Each Founders’ Day, Kenyon students have the opportunity to add their names to a list that includes nearly 24,000 matriculants who have come before them. The Kenyon Matriculation Book dates back to 1841 and now stretches to three volumes of signatures. Most alumni remember signing — or regret missing their opportunity to sign — this historic tome. Inside can be found the signatures of future presidents, Oscar winners, best-selling authors, award-winning scientists, inventors, thinkers and others, alongside the names of all other alumni, bound in those pages and by this place.
On the occasion of Kenyon’s 200 years, we’ve taken a figurative page from that book to create the Bicentennial Book. This compact leather-bound edition will travel to every College-sponsored event that takes place throughout 2024. In recognition of the fact that the Kenyon community is more than just its alumni, anyone who attends an event will be invited to sign it — at each event they attend.
At the close of 2024, the Bicentennial Book will join the Matriculation Book in the vault in the Greenslade Special Collections and Archives in Chalmers Library, where it will memorialize for posterity all those who came together this year to celebrate Kenyon’s first two centuries.
The Bexley Hall ribbon cutting on Jan. 8 (1.8.24) marked the first appearance of the Bicentennial Book, which will be present at all bicentennial events for people to sign as a record of this year of celebration.
President Julie Kornfeld was one of 134 attendees at the Jan. 8 Bexley Hall ribbon cutting to sign the Bicentennial Book.