Campus News

Kenyon Mourns Cathy Boutin

Cathy Boutin died yesterday morning, Thursday, December 12, at her home in Mount Vernon, following a year-long struggle with cancer.  She was most recently an administrative assistant in the Office of Admissions.              A native of Seattle, where she was born on July 7, 1952, Cathy graduated from high school in Tacoma, Washington.  She then worked for both Kmart and Walmart, rising to general manager of a Kmart store. Cathy and her family moved to Mount Vernon in 1992 and, nine years later…

Me, Myself & I: Time Alone as an Empty Nester

By Elizabeth Weinstein

In a reversal of that helicopter hovering we hear so much about—parents who don’t think grown children can remember what to do—I told my son that he would have to call us from Kenyon every morning this fall so that his father and I would remember to get up. This past summer, my husband and I got out of the habit of setting an alarm; summer-morning breezes wafting in, we woke up when we did and then sat with coffee, reluctant to break the spell of our unfocused conversation. Meanwhile, our responsible…

Kenyon Mourns Jane Smail

Jane Smail, who taught piano at Kenyon and inspired her students while battling multiple sclerosis, died today in the company of her family at Autumn Health Care in Mount Vernon. She was seventy-two. Jane was diagnosed with a slowly progressive form of the disease in 1977. Despite that setback, she was an adjunct instructor of piano in the Department of Music from 1978 to 1999 and worked in the Department of Art History as a collections librarian in the 1970s. She was quietly accepting of her infirmity…

Moon Landings

By Jennifer Delahunty

Parenting a child through the college search process is a bit like taking a journey to the moon—a terrifying passage through dark space with a suspenseful landing. If you, as a parent, have been to college, you have a sense of the journey and confidence that you’ll make a safe landing. If you haven’t been to college, the journey can be even more fraught as you have no sense that the lunar vehicle will find its way to solid ground. You’ve spent 17 or 18 years raising a child, and you’ll spend 18…