I like my kids to get out of the Northeast for at least some part of their education, and they all have done so. I am delighted to have a pup at Kenyon College. She loves it, and I am pleased and relieved about that because through secondary school she spent every free moment banging around NYC, going to theater, museums, concerts, street fairs, theater internships, pubs, etc. I had come to think of her as a city girl.
My overall impression of the Kenyon kids is clean-cut, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, cheerful, studious, not overly Maoist, and very engaged in all of the activities of the school. For one example, the pup tells me that she does not know one kid who is not involved in some musical activity, and that the intro Theater course is the most heavily subscribed, with four large sections.
Small liberal arts colleges in the countryside tend to feel like Prep Schools to me, and Kenyon does have that feeling. If a kid went to school in the relatively isolated countryside or to a place like Exeter, Andover, Hotchkiss, Choate or Deerfield, I don't think they would find Kenyon to be an exciting change of pace. (With around 1600 kids, Kenyon is half the size of the BD pup's high school.)
Kenyon was founded as an Episcopalian seminary and college by Dartmouth grad Philander Chase in 1824 when Ohio was pioneer country. It remains, technically anyway, an Episcopalian school.
Kenyon grad Paul Newman built them a wonderful new athletic center with pool, gyms and work-out rooms (which are shared with people in the town). He didn't need to build them a theater, because they already have three: a black box, a small theater, and a high tech large theater - plus a large music performance auditorium in Rosse Hall. That's enough for 1600 kids.
I took some snaps of the cozy campus, of course.
The pup's favorite classroom, in Ascension Hall:
Lots more snaps of the Kenyon campus below the fold -
Middle Path, the spinal cord of the campus:
A rightly desirable dorm building:
The home of the Kenyon Review:
A country school has to have a Harvest Festival, with Kenyon horses:
And cider making, of course:
Inside the college's Church of the Holy Spirit, an 1859 gift of the Church of the Ascension in NYC.
The old dining hall. Tuition includes all food, open 24 hrs/day:
"Downtown" Gambier is mostly campus. Not much there:
On Saturdays, the Amish drive their buggies into the village to sell their homemade wares to the "English," which is how they refer to all non-Amish:
On any campus, you can always find one of these loony tunes:
Soft leather sofas. The BD pup's favorite room to study in. Only uses the library when she really needs to buckle down -
Rosse Hall, with Science Center behind -
That sweet pup of mine is a fortunate gal.
