Today is a wonderful day of celebration as you, members of the Class of 2028 and other incoming students, take your place here at Kenyon for the first time. Welcome! It is a really special moment — savor it. This moment is made extra special by the fact that it takes place in our 200th year and you have joined us just in time to join our many bicentennial celebrations.
As we enter our third century, it is exciting to welcome you to this beautiful campus and to this special community.
Many of you have come from a world away to get here. Maybe you’re from a fast-paced urban center or a country halfway around the globe. It doesn’t matter. Like the College’s first students, you are willing to go the distance for something truly special. Think about this: The average American student who chooses a private college like Kenyon goes to a college that is 85 miles away from home. For the average student in the Class of 2028 here at Kenyon? It’s 650 miles. And you’ve come for a reason. At a time when the world is characterized by people divided in their viewpoints, you have intentionally come to a place where you likely don’t know anyone else, where your beliefs will be challenged, where you will be exposed to different ways of thinking. For many of you, that may be intimidating, even uncomfortable.
On this point, I can relate. Like most of you, I came to Gambier by way of somewhere else. I just finished my first year here at the College, trading in the hustle and bustle of New York City, and before that, life in places like Miami, Boston and Philadelphia. You might call me a city person. But I made a very intentional decision to come to Kenyon. Do I miss it? Honestly, no. (Well, the bagels. I miss the bagels. And the pizza.) But what I’ve found here is so comforting and valuable in other ways. There’s a familiar rhythm to this place that I treasure. I cherish my daily walks down Middle Path with our family’s miniature poodle, Milo — he looks forward to meeting you and sends his regards — and I love running into professors and students and grounds workers and knowing them by name.
That’s the beauty of this warm and welcoming place that puts a premium on valuing people and relationships. There are no strangers here. For two centuries now, we’ve done more than build an education; we’ve built community. So trust me when I say: You may not know anyone else here now, but I promise you, you will find your people. They might be your roommate or your lab partner. You may find them sitting next to you during lunch in Pierce Dining Hall or during a concert in Rosse Hall. They might toss you a frisbee on the South Quad or pass you a weight as you do lunges here in the Lowry Center. But trust me, you’ll find them. And once you do, you’ll never lose them because a Kenyon friend is a friend for life.
The most recent issue of the College’s alumni magazine, a special bicentennial edition, is titled “200 Things to Love About Kenyon.” And do you know how many of those items are people? Named individually? 76. And it easily could have been double that. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you it’s the people at Kenyon who make it such a transformative place. It’s a refrain I heard again and again when I hosted more than 200 outgoing seniors for a series of dinners at my house this past spring. When I asked those seniors what they valued most about their time at Kenyon, everyone mentioned the people, the relationships and strong bonds they developed with fellow students and with faculty, staff and coaches.
You will carry the relationships you form here with you all your life, as closely as you carry the intellectual and professional skills you pick up here. But these relationships won’t happen by magic. Just like your work in the classroom, these connections come with responsibility and they take work. With that in mind, there are a few things I ask of you as you begin that work here today.
As you prepare for a world full of innumerable complexities and more than a little strife, I ask you to be curious, but not judgemental. I encourage you to ask questions, but don’t expect the answers you already have. Most of you probably have never been in a place like this before — here in Central Ohio with people from all over the world. Take advantage of that. Ask your peers about what they believe. Engage in conversations — not for the purpose of changing each other’s minds but for understanding each other’s perspectives. Be brave enough to express your opinions and also to give each other grace. We don’t cancel each other at Kenyon; we listen and we learn from each other.
That’s also part of our grand tradition. When colleges and universities across the country closed in the wake of unrest during the Vietnam War, Kenyon stayed open. Over this last year, as many college campuses were disrupted by protests and even violence, our students responded with passion and thoughtfulness, participating in educational forums and peaceful rallies. We remained a community committed to dialogue — something I fully expect to continue this year.
Here at Kenyon, we also value our relationship with our neighbors outside of campus. I ask you to engage with them as well. The rural character of Knox County, located at a cultural and developmental crossroads, may seem unfamiliar to many of you, but there is a great richness to it. Take advantage of the opportunities to learn about it, whether through casual conversation at a local festival or as part of one of the many internships, partnerships and community-engaged learning courses that send hundreds of students out into the surrounding area each year.
I know that we ask a lot of you here at Kenyon, and I haven’t even touched on the academic work. But take comfort in knowing that it’s not a one-sided equation.
You can expect our faculty and staff, many of whom live within a few minutes walk of campus, to share the same passion and curiosity that you bring to our community. Not only are they experts in their chosen fields — teaching, studying and creating with insight and enthusiasm — but they are dedicated mentors who are devoted to student success. For many students, they are simultaneously instructors, advisors, collaborators and friends. I know many who have opened their homes to students, offering tea and cookies to go with good conversation, and gone on to continue working together even after graduation.
You can expect a holistic approach here to helping you thrive — personally, professionally and academically. Everyone at Kenyon — from the faculty in the classrooms to the advisors in the Career Development Office to the professionals at Cox Health and Counseling Center — is dedicated to creating an environment that prioritizes student success.
But maybe most of all, you can expect us to enhance your ability to become a difference maker. That’s because a liberal arts education — excuse me, a Kenyon liberal arts education — is not just designed to broaden your intellectual horizons. It’s about more than teaching you how to synthesize information and consider it critically. Although it does all that and does it well. In a more general sense, what it does is make for an agile mind, a nimble intellect. It builds the capacity to lean in and take a chaotic world that is raging and roaring all around you and make sense of it — and then do something about it.
This was true back in the College’s early days when Edwin Stanton was a student in 1831. It prepared him to help hold the country together as Lincoln’s Secretary of War. And it’s true today. Just a couple of months ago, we were grateful to host the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, a proud Kenyon alum — Class of 1991. She was on campus as part of our Bicentennial Reunion festivities, and she inspired me and the rest of the crowd with the following statements: “The power of a liberal arts education is simply this: the ability to prepare us to shape the world around us. As I look back on my career as a diplomat, including my current assignment as an ambassador on the front lines of democracy, I can see how my liberal arts education prepared me for the enormous challenges that I would face. For me, that has perhaps been the greatest gift of a Kenyon education — the ability to think critically and then act decisively in the interest of shaping the world for the better.”
That’s what we bring, what we’ve always brought, here at this college. A Kenyon liberal arts education prepares you for a life of challenges and complexity, something that, more than ever, requires you to consider multiple perspectives and work across disciplines to solve problems. I know this from my own background in public health. As an educator and epidemiologist, I can tell you that any significant advancements you see, whether a new vaccine or a plan to reduce gun violence, come from people collaborating, not from the efforts of a single, heroic individual.
We recognize that at Kenyon, which is why education here is rooted in relationships. Being part of a residential college — a diverse community of people who live and learn together across disciplines — creates an environment that is particularly welcoming of an open exchange of ideas. And that leads to progress.
It is no accident that this happens here at Kenyon because we are built for this. And you — our newest students — are our foundation. Each one of you is an essential part of our community and a keystone to our success. I am delighted that you made the choice to be here and can’t wait to personally welcome each of you.