When Kristina Peterson was a student at Kenyon, she immersed herself in texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Jansen's History of Art. A career in publishing eventually led to high-profile jobs in the children's division of Random House and Simon & Schuster, where she became intimately familiar with works like the Pokey Little Puppy, Eloise Takes a Bawth, and Hop on Pop.

The complexity of her reading material may have changed over the years, but Peterson still puts the lessons she learned at Kenyon to good use in the New York publishing world, where she is now a director at Workman Publishing. As an art major, she was trained as a printmaker and learned the exacting process of etching and engraving images on copper plates. The technique requires visualization, intricate planning, and flexibility.

"Today, instead of coaxing an image from a copper plate, I may be trying to convince an illustrator to publish his or her next book with Random House, or a bookstore chain to carry a work by a first-time author," Peterson explained when she accepted an honorary doctor of laws degree from Kenyon. "My goals may be different now, but the steps and the process are the same."

While Peterson continues to draw on her Kenyon experience, she has also given back to the college in unique ways. In practical terms, she and four classmates helped Professor Emeritus of Art Martin Garhart lug an etching press - over a ton of steel - from the back of a truck to the basement of Bexley Hall in a single afternoon back in 1974. More recently, she's done the heavy lifting in a different way, as a member of the Kenyon Board of Trustees.