To the Editors:
One thing being a Kenyon alumnus prepares you for is reading obituaries. You read them for entities where it could not be helped — professors, friends, years — and ones where it could have been helped. Into the latter group I place Sunset Cottage, which in a bit of a backwards Christmas gift is to be demolished this winter break per Sept. 25’s “Sunset on Sunset Cottage, historic building to be torn down”.
Another Collegian story the next week caught my eye: “Kenyon Administration comments on U.S. News ranking.” “The College’s relatively modest endowment is partly a result of limited alumni support. Kenyon’s alumni giving rate sits at just 23-24% — well below the 30% threshold administrators say they need.”
I don’t mean to imply causation. Alumni have been stingy long before Sunset’s number was called, and it has been called for years. Still, one cannot wonder that alumni feel detached from a campus whose core is increasingly unrecognizable. The long train of inevitable dooms that have befallen Sunset, Olin-Chalmers, the Black Box Theater, the Village Market, the bookstore, the Cove and John Crowe Ransom’s old home has thinned the list of Kenyon buildings that do not resemble an upscale Columbus shopping center.
Quick poll of the readers: who believes, with utmost confidence, that Old Kenyon itself will not some day receive the “too expensive to maintain, too inaccessible, too old” treatment? I do not suspect the number is above 23–24%.
Colleges sell two things: degrees to students and nostalgia to alumni. Kenyon seems to have willfully neglected the latter and as a result, boy! are the former getting expensive.
Kenyon repeatedly doubles down on this gamble: It built more (expensive) dorms to house more paying customers. If the bet pays off, I suppose Kenyon’s leaders would be in a fine position of vindication. Out with the Lords and Ladies, in with the Owls. Magnanimiter impensam sustine.
But as the wager sours, they cannot wonder that the estranged alumni base feels miffed. Kenyon is a writing college (or once was) and as such cannot be blind to the fact that the demolition of beloved buildings, against alumni protest, feels representative of the destruction of other things. The only wonder is that the College continues to disregard the former classes whose support they so badly need.
Well, I will not protest Sunset Cottage’s demolition. I will not even start a fake Philander Chase profile as I did in 2016, when a Change.Org petition sufficed to stay good Sunset’s sunset (proof available upon request). At Roger Wakeman’s request, I will move on.
I think even more alumni will, too.
Matthew Eley ’15 was an English major with an IPHS concentration. He lives in San Francisco. He may be reached at matthew@mteley.com.