Highlights from on and off the Hill

2000

Electronic college applications gain popularity.

2001

Kenyon begins consistently enrolling more female than male students, with the percentage of female students ranging from 52% to 56% in subsequent years.

On Sept. 20, The Collegian profiles Kenyon students Drew Kalnow ’03, Jeb Breece ’04, and Oliver Benes ’03, who volunteered as firefighters at Ground Zero in New York City following the Sept. 11 attacks. Kalnow reflects, “To an extent, I don’t even understand what I saw. I don’t think anyone our age ... has seen anything like this.”

The Philander Chase Conservancy, then Corporation, is created to lead Kenyon’s efforts to preserve the College’s rural environment.

2003

S. Georgia Nugent is inaugurated as Kenyon’s 18th president, becoming the first woman to hold the position. She succeeds Robert Oden Jr. and leads the College until 2013.

2005

David Foster Wallace delivers the Commencement address, “This is Water,” which lives on in popular culture, social media and print.

2006

The Kenyon Athletic Center, designed by architect Graham Gund ’63 H’81, opens. The facility is renamed the Lowry Center in 2020, in honor of William E. Lowry Jr. ’56 H’99, a three-sport captain and student body president.

2007

The Center for the Study of American Democracy is established to organize conferences, lectures and seminars aimed at fostering non­partisan civic and political discourse.

2009

Student band Walk the Moon performs at Sendoff as an opening act for hip-hop duo Clipse.

2007-2011

Under President Nugent, the We Are Kenyon campaign receives contributions from over 15,000 donors totaling $250 million. The funds support scholarships, the arts and five endowed professorships, and enhance the Kenyon Review and the Philander Chase Conservancy.

I Was There: Cheshe Dow ’02

I returned to the Hill for the big 200th birthday, and again in August with my daughter Yaana, 5. I was quite chuffed to have an opportunity to show my little girl my “old school.”

Kenyon remains as gorgeous as it is in my dreams. Yaana fell in rapture with the exhibitions at the Gund. The twirly rainbow perspex heaven “chandelier” and the old gentleman playing the piano in the middle of a grass field moved her to dance. The burnt yellow grass is very reminiscent of the Botswana wilderness, especially now before the rains. A lioness in the distance would not be out of place. I was enraptured that a 5-year-old could hear the blues as happy music, and that, as publicly shy as she is, she would dance in that room to only that piano. An experience that reminds me of how special Kenyon is … if only we remember to stand still and be.