From Kenyon News - December 2, 2016
The Church of the Holy Spirit’s bells rang 526 times to represent each donation to the Kenyon Fund during the College’s second Bell-A-Thon on Nov. 29. The Giving Tuesday event, which ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., raised $245,655 to support academics, athletics, scholarships and student life at Kenyon.
The livestreamed event also revealed some interesting tidbits about Kenyon and the people who call Gambier home. Here are 12 things we learned during the 12-hour broadcast:
- Assistant Swimming Coach Fernando Rodriguez ’04 has joined the family of legendary former Head Coach Jim Steen for 14 Thanksgiving dinners in the last 16 years. The tradition started when Rodriguez came to Kenyon as an international student from Brazil. “Swimming at Kenyon was great, but everything that came along with it was even better,” he said.
- Before a game, Lords wide receiver Brian Hunca ’17 fuels up with breakfast at Peirce Dining Hall, where he has perfected his toasting technique. (He runs bread through the toaster twice and applies ample amounts of cream cheese and jelly.)
- If Associate Professor of English Sarah Heidt ’97 could recommend one book for everyone to read, it would be George Eliot’s “Middlemarch.”
- Molecular biology majors Karina Kunka ’19 and Jessie Griffith ’19 are doing research with Professor of Biology Joan Slonczewski that may help NASA grow microbes on Mars.
- Professors willingly attended student parties at Kenyon in the early 1960s, when Writer-in-Residence P.F. Kluge ’64 and Professor Emeritus of English Perry Lentz ’64 were undergraduate English majors. “They were the place to go,” said Kluge, recalling a dance weekend featuring a performance by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
- Kenyon’s newest a cappella group, the Barbershop Quartet, explained how utilizing harmonic seventh chords helps Barbershop music achieve its unique sound. “Three people sing notes that sound really good together and the fourth person sings a note that does not sound as good at first,” said tenor Ethan Starr ’20. “It’s a dissonant chord and it sounds beautiful when it resolves.”
- Prize-winning student poets Juniper Cruz ’19 and Michaela Jenkins ’19 draw writing inspiration from a range of artists, from the unexpected (Dr. Seuss and Busta Rhymes) to the contemporary (Natalie Shapero and Ocean Vuong) to the prolific (Emily Dickinson and Kenyon’s own Robert Lowell ’40).
- When members of Kenyon’s bell-ringing society, The Pealers, take over the bell tower every Friday at 4 p.m., their favorite songs to play are the 1812 Overture (Carolyn Ten Eyck ’17), “Spooky Scary Skeletons” (Daniel Schlather ’17), “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter (Callan Schackor ’17) and "The First Noel" (Fiona Ellsworth ’20).
- Billy Shakes, a student-run theatre troupe that travels off campus to perform 30-minute abridged versions of the Bard’s plays at nursing homes, schools and libraries, has inspired member Abby Armato ’17 to dedicate her career to making Shakespeare accessible to the masses.
- When he’s not running Kenyon, President Sean Decatur might be found binge-watching “Parks and Recreation” on Netflix, singing along to “The Hamilton Mixtape” or seeing the upcoming Star Wars movie, “Rogue One,” at the local theater.
- Producing the Kenyon Collegian starts on Sunday nights, when reporters submit their articles in Google docs for editing. The editorial staff then produces the arts, opinions and features sections on Tuesday nights and the news and sports pages on Wednesday nights before going to print for Thursday delivery.
- The Kokosingers, who celebrated their 50th reunion last May, are touring up and down the East Coast during the holiday break, performing in alumni homes and schools in Boston, Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.