In anticipation of the upcoming spring meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Collegian sat down with the chair of the Board of Trustees, Aileen Hefferren ’88 H’12, to discuss the role and the Board’s priorities.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tadhg Sahutske (TS): Who is Aileen Hefferren?

Hefferren: Class of 1988, from Kenyon College and grew up in the Midwest outside of Chicago. I was a poli-sci major here at Kenyon College, and we are sitting down today because I am honored to be the chair of the Board of Trustees of Kenyon College.

TS: What made you want to return to Kenyon as a Board of Trustees member?

Hefferren: I am still so grateful, all these many years later, that Kenyon admitted me, completely seriously. I was so grateful for the opportunity, and I feel like I have gained so much. I learned so much. It made me who I am as a person. I think the small class size, the Quest for Justice, the interactions with the professors. Also, I ran cross country, and I was not terribly good. I was steadily the last person on the team, and [Head Cross Country Coach Duane] Gomez was so kind and generous with me … and I made lifelong friends on that team. And so when I was approached to give back, to have an opportunity to give back, I thought, I’d be honored, and I hope that I can be of use.

TS: How has Kenyon changed since your time, 1984 to 88?

Hefferren: Well, I have to say I’m not sure as a student how open my eyes were to how beautiful this place was. I think that it was actually really beautiful, but when I came back as a Board member and 15 years out of college, at that point, I had a better appreciation for it. And I would say, just looking out the window from where we’re sitting now, the facilities are just incredible — these buildings made possible by alums who, in that same way, feel grateful for the opportunity that I had here and they wanted to invest. … So I’d say that the place looks even better.

And I think that the people, some of them are still here, if I had very young professors, they might still be around. Coach Gomez, he only recently retired. So I think there’s that long-term commitment to the College, but where there are different people, I think they still have that same ethos, that commitment to the small liberal arts college. You’ve chosen, with great intentionality, to be at a place like this as opposed to a large research university; you want that proximity to students. So I think I am still very much seeing that here, people and place.

TS: For readers who might not be as familiar with what the role of the Board of Trustees is, could you describe exactly what that is, and what your role is as chair?

Hefferren: I would say, when I was a student at Kenyon College, I’m not sure I knew that there was a board, or if I did, I didn’t know what it did. So Kenyon is a nonprofit institution, and all nonprofits have a board of trustees to provide oversight, and the Board of Trustees has a fiduciary responsibility for the College, and so really the Board is here to make sure that Kenyon is here in 100 years from now. It’s to take the long view, and be a strategic partner in the administration; the Board consists of predominantly alums. There are also a few parent trustees. And so people who have this deep commitment to people and place, and they bring different skills and expertise and perspectives.

I think that what we’re able to do in working with the administration, is that we are not in the weeds. We kind of have a 10,000-foot perspective and that enables us to be the strategic partner. And in terms of being the chair, it’s my responsibility to lead the Board, to direct our efforts, to work on our partnership with the College. Another thing the Board is responsible for is the CEO of the institution — the president. And so the Board leads that effort. When [former College President] Sean Decatur stepped down to head [the American Museum of] Natural History, I actually chaired the search that led to hiring President Kornfeld. So obviously that’s a pretty important role for the Board and I was very grateful to have faculty and students and administrators join the Board members in that effort.

TS: There is a Board meeting coming up in the next couple of days. What are Board members going to be talking about? What issues are you guys facing?

Hefferren: As you know, this is a challenging time for higher education, even for the most well-resourced places, so Kenyon is in a much better place, thankfully than a lot of institutions. But we’re not without our challenges. So we’re going to be looking at the budget for the new fiscal year so that it reflects the changes that had to be made because of the challenges. But we’re also, as importantly, looking at what are the investments that the College is making. I think that part of the reason we’re weathering these choppy waters as well as we are, is that we know who we are, and that we are really highlighting what makes us distinctive, how Kenyon is different than many other, wonderful, small liberal arts colleges, and we’re making investments in the areas that will be, we think, really the most critical to the College’s success.

TS: Especially when small schools are faced with financial challenges, they are encouraged to specialize. Do you see Kenyon as a specialized school?

Hefferren: I think that I might make a distinction between specializing and highlighting areas of distinction. I think that Kenyon is known as a “writers’ college,” but we don’t only produce English majors. It’s really like writing across the curriculum. And I think that what we are trying to highlight is what the College is so strong in. For example, all of the sciences and the wonderful Science Quad that we have, and the success rate that they’re at. For example, 100% of the students who [applied] to medical school were admitted. That’s enormous! That’s just an enormous distinction for the College.

I think that what you’re seeing with some schools is, I mean, there is a shortage of nurses, right? And so there’s some that are opening nursing schools. That’s not something that we are going to do here. There’s demand for engineering. That’s an incredible lift to open an engineering school. And so instead, what we’re doing is, we have a dark matter lab. We have this incredible physics department, we’re going to double down on that. And I think we really want to clearly communicate what the results are.

This is a significant investment. It’s typically the most significant investment a family is going to make. And to know what the, I don’t want to say payoff, but what the long-term results are going to be. And Kenyon is preparing people for careers, not for the first job. But to understand the value proposition associated with going to a place like Kenyon.

TS: When we spoke to President Kornfeld back in February, she said, “We find ourselves in a moment where the value of a four-year college degree is questioned across the nation.” What is the elevator pitch for “why Kenyon?”

Hefferren: You asked me earlier about why I chose to serve on the Board, it’s because I feel like Kenyon made such a big difference in my life and shaped who I am as a person. I think that going to a place like Kenyon produces good humans — people who are broad-minded, who’ve been exposed to a lot of different ways of thinking and different disciplines — and that has taught them to not accept things at face value, but to dig deeper and to engage with different points of view, as opposed to just perpetuating their own. That was very much a part of my Kenyon experience. And so that is the selling point: that to be a good citizen and engaged member of society, going to a place like this, that will broaden your horizons [and] give you a sense of what’s possible in the world and your place in it. It’s terribly important. You can go, after Kenyon, to specialize. So if you want that nursing degree or engineering degree or whatever, this tees you up for that. … It opens the world, rather than narrows it for you.

TS: On the strategic plan, one of the major aspects of the “Foundations for the Third Century,” was diversity. We’ve seen a fairly flat percentage of Black and Asian domestic students since 2012. How is Kenyon working to promote diversity, and how have our current efforts, such as the Kenyon Educational Enrichment Program and Recognizing Each Other’s Ability to Conquer the Hill, been effective?

Hefferren: This is something that’s particularly close to my heart. As you may know, I ran an organization in New York called Prep for Prep for nearly 20 years, which is an educational access organization, and some of our alums came to Kenyon and really distinguished themselves. So I always say that Kenyon has a longstanding commitment to access. And from my time on the Board the definition of diversity has broadened, from just racial and ethnic to much broader. As I’m sure you are well aware, the Supreme Court decision impacts it — there are certain things, you know, that we have to abide by in order to follow the law. And so we will absolutely do that. But we were required to examine all of what Kenyon does to make sure that we were compliant around recruitment and bringing kids from all kinds of backgrounds to stand up to all of those tests. But it does impact what we are able to track during the admissions process. So I would say that it continues to be a priority for the College professionally, and personally,  it is also something that is very important to me.

TS: A key point of the strategic plan was the belief that there would be a broadening of the student body to 2,000 students by 2030. We have actually seen enrollment level off and decrease from the post-pandemic increase. How is Kenyon adapting the strategic plan to the restraints based on that?

Hefferren: I think the thing about strategic planning is that it can’t be a static document. And actually, a lot of organizations, institutions, do strategic plans, and there are these big books and then they put them on the shelf. And maybe some of that’s acknowledging that things change. I would say that for Kenyon, that’s very much like a living, breathing document. And so a lot of the work that we’re doing now around Kenyon LA, and the high-impact practices all come out of the strategic plan.

We saw a big uptick during the pandemic and we had very, very large classes and … when they graduate, that’s going to be a big class that’s rolling off, and we have not seen those numbers continue. This is not something that’s unique to Kenyon. This has been a challenge across the country. So we are adapting by one, making sure that our recruitment is as robust as possible. We have added more admitted students days than we have in the past. So really trying to have students have the opportunity to see what an incredible place this is, and we’ve also recognized that 2,000 doesn’t seem like that’s the number for us, and certainly in the near term. And so we have “rightsized,” if that is the right word, that’s sort of a corporate word. The faculty grew in order to meet the needs associated with those increased classes. And so part of the budget going forward is to have the administration, and we had some faculty who are retiring as well. So we are sort of “rightsizing” it; that’s part of the way that we’re taking into account the sizing.