Family Weekend is filled with special events, including the lectures, plays, musical performances, and receptions highlighted below. We also encourage you to check the complete Family Weekend schedule.
“Demystifying the Application Process.” On Saturday, October 20, from 10:00-10:45 a.m., Diane Anci, vice president of enrollment management and dean of admissions, hosts an informational session that will provide tips on how to conduct a successful college search and offer insight into the application process. The presentation will be held in Brandi Recital Hall in Storer Hall.
On Saturday, October 20, at 9:30 a.m. T.R. Hummer author and former editor-in-chief of the Kenyon Review, the New England Review, and the Georgia Review, will read from his most recent books of poetry "After the Afterlife" (Acre Books, 2018) and the three linked volumes, "Ephemeron," "Skandalon" and Eon" (LSU Press, 2018). Hummer has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist grant in Poetry, the Richard Wright Award for Artistic Excellence, the Hanes Poetry Prize, and The Donald Justice Award for Poetry. He lives in Cold Spring, New York. Hummer will take questions, and books will be available for purchase and signing. The presentation will be held in the Cheever Room in the Finn House.
We invite you to join President Sean Decatur, Provost Joe Klesner and members of the faculty for a reception on the Toan Track in the Kenyon Athletic Center on Friday from 4:15 to 5:15 p.m. The faculty will be in groups, as follows:
• Fine Arts (Art History, Studio Art; Dance, Drama and Film; Music)
• Humanities (African Diaspora Studies, Asian Studies, Classics, Comparative World Literature, English, Integrated Program in Humane Studies [IPHS], Islamic Civilization and Cultures, Latino/a Studies, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Religious Studies)
• Natural Sciences (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Studies, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, Psychology, Scientific Computing)
• Social Sciences ( American Studies, Anthropology, Economics, History, International Studies, Law and Society, Political Science, Public Policy, Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies)
The weekend’s musical performances will include a Friday night concert by the Kokosingers, an all-male a cappella group, at 7 p.m. in Rosse Hall. On Saturday afternoon, at 2 p.m., the Kenyon College Symphonic Wind Ensemble will offer their fall concert, and at 5 p.m. the cabaret concert will feature many of the College's a cappella singing groups, each performing several songs. Both these concerts are in Rosse Hall. While tickets are not required for any of these performances, they often attract large crowds, so plan to arrive early.
Do you have a son or daughter interested in off-campus studies? Come talk with returning off-campus-studies students, faculty and staff from the Center for Global Engagement, on Saturday afternoon, October 20, from 1 to 2 p.m. in Community Foundation Theater, Gund Gallery, lower level.
Learn about the Kenyon-Rome Program on Saturday, October 20, at 2:15-3:15 p.m. in the Community Foundation Theater, Gund Gallery, lower level. The Kenyon in Rome Program offers students the opportunity to engage in a unique program based in Rome, Italy, with extended visits to other sites. Join the 2019 resident director Claudia Esslinger to learn about this exciting opportunity for students interested in art history and studio art.
Learn about the Kenyon-Exeter Program on Saturday, October 20, at 3:15-4:15 p.m. in the Community Foundation Theater, Gund Gallery, lower level. The Kenyon-Exeter Program is a year-long study-abroad option that combines the best of the British university and the U.S. liberal arts college, under the resident directorship of a member of Kenyon’s English Department. Join 2019-20 faculty Piers Brown and Pashmina Murthy, former resident director Laurie Finke, returning students and other faculty to learn about its curricular options and its expansive schedule of world-class theater and co-curricular travel.
The fall sports teams participating in home contests are listed in the schedule of events. The scheduling of dates by the Athletic Department is completed as much as three years in advance, and we regret that all of Kenyon's sports teams cannot be on campus during the weekend.
The Kenyon College Dramatic Club (KCDC) will present “The Wolves” by Tom Stoppard,directed by Ben Viccellio associate professor of drama. Performances are Friday at 8:30 p.m., and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available through the Bolton Theater Box Office, 740-427-5546, beginning at 1 p.m. on Monday, Oct.15, or you may purchase tickets at the door if the performance is not sold out. Because performances often sell out, advance reservation of tickets is recommended.
This fall, Kenyon kicks off Our Path Forward, the most ambitious campaign in the College’s history. On Saturday, October 20, at 11 a.m. in Rosse Hall, President Sean Decatur joins senior administrators and members of the Parents Advisory Council to give an insider’s look at how the campaign will improve the campus and increase the impact of Kenyon’s transformative education.
Pia Fries
Buchwald-Wright Gallery, Gund Gallery
August 24-December 16, 2018
Pia Fries (Swiss, b. 1955; based in Dusseldorf, Germany) is internationally acclaimed as an undaunted and intrepid painter, whose exuberant paintings integrate silkscreened facsimiles of 17th-century Baroque and Mannerist prints and the gestural rigor and emotional depth of Abstract Expressionism with a contemporary sensibility. Fueled with formidable skill and an adventurous spirit, Fries' paintings, characterized by audacious color and thick, pulsating pigment applied with brushes, spatulas, and palette knives, represent a hybrid fusion of painting and printmaking, figuration and abstraction, and tradition and innovation-through the lens of the 21st century.
Publishing Against the Grain
Buchwald-Wright Gallery, Gund Gallery
August 24-December 16, 2018
Publishing Against the Grain highlights the current state of independent, critical publishing as it exists in small journals, experimental publications, websites, radio, and other innovative forms around the world. It is organized around projects that connect theoretical, social, political and aesthetic questions with a focus on community. While most of the included projects are grounded in a particular place, the scope of the exhibition is broadened to examine projects that focus on how the forces of collective memory, cultural tradition, migration, and dispersal inform identity and shape communities.
CY TWOMBLY: Natural History, Part I, Mushrooms
Buchwald-Wright Gallery, Gund Gallery
August 24-December 16, 2018
Twombly’s (American, 1928-2011) unique relationship to his media and wide ranging sources of inspiration, from ancient philosophers and natural phenomenon to systems of knowledge, mythology, poetry and literature has been noted by numerous critics and historians. The artist's portfolio of ten color lithographs entitled Natural History, Part I, Mushrooms, donated in 2018 to the Gund Gallery Collection by Graham and Ann Gund, feature scientific illustrations of mushrooms with Twombly’s recognizable visual language of notations, gestures and personal meditations, on and between collaged graph and tracing papers.
The Gund Gallery exhibitions and programs are made possible, in part, by the Gund Gallery Board of Directors and the Ohio Arts Council.
You are encouraged to attend classes with your student or on your own on Friday. Please check the schedule at the registration center to avoid classes offering exams or without additional seating.
We encourage you to take a walk or jog down this fourteen-mile trail, which follows the old railroad route from Gambier west to Mount Vernon and from Gambier east to Danville. This scenic trail, located at the bottom of the College hill, just beyond the Kenyon Athletic Center, is a popular place for enjoying the countryside.
Celebrate the season with this free event on Saturday, October 20, from noon - 4 p.m. The festival includes pumpkin decorating with recycled materials, horse-drawn wagon rides, live music, kids’ harvest games, a cider press, and a camp fire. See the flyer in the registration center for more details. Visitors must provide own transportation or walk the 0.6 miles to the event.
Kokosing Nature Preserve/Philander Chase Conservancy Tour. On Saturday, October 20, at 9 a.m. join Lisa Schott ’80, Managing Director of Philander Chase Conservancy and Amy Henricksen, Kokosing Nature Preserve Steward, for a driving tour of properties conserved within a five-mile radius of the College and a visit to Kokosing Nature Preserve, Kenyon's green burial cemetery. The tour lasts approximately an hour. Seating is limited and operates on a first come, first served basis. Meet the tour vans at the circle driveway in front of the Church of the Holy Spirit.
Kenyon Farm open house. Families are invited to tour the College’s 11-acre working farm center within walking distance of campus on Saturday, October 20, from 1 – 4 p.m. The nine Kenyon student farmers live and work at the farm raising vegetables, chickens, goats, ducks and lambs. Crops grown at the farm are provided to Kenyon food service and on Middle Path for the Kenyon community. Kenyon Farm, 20245 Zion Road (walking distance from campus)
Quarry Chapel open house. Visit Quarry Chapel on Saturday, October 20, from noon to 4 p.m. Quarry Chapel was built in 1863, serving as a parish for stonemasons’ families, and was abandoned in 1937. Saved in 1972, the chapel was restored in 2009 and serves today as a community asset, hosting concerts and weddings. Corner of Quarry Chapel and Monroe Mills roads. Visitors must provide own transportation.
Episcopal, Catholic, and Jewish services are offered regularly on campus. See the schedule of events for specific times. Episcopal and Methodist churches are located in Gambier, and churches for those and several other denominations are located in Mount Vernon. Please see the flyer in the registration center for more details.
Hours for Family Weekend:
Friday: 6 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Sunday: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
The pool at the KAC will be open Family Weekend during limited hours. Hours will be posted.
Important pool notes:
• The hot tub will not be open when only one guard is on duty (notably during swim team practice).
• The high diving board is not open to the public.
• The low diving board is open at the discretion of the guards and only if two guards are on duty.
• Minimal space is available for lap swimming during the hours of 6:30 - 8:30 a.m. and 4 - 6:30 p.m. Ask the lifeguard for designated swim lanes.
• Absolutely no swimming is allowed unless a lifeguard is present and on duty.