the Mansfield Institute.

“Restorative justice is aligned with our social justice mission,” said Michaels, “and as a result, a restorative justice university will be that much easier to achieve.”

Roosevelt engineers Nick Ahrens (left) and Tony Bugajsky.

In a humid and oppressive August evening in Chicago, some 20 tourists from around the world gathered around tour guide Andy for his weekly “ghost walk” around the South Loop. At the Congress Hotel –considered one of the most haunted places in the city — we learn about Karel Langer, a young boy tossed out of a 12th floor hotel window in 1939, whose ghost is legendary. And we were told about Shadow Man, who killed himself the night before his wedding in 1900, and reportedly still occasionally roams the lobby, where the piano sometimes . . . plays by itself.

Peacock Alley between the Congress Hotel and Auditorium Building

But what about the Auditorium Building and Theatre, just across the street? The ghost tour speculates about a “presence” felt near Peacock Alley, the underground marble tunnel linking the Congress and Auditorium hotels at the turn of the century that was walled up in 1911. Is the Auditorium Building, opened in 1889 as a stately hotel and world famous Theatre and now home to Roosevelt University, haunted?

To find out, we asked staff members who work the night shift and Roosevelt alumni.

The Auditorium Theatre

The Theatre is a magnificent space with 4,200 seats, four balconies, a deep stage and an ornate lobby. The after-hours lighting is dim and the space cavernous and full of shadows and dark corners.

Nick Ahrens, an engineer whose job includes checking the fire safety mechanisms at night, reports experiencing numerous episodes of a “presence” in the Theatre. These include muffled conversations and laughter, mysterious footsteps and doors banging shut when no one is there.

One time, at 2 a.m., he entered the stage and looked out into the seats, admiring the architecture. To his surprise he saw a man sitting toward the back of the Theatre. He squinted, called out “What are you doing here?” and approached the spectral figure. “But he was gone by the time I got close,” Ahrens said. “He was there and then he wasn’t. When I told my colleagues about the experience some admitted they had also seen people in the audience seats who quickly vanished.”

“Thousands of people have passed through these halls over the years. Our ghosts aren’t threatening or menacing, just odd. They no longer bother me. I just think – there they are again!”
Nick Ahrens, Roosevelt Building Engineer

When Ahrens began his job in 2003, there was an engineer who said he had seen strange things and refused to enter the Theatre alone at night. He asked to be reassigned to another shift. But the ghostly experiences don’t bother Ahrens. “It’s obvious there is something there,” he said. “Thousands of people have passed through these halls over the years. Our ghosts aren’t threatening or menacing, just odd. They no longer bother me. I just think – there they are again!”

The Theatre has also startled campus safety officer Clara Christmas, who reported that while working the midnight shift some 10 years ago, “I thought I heard voices in the Theatre – as if there were a performance at two in the morning.” But the stage was empty and after that time “I changed my mind about visiting certain places at night!” she said.

Engineer Tony Bugajsky walks high above the Theatre stage.

Stephen Sell, director of production and facilities at the Theatre, said that several people have reported seeing a ghostly man on “the jump,” a catwalk 40 feet above the stage. A TV crew visited about five years ago and claimed to see a male ghost in the lobby and another entity with a scarf on the catwalk. “At two in the morning my step quickens,” he said, “but I personally have never seen or heard or felt anything.”

But some former students recall noticing a presence in the Theatre. One remembered sneaking into the fourth balcony at night with some friends and suddenly confronting a man in Victorian clothing who shook his finger at them. The students scrambled rapidly out of the balcony but on looking back over their shoulders saw . . . nothing.

Larry Powitz (BA, ’66; MA, ’72) remembers hearing stories of an otherworldly presence in the Theatre. “We would sneak in there at night after our late classes . . . The stillness and quiet were foreboding. I recall vividly the time that a just audible rubbing sound was heard. The bravest of the three of us boldly went to investigate. Nothing. The place was creepy.”

Dulcie Gilmore, a former executive director of the Theatre, wrote, “Anyone who has sat, alone, in the ghost light of the Auditorium Theatre knows it has a strong persona. Once the crowds have left and the actors have retired for the evening, the Theatre itself invites those from the past to come from the shadows.” In particular she reported sightings of spectral Native Americans on the stage one October night in 1987:

One lady (on a tour) asked what production was in rehearsal. I thought it an odd question, as the stage was bare. . . she, along with several other guests, asked why the person in Native American costume was on the stage. Many of them saw him cross from stage left to stage right. The chief was wearing a war bonnet headdress. . . I had seen him too, on another occasion. . . . We learned that the Auditorium Building was built on the site of a battle at which a young Indian chief and his princess were killed.”

Gilmore reported that a “cleanser” was hired to speak to the spirits and encourage them to leave. No sightings of Native American ghosts have been reported since.

The Auditorium Building

The Auditorium Theatre and its balconies have been the site of numerous ghost encounters.

The Auditorium Building was once home to 400 hotel rooms, business office suites, large reception halls and a tower that rises 10 floors above the building and contains a maze of stairwells, narrow corridors and small offices. Full of students, faculty and staff during the day, late at night the Auditorium Building is silent, dark and lonely.

The architects and designers of the building, Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan and their apprentice Frank Lloyd Wright, occupied offices on the 17th floor of the tower. Alumna Caitlin Spratt recalled students who would wander around the building at night sometimes heard faint conversations in and near the tower. “Legend has it that if you walked by the elevator entrance to the tower, or inside the tower itself, the noises people heard were actually the arguing and fighting of Adler and Sullivan,” she said.

Another ghoulish story also involves the tower. Bill Moor, who studied at Roosevelt and taught philosophy from 1968 to 1972, recalled that the tower housed Andrew Ivy, a renegade (and later discredited) researcher and biochemistry professor from 1961 to 1966 who claimed that he could cure cancer. “I saw an array of skeletonous old men coming and going to the tower,” Moor said, “ . . . a parade of doomed hopefuls.”

The Congress Lounge and other spaces on the second floor of the Auditorium Building also reportedly are the site of ghostly presences. Engineer Tony Bugajsky said that while doing night rounds on the Congress corridor of the second floor he has heard muffled conversations and twice has felt something touch his finger. “I took my flashlight and saw nothing,” he said. He has heard loud running steps behind him on the south side corridor of the eighth floor, lockers slamming in the basement office at five in the morning when no one else was in the room and banging noises on the south side of the sixth floor.

The Academic Success Center is housed just to the south of the Michigan Avenue lobby. Assistant Director Danielle Smith reported that she was alone in the office early one morning   when she put her water bottle on a sink, suddenly felt very cold, and “Bang! My water bottle flew off the sink and into the wall, I was shaken up for hours!” She also said a student told her the story of working in the 10th floor library late at night and suddenly he saw a maid start to clean the tables. The thing was – the maid was wearing “an old timey outfit” and missing her legs.

“Legend has it that if you walked by the elevator entrance to the tower, or inside the tower itself, the noises people heard were actually the arguing and fighting of (Dankmar) Adler and (Louis) Sullivan.”
Caitlin Spratt (BA, ’15)

There is one room in the Auditorium Building with an especially eerie history. Generations of students have heard about the eccentric and world-renowned actress Sarah Bernhardt, who performed on the Auditorium stage from the 1890s to the early 20th century. She always stayed in Room 720 and slept in a coffin.

This story is probably true as Bernhardt, in fact, had a coffin built for travel so she could sleep in it while on tour and “better understand her tragic roles.” The coffin was lined with white satin and replete with flowers and letters from her many lovers. She also traveled with her huge Saint Bernard dog and two maids. The history and philosophy students who now use this room for seminars haven’t reported any canine or human ghostly presence during their classes . . . yet.

The ninth floor – originally the home of the Chicago Musical College and now housing the Chicago College of Performing Arts – seems to be another popular site for spectral occurrences.

“I saw an array of skeletonous old men coming and going to the Tower. . . a parade of doomed hopefuls.”
Bill Moor, Former Roosevelt student and faculty member

Joseph Extejt, a 1983 graduate, recounted the story of a young woman practicing violin in the studio of Robert Long in the late 1970s. Suddenly she saw a man in an opera costume and when she asked him, “What are you doing here?” he disappeared. “She packed up her violin with utmost expediency,” Extejt said, adding that “she passed out right there in the hallway.”

And there’s more about the ninth floor. Staff members reported hearing running footsteps in the middle of the night, objects moved in room 902 and a mysterious banging in room 908 that could not be explained by the engineers. Campus Safety Officer Clara Christmas also has heard strange noises on the ninth floor and has seen shapes “out of the corner of my eyes – I’ve seen something faintly there then not there, and thought – ‘time to go!’”

So – is the Auditorium Building haunted?

University Historian Lynn Weiner uses a prop to entice ghosts hiding in the Auditorium Building.

Professor of Psychology Jonathan Smith, author of Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, forthcoming in January 2017, has taught at Roosevelt since 1975 and regularly offers a popular course on the paranormal. When asked about the ghost stories of the Auditorium Building and Theatre, Smith said the human brain is wired to “create a sense of ‘presence’ and the uncanny.”

The awareness of an ill-defined presence has a firm neurological basis, especially in low stimulation conditions that are dark and silent, he said. “Ancient humans who had this ability to sense something unseen were alert to very real dangers, such as predators or environmental threats, so there is an evolutionary basis as those who had a sense of presence were more likely to survive.”

“The power of the mind combined with a person’s expectations can easily conjure up the presence of a ghost in a dark place. This is child’s play for the human brain.”
Jonathan Smith, Professor of Psychology

In addition, Smith stated that once a presence is sensed, an individual’s cultural expectations and past experiences can create such hallucinations as mysterious footsteps, a tap on the shoulder, dimly heard conversations, or sightings of angels, UFOs, ghosts, or otherworldly beings. There can also be a group effect where several people simultaneously experience the same hallucination.

Actress Sarah Bernhardt posing in her traveling coffin.

Smith said that the same brain that sees ghosts is wired to seek deeper meanings in the universe. “The paranormal,” he said, “is an incomplete notion of the larger world of wonder. The power of the mind combined with a person’s expectations can easily conjure up the presence of a ghost in a dark place. This is child’s play for the human brain.”

Author Italo Calvino wrote, “The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.” Well, the Auditorium Building and Theatre are certainly enlightened places that exist in the larger world of wonder. Do ghosts visit our buildings at night? Just ask the night shift.