From Greek tragedy to American triumph: badly hit by scandal and facing an uncertain future, Hillsdale remained true to its conservative principles, is growing and continues to be one of the nation's best

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 9, 2002 | by Scott Hagen

Three years ago conservative Hillsdale College faced a major crisis that might have felled a lesser institution. On Oct. 17, 1999, Lissa Roche--the daughter-in-law of Hillsdale's president, George Roche III, and an important figure on campus in her own right--took a .357 Magnum from her husband's gun cabinet and shot herself to death in the school's arboretum.

Rumors about Lissa Roche's 19-year affair with her husband's father spread across the campus and then across the country. President Roche, who had led the small Michigan school from near obscurity into national prominence, denied the allegations, but resigned abruptly and disappeared. His whereabouts remain unknown.

The rumors and the president's resignation and disappearance hit Hillsdale hard. When George Roche became president of the school in 1972 it had suffered from a lack of direction and an endowment of only about $500,000. By the time of his resignation, Hillsdale was a college famous for the conservative excellence of its faculty, administration and students. It had an endowment of nearly half a billion dollars--funds raised in large part from conservative donors who admired what Roche had done with the college and respected the image he had developed nationwide as a no-nonsense, flee-enterprise, cultural conservative.

It was under Roche's leadership, too, that Hillsdale became famous, along with Grove City College, for rejecting on principle all federal aid, including federal loans for enrolled students. The move made Hillsdale completely independent of federal influence--an independence that Roche and others at the college rightly thought made the school even more attractive to conservatives.

But could Hillsdale survive such a scandal? Oddly, the story broke in the conservative National Review. The liberal media were quick to vilify the school. In Vanity Fair, writer Sam Tanenhaus hissed about the "corruption and decadence" on this Michigan campus and went on to conclude that Hillsdale was but a "microcosm of right-wing politics of the past decade."

There is nothing new about left-leaning writers who see everything to the right of Eleanor Roosevelt as dangerous and decadent. But Hillsdale nonetheless faced major problems. Roche had been very much a part of college life, and his contributions to the institution were significant. A team brought in to search for a successor only added to the crisis when one of its members, William Bennett, cochairman of Empower America and secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, resigned his post, loudly announcing that he feared the college was sweeping the scandal under the rug.

But Hillsdale weathered even conservative sanctimony and rapidly is coming to terms with the legacies of its controversial former president. On Aug. 15, the college announced that it had admitted its largest class of freshmen in 17 years. For Hillsdale admirers, it was great news, a sign that the school had turned things around and regained its footing. Not only had the scandal been endured, it had been overcome.

Much of the credit goes to the steadfastness of Hillsdale students, alums and faculty. Ben Roodhouse was a freshman in 1999 when the scandal broke. "To me, the Roche stuff was never that big a deal, mostly because I believed the college would just go on operating. Hillsdale never was about just one man," he says, a sentiment many at the school share. "It always was about ideas and ideals that never change."

Caroline Hoenk, a recent Hillsdale graduate, describes her feelings at the time of scandal in these words: "To tell you the truth, that was probably one of the times when I was most impressed by Hillsdale. Had it not been for the media, you really wouldn't have known that something so tragic had happened." For Hoenk it was "heartbreaking" that the college made the news for all the wrong reasons. What didn't make the news, she says, is Hillsdale's "dedication to teaching" and how that dedication never wavered, providing continuity and underscoring core values during a difficult time.

But much of the credit for the school's turnaround goes to the college's new president, Larry Arnn, who took office in April 2000. A historian and former president of the conservative and widely respected Claremont Institute in California, Arnn arrived on campus ready to continue the work Roche had begun, rather than to change it. The man who had resigned from Hillsdale under a cloud had dishonored himself by living a scandalous life in secret, but in public he had done the school much good. "It's important not to underestimate the native strengths of this place," Arnn tells INSIGHT. "They are fundamental, and they were not compromised by this problem. George Roche had something to do with those strengths."

It is a view with which many at Hillsdale agree. John Wilson, Salvatori Professor of History and Traditional Values who has taught at Hillsdale since 1975, says that it was Roche's vision that brought him to the college. "I think Roche had a combination of a very simple traditional vision and a will to carry it through." Such dedication and singleness of purpose were rare in higher education in America at the time, notes Wilson. "For someone like him to stick to those principles and drive past the obstacles were remarkable achievements. We never should forget that."