The Denison University administration has given a three-semester warning for the closure of the Denison Homestead, a self-sufficient residential farm operated by students since 1977. It is the oldest and only of its kind in North America, even the world. Those of us that feel the loss of Kenyon’s residential farm program in 2022 do not want Denison to suffer the same fate. Saving the Homestead might seem unfeasible to the realists, but “saving” is not the point — community-strengthening is. Join us for a trip down to the Homestead’s community dinner this Friday to show your support.

A residential farm program is not just an institutional device for diversifying studies, but a linchpin of authentic life and connection in rural Ohio. Both Denison and Kenyon are misfits in our landscape. We spend our days facing inward. With our noses in textbooks, we rarely experience what our farmer neighbors do. As our institutions continue to promote AI-related industries and technologies, we must protect what binds us to the earth, to each other and to our surroundings. We must fight for the practices that allow students to engage with the world beyond academics. The Homestead offers a place to mend these seams, just like Kenyon’s farm residency program once did. The loss of the farm as a student-operated space has left lasting resentment between students and the administration. We do not seek to rectify this resentment, but to offer our neighbors a glimpse into a campus processing the loss of its own farm residential program. 

Kenyon’s farm residency closure notice cited the hope for a more multi-use teaching space. While generous in intention, the loss of a rigorous, hands-on program has prompted lasting unrest from those who came to Kenyon for the farm (that would be us, Ellie and Jen). After discussion with the current president of the Homestead, a similar “lack of student engagement” was quoted as being central to the closure. This should sound like a rallying cry, to you, reader. 

Rural community hinges on neighborliness. Being a good neighbor is not contingent upon the success of this intervention; it’s the very act of becoming a collective when we are under duress. As students surrounded by farmland, we are more similar than different. The worst thing that could come from this? A strengthened neighborhood and partnership across the mere 34 miles that divide Kenyon and Denison. Come to the Homestead with us on Friday at 7 p.m. While too late to save our own farm, it’s not too late to support the Denison Homies in their fight.

Ellie Westfall ’27 is an art history and Arabic major from Louisville, KY. She can be reached at westfall1@kenyon.edu

.Jen Novick ‘26 is a sociology major from Westchester, NY. She can be reached at novick1@kenyon.edu.