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Hillsdale president quits amid rumors of affair with his daughter-in-law, who killed herself
HILLSDALE, MICH.
FOR 28 YEARS, Hillsdale College President George C. Roche III urged his conservative supporters to the barricades. The education establishment, he said, along with the liberals in Washington and in the media, would take away his institution's freedom unless donors generously supported his crusade to keep Hillsdale College free of all federal aid.
Last week, Mr. Roche himself hid behind a barricade, one stretched across the driveway of Broadlawn, the Hillsdale president's pillared mansion. Mr. Roche refused all requests for an interview. In the course of just three weeks, the storied career of this icon of traditional values in education had come crashing down amid lurid allegations of an affair with his daughter-in-law, Lissa Roche. She died, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in the college's arboretum on October 17.
After initially refusing to do so, Mr. Roche resigned last week, saying simply, "I am nearly 65 years of age and have no wish to continue." The trustees accepted the resignation, saying, "the combined pressures of his personal health and private family life make this step necessary."
In a memorandum to students and professors, Robert Blackstock, the provost and acting president, said the college would not reveal more details. "To speak out on these things would not only violate Dr. Roche's right of privacy, but would be reckless in the extreme," Mr. Blackstock wrote. Hillsdale police officers have not closed the investigation into Lissa Roche's death, but Deputy Chief William Whorley said, "There is no evidence to lead us to believe it is anything other than a suicide.
A CHAPTER CLOSES
As college officials try to move on, they are making it clear that after almost three decades of being linked to the mercurial Mr. Roche, the most-welcome sight imaginable would be a moving van backing up to Broadlawn.
"That chapter is really closed," Ronald L. Trowbridge, the college's vice-president for external relations, said of the Roche regime, less than an hour after the president's resignation was announced. "Everything goes from here in a positive direction. If more revelations come out about George, we will not speak about it. We will just refer the questions to him, though once...