Dear Kenyon faculty and staff,
As the long days of summer get imperceptibly shorter, and we race to squeeze in a few more cookouts with family and friends, I hope you are feeling rested and restored — and as eager as I am to usher in a new academic year.
Much has happened since we were last together. Our graduates have launched, earning spots in top graduate programs, winning fellowships, and landing what I hope is the first of many dream jobs. Faculty and students have immersed themselves in research, fieldwork and leadership opportunities across the globe, including right here in Gambier. The collective Kenyon community concluded a record-breaking, bicentennial-worthy campaign, growing our endowment for financial aid, scholarships and faculty support and enhancing our historic campus for generations to come.
And the next generation of Kenyon students is getting ready to join us this fall: 460 talented first-year and transfer students whose academic achievements and mix of interests and experiences are sure to enrich our campus in countless ways. They are very similar in profile to their Kenyon peers — smart and accomplished, curious and kind. I am pleased to report that we continue to make gains in expanding socio-economic diversity and boosting our number of Pell-eligible students, thanks in part to the many alumni who have generously supported the Kenyon Access Initiative. This fall’s incoming cohort will bring our enrollment on campus to a projected 1,730. This enrollment brings us back to pre-pandemic levels but is short of the projected growth that the College had planned for.
Over the past four years, higher education has experienced unprecedented volatility — we know this from our own experience. While Kenyon is fortunate to be operating from a position of strength, we are part of an ecosystem and not immune to or insulated from the challenges facing our sector. These include a “demographic cliff” predicted for when the number of high-school graduates peaks around 2025. They also include policy shifts, like wide-scale test-optional admissions and a delayed rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, that have affected where students apply, where they get in, and if they go to college at all. Add to that broader questions about the value of higher education and the added complexity that unsettled times bring to how students think about location, safety and fit — there is no doubt that Kenyon, like other colleges and universities, is operating in a decidedly challenging and unpredictable environment.
With more than 80% of our operating budget funded by tuition, we have always managed our finances with care. This will be even more important in today’s environment and will require us to make strategic spending decisions. While endowment campaigns are vital to the College’s long-term financial health, they are by design investments in the future. Only a sustainable rate of about 4.5% of the endowment is set aside to support the operating budget each year; the rest is preserved to ensure that there will be funds for the next year and the next, well into and beyond our third century.
Just as we are careful stewards of Kenyon’s resources, we must be ambitious champions of Kenyon’s mission. Put simply, for Kenyon to thrive in a changing landscape we must be both visionary and practical. The visioning is actively underway, with more than 80 faculty and staff working this summer on how to implement key elements of the strategic plan in ways that will add to Kenyon’s distinction. We also are taking time to reassess the modest growth called for in the strategic plan against the new realities of the higher education landscape. These efforts will come together this fall and provide a compass for where we direct our energies and invest our resources. I am deeply grateful to all members of the working groups for their energy, creativity and deep commitment to Kenyon.
I’ve had the privilege this summer to meet scores of people who share a love for Kenyon — from alumni who graduated decades ago to incoming students who have not yet arrived on campus. With their stories as a backdrop, it’s impressive but not surprising that more than 22,000 alumni, parents, students, employees and friends pledged their support for Kenyon over these past eight years, arguably the most uncertain period of our lifetimes. It is a breathtaking show of confidence in Kenyon’s future, and in the potential for Kenyon’s graduates to shape a better world.
I look forward to seeing you all at our Welcome Ceremony on Thursday,
Julie Kornfeld
President