A day well-lived in Gambier, Ohio, starts slowly, often over coffees or locally harvested eggs at Peirce, and picks up momentum with each chime from the bell tower. From Kenyon’s central artery of Middle Path, students walk and bike to their destinations, landing in labs, seminars and studios, always stopping along the way to take notice of each other and their wide-open surroundings.
Days start in Peirce Hall, where students enter a glass-ceilinged atrium to dine on local foods (40 percent is grown nearby).
Students choose from two dining rooms: the Great Hall, surrounded by stained-glass windows, or Thomas Hall, its light-filled modern counterpart.
Middle Path is Kenyon’s main drag and beating heart. It’s a footpath. It’s a village green. It’s a gathering place. It’s a marketplace.
Almost everyone takes a class in Ascension, a stately stone castle that houses classics, economics, modern languages and literatures, philosophy and religious studies.
In the English Quad, one of Kenyon's hallmark academic departments, courses include "Gender Benders" and "Racescapes."
Courses like "Organic Chemistry" take place in the Science Quad's well-equipped labs.
Floor-to-ceiling windows bring natural light into art studios for welding, painting, drawing and printmaking.
From day one, science majors conduct meaningful research alongside faculty mentors. In this ecology lab, students construct maps of the forests that surround Kenyon.
Professors' doors are always open for holding office hours, answering your questions or just chatting.
Students and faculty traverse Middle Path on foot and bike every day.
Students frequent Wiggin Street Coffee in the village of Gambier for the sense community as much as the jolt of caffeine.
Historic stone residences like Old Kenyon are popular for their prime real estate on south campus.
Kenyon's thousand-acre campus of woods and greens features miles of trails for anyone to walk, bike, or in the case of the cross-country team, run.
Students roll up their sleeves at the Kenyon Farm, tending to the land and harvesting the crops that make their way to Peirce Hall.
Middle Path invites students to stop and connect with one another.
Kenyon is one of few colleges in the U.S. where all students live on campus.
Program houses like Unity House and Snowden Multicultural Center are centrally located in Gambier.
The curtain goes up on 25 theatrical and musical performances a year.
Students studying one of the eight languages Kenyon offers can train to become apprentice teachers who lead evening practice sessions with their peers.
No skyscrapers, no strip malls, not even a stoplight hinder the wide-open views in Gambier, Ohio.
