Eastern Tsuga College

Eastern Tsuga College
Type	Private liberal arts college
Location	Outskirts of Verdant, Connecticut
Founded	Mid-1800s
Owner	Independent institution
Notable residents	Professor William Taylor, President Lauren Reynolds, Dean Markus Gebhard
First appearance	Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling

About

Eastern Tsuga College (ETC) is a private liberal arts institution on the edge of Verdant, Connecticut. Its name derives from the Eastern Hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis) that densely populate the surrounding forests. The college has developed a reputation as one of the most progressive and experimental institutions in New England, granting faculty significant latitude to develop unconventional courses and pursue research that would attract scrutiny elsewhere.

Its motto is "Excitare dormientem mentem" — "To awaken the sleeping mind."

Description

ETC occupies the western portion of the Verdant area, with dense hemlock forest to its north and west. Its eastern boundary is intentionally undefined — students and faculty move between campus and town without passing through any formal threshold. The campus feels like an extension of the forest: green, enclosed, and slightly removed from ordinary life.

Key campus landmarks include The First Witch Statue at the entrance to the Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove, the grove itself at the western edge of campus where it merges with Charter Oak Forest, and Hemlock Veil FM, the student radio station whose name is a direct in-universe reference to the town's supernatural history.

Colors: Green and Black. Mascot: Gary the Goshawk. Nickname: the Goshawks. Newspaper: Hemlock Herald. Radio: Hemlock Veil FM.

History

Origins

Eastern Tsuga College evolved from the Verdant Scholars school founded in 1693 by Sarah Osgood and other Salem Witch Trial refugees in the hemlock grove that is now the Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove. The school was formally established as Eastern Tsuga College in the mid-1800s. Its founding campus sits on the same ground where Eleanor Ashburne cast The Hemlock Veil in 1667, a fact known to House Subconium and to very few others.

The Greek ban (late 1970s)

ETC banned all Greek-letter fraternities and sororities in the late 1970s following a series of hazing incidents that resulted in student deaths. The organizations relocated off-campus to the Elysian Road mansions, rebranded as Orders and Societies with names drawn from Greek mythology, and established the Pantheon Pact as their governing framework. The renaming was explicitly intended as a provocation toward the administration.

The Satanic Panic (1980s)

Several ETC courses with provocative titles caught national attention during the 1980s Satanic Panic, leading to protests, media coverage, and a significant enrollment decline. The courses that drew the most attention were "Misinformation and Satanic Ritual Abuse" taught by then-faculty member Markus Gebhard, "Friends of the Devil: Johnson's Crossroads to Garcia's Dead," and "The New Oral History: Dungeons and Dragons." The underlying cause of ETC's particular vulnerability was the lapse of the Hemlock Veil, which had missed its 1971 and 1981 renewals and left Verdant without its invisible psychic protection. ETC recovered in the early 1990s following the Veil's renewal and Verdant's safe harbor rebrand.

The Hemlock Veil at ETC

The Hemlock Veil's range extends across the entire ETC campus. Its inhibition-lowering effects manifest in students and faculty as heightened curiosity, open-mindedness, and reduced resistance to taboo experiences. This has allowed ethically questionable research to flourish in an environment where subjects are, as a baseline, more willing to participate. Professor William Taylor exploits this consciously while believing it is the result of Verdant's cultural mythology rather than a literal supernatural spell. He is wrong.

Faculty and administration

• Professor William Taylor — Psychology; teaches Psych 250: Sexology: Sexual Deviance or Sexual Culture; House Subconium member; connective antagonist of Making the Grades
• President Lauren Reynolds — College President; son Philip Reynolds is a student and Order of Kratos member
• Dean Markus Gebhard — Dean; has been at ETC for over 40 years; taught the lightning-rod course during the Satanic Panic
• Dr. Renee Vance — Kinesiology department; faculty advisor to the ETC Cheerleading Club

Orders and Societies

Following the Greek ban, seven organizations reformed under the Pantheon Pact. They are:

• Astraea Society — women's society; Astraea House, Elysian Road
• Order of Kratos — men's order
• Eirene Society
• Order of Hypnos
• Nyx Society
• Order of Dionysus
• A seventh organization — name not established in canon

The Order of Aetherion also operates at ETC but outside the Pantheon Pact, consistent with its historical status as an outsider organization.

Course catalog

ETC is known for its unusual and controversial course offerings. Notable examples include:

• Psych 250: Sexology: Sexual Deviance or Sexual Culture — Professor William Taylor
• SPORT 151: Winning at Sports and Zombies
• BUS 283: OnlyFans and the Fortune 500: Financial Fundamentals
• Friends of the Devil: Johnson's Crossroads to Garcia's Dead (discontinued; Satanic Panic era)
• The New Oral History: Dungeons and Dragons (discontinued; Satanic Panic era)

Connection to the SSU

Eastern Tsuga College is the central institutional setting of the Making the Grades series and a key location in Comply. Its experimental culture, its faculty latitude, and the Hemlock Veil's ambient influence make it the environment in which Professor William Taylor's research program operates. It is also the institution that unknowingly sits on the original casting site of the spell that has shaped Verdant for over three centuries, and whose student radio station is named after that spell without anyone fully understanding why.

Canon notes

• In April 2023 ETC was ranked "Horniest College Campus" by DormSecrets; President Reynolds formally denounced the ranking
• Two named students appear in the Hemlock Herald DormSecrets coverage: Stacy Breitmeyer, a junior who was mortified by the ranking, and Bradley Whitman, a senior who embraced it; no further details established for either
• Specific founding year not established beyond mid-1800s
• Full course catalog beyond named examples not established
• Whether ETC administration has any awareness of House Subconium's true nature has not been established
• The connection between ETC's founding and the Verdant Scholars of 1693 is known to House Subconium but not to ETC itself

Related articles

• Visit Verdant
• The Hemlock Veil
• House Subconium
• Orders and Societies
• Pantheon Pact
• Verdant Scholars Memorial Grove
• The First Witch Statue
• Hemlock Herald
• Hemlock Veil FM
• Making the Grades
• Comply
• History of Verdant