Tell us about Kenyon...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a graduate from when it was all-male.

Enormous changes since the late 1990s when began an expenditure of 1.2 Billion
for new buildings and renovation of older ones. Graham Gund from the Billionaire
Gund family up in Cleveland accounted for probably 250 million toward that
figure and designed most of the new buildings which are state of the art.

With Gund's anonymous contributions, 530 million capital campaign just
concluded for the 200th anniversary Bicentennial 1824-2024.

Kenyon's debt servicing was on 19 million in 1998, now that figure is about
270 million but at 4 percent. No more recent borrowing for two new dorms.

Post-the 1990s, the PC and DEI culture flourished especially during the 2013-2023
presidency of Decatur who was African-American from Cleveland who did not
really succeed in boosting the percentage of Black students over the last ten years.

Kenyon is a tough sell for Black students even theough there is more diversity
overall than 20 years ago. Decatur who came to Kenyon in 2023 form Oberlin
wanted to make Kenyon more like Oberlin at leastin terms of PC-DEI and he
did succeed in that, such as getting the college to drop the "Lords and Ladies" for
the "Owls" as an anti-historical mascot.

Wellsley is now on the list of the overlap liberal arts colleges with Kenyon which
is a strong magnet for young women who want to major in the humanities.
Wellsley is 99 percent female - a warning sign that Kenyon risks that its
gender ration will soon become 60-40 in favor of women which according
to the conventional wisdom in Admission Departments become a tipping point
which cannot be reversed.

One last observation - Kenyon has more students from California now especially
from wealthy and some famous families in LA who are into the entertainment, film
and media culture there -- than any other states except for Ohio and New York.

Kenyon has a very high percentage of geographical diversity more so I suspect
than most NE-MA liberal arts colleges. It geographical draw is amazing and
mot something that parents on the east coast would be aware.

In any case, the big question for the future is whether Kenyon (an all-male college
for 150 years) which caters to women will rise to the tipping point. To avoid
doing that it has given male applicants (only 38 of total applicants) special
preference.

It is much easier generally for a young man to be accepted at Kenyon because
of this desperate need to avoid the 60-40 split.

As for isolation, Kenyon is less isolated than Williams. Real big cornfields?
Go further west than the more hilly parts of central-eastern Ohio which is
actually the Piedmont on the far side the Appalachian mountains. Real
Midwesterns to the west would look upon Kenyon as a eastern college
with a shorter drive to Columbus and Cleveland than Williams is to Boston.

They need to bring back Toad.