College Highlight

Kenyon College

From the Fiske Guide to College
Gambier, Ohio

Kenyon is a vintage liberal arts college plunked down in the middle of the Ohio countryside. More mainstream than Oberlin, more serious than Denison, and more selective than Wooster, Kenyon is best known for English and a small but distinguished drama program. Located in a tiny village where faculty and staff are the main residents. Swimming and diving teams make huge splashes. 

Kenyon College provides students with an accessible and pure liberal arts experience that rivals those of leading East Coast institutions. Students here are proud of what they see as setting Kenyon apart from other liberal arts colleges. Though highly selective, the college continues to build on its reputation as a supportive academic environment. The oldest private college in Ohio, Kenyon’s 1,000-acre campus sits on a hillside overlooking a scenic view of river, woods, and fields in a secluded village of roughly 2,500 residents. The college’s original building, Old Kenyon, dating from 1826, is said to be the first collegiate Gothic building in America, and the campus is on the National Register of Historic Places. The campus also includes a 500-acre nature preserve, featuring hiking trails and extensive perennial gardens. Newer facilities include the Wright Center, which houses a state-of-the-art film center and the Office for Community Partnerships. 

The hallmark of Kenyon’s academic philosophy is a fierce devotion to the liberal arts and sciences. While there is no core curriculum at Kenyon, all students must have proficiency in a second language and complete requirements in quantitative reasoning. A bevy of academic counselors, including upperclassmen and professors, help ensure that freshmen stay on the right track. The culmination of each student’s coursework at Kenyon is the senior exercise, which may take the form of a comprehensive examination, an integrative paper, a research project, a performance, or some combination of these. Approximately 12 percent of students graduate with departmental honors. English, a nationally renowned subject at Kenyon since the 1930s, is the most popular major, and it, along with the drama department (which turned out the likes of Allison Janney and Paul Newman), sets the tone of campus life. Alum E. L. Doctorow said, “Poetry is what we did at Kenyon, the way at Ohio State they played football.” John Green, the giant of young adult fiction, is also an alum. Economics, psychology, political science, and biology round out the list of popular majors, and the modern languages and literatures and mathematics and statistics departments are also strong. Political science draws many undecided majors with its yearlong introductory class, Quest for Justice. Opportunities for independent study abound, such as a unique farming program that places students on nearby farms for fieldwork each week. 

Preprofessional opportunities include 3–2 engineering programs with several universities and high access to graduate programs in law, business, and medicine. “Despite the academic rigor of many classes and departments at Kenyon, I have never felt competitive with my fellow students,” says a psychology major. 

Classes are small, and even the larger introductory courses use a two-part format in which students meet for lectures one week and split up for discussion sections with the professor the next. “Kenyon’s professors are active researchers and exemplary teachers,” says a math major. “They are passionate about their fields, and they love getting their students excited about the material as well.” Many profs live close to campus, which enhances the close-knit environment. On-campus summer research scholarships in the sciences and humanities provide opportunities for collaborative research for aspiring scientists, scholars, and doctors. Roughly half of Kenyon students take part in study abroad, choosing from more than 190 programs in more than 50 countries, including Kenyon-sponsored programs in England and Italy. Ten percent of students are Ohioans, one-third hail from New England and Mid-Atlantic states, and 9 percent come from abroad.

 Kenyon meets the full demonstrated financial need of admitted students and awards merit scholarships averaging $14,600, but only 10 percent of incoming freshmen qualify for the Pell Grant. Newman’s Own Foundation Scholarships guarantee a loan-free education for 25 selected students with the greatest need who bring the qualities of creativity, community service, and leadership to Kenyon. All students live on campus, with housing guaranteed for four years. 

 “Kenyon is in an isolated area of Ohio, and is generally very safe,” a senior says. The college has updated its Title IX policy, with changes to procedures for handling reports of sexual assault and hired a civil rights coordinator to enforce it. Given the school’s rural location, social life happens on campus, with more than 150 student clubs and a Greek system that draws 19 percent of the men and 14 percent of the women. The frats throw lively parties that are open to all, and a senior says, “Every student performance—sports games, public presentations, music recitals, art shows—is incredibly well attended.” With its deli, market, coffeehouse, inn, restaurant, couple of bars, bank, and post office, Gambier is at least quaint, even if it is a bit of a culture shock for urbanites. Students enjoy buying real maple syrup, fresh bread, and cheese from Amish farmers with stands on the main street on Saturdays. There are a few more options 10 minutes away in Mount Vernon, to which the college runs a daytime shuttle bus, and two small ski areas lie near campus. Columbus and Ohio State are a 45-minute drive south, and those seeking adventure farther from home sometimes road-trip to Cleveland (home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Cincinnati, Chicago, or even Canada. 

Kenyon’s varsity teams are known as the Lords and the Ladies. Men’s and women’s tennis and soccer are consistently competitive in the North Coast Athletic Conference, but the flagship sport is definitely swimming. Club and intramural sports attract about a third of the students and sponsor everything from ultimate Frisbee to ballroom dance. 

Kenyon students are liberal, global thinkers who are as devoted to one another as they are to their studies and their traditions. The Kenyon Review, the legend of alumnus Paul Newman, and national-championship swimming give the college an identity that’s hard to match. As one sociology major advises, “It can be tough at times dealing with the location or the intense academics, but if students embrace Kenyon, it is a quirky school that can be extremely rewarding to attend.”