Kenyon in the News 2008

Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on December 23, 2008, in a story offering advice on how to submit a successful application. The story noted that applications have become "all too slick" and "professionalized," smacking of parental interference. "We keep looking for authenticity and genuineness, for kids who are their true selves," Delahunty said. The story caught the fancy of several television news outlets and was posted on the Web sites of Fox 47 of Rochester, Minnesota; Fox 19 of Cincinnati, Ohio; LEX 18 of Lexington, Kentucky; News Channel 4 of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; News Channel 13 in Colorado Springs, Colorado; WAFF 48 of Huntsville, Alabama.

Writer-in-Residence P.F. Kluge is basking in media attention thanks to the success of his novel Gone Tomorrow.

• The book was included on a list of "best books of the year" by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, on December 14, 2008. "Anyone who has set foot in Gambier will instantly recognize 'a small college on a hill in central Ohio' as Kenyon College, where the author teaches creative writing and sets his beguiling story." A review in the Plain Dealer was published on December 27 and said Kluge "vibrates like a tuning fork to the foibles of academe."
• Gone Tomorrow was included on a "best books" list announced by National Public Radio on December 11, 2008. Kluge, NPR said, "alternates between humor and poetic examinations of the academic pursuit, along the way touching on the basic elements of love, commitment to career and friendship." An excerpt from the novel was posted on www.npr.org.
• A review published December 3, 2008, in the San Francisco Chronicle said, "Kluge has dozens of gorgeous, wrenching passages, details, throw-away observations. He can really write, like a man who means it."
• The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, on November 22, 2008, published an interview with Kluge. "I have a long engagement with this place," Kluge said of Kenyon. "I have written of it fondly, and critically. There have been some highly charged moments along the way. Hard things have been said. But I have always believed ... that this hilltop in Knox County, Ohio, is a good place for a writer to be."

President S. Georgia Nugent was quoted in the December issue of Columbus Monthly of Columbus, Ohio, in a story about the Amethyst Initiative, a statement signed by about 130 college presidents seeking a new dialogue on the drinking age. "There are no easy answers," Nugent said, "but it's time for all of us to ask the tough questions."

Interim Provost Howard Sacks has been central to the national discussion on the importance of local foods to liberal arts colleges.

• A December 20, 2008, story published by the Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California, focused on local foods served by colleges and mentioned the Food for Thought program and its sustainability initiatives. Sacks said student interest in food has helped fuel interest in local foods at colleges. "It's sort of a perfect storm for promoting local foods," he said.
• Sacks was quoted on the subject in a story published November 21, 2008, in the Daily Record of Wooster, Ohio. "What we're doing here at Kenyon is unlike anything that anybody in the nation is doing," he said.
• A column by Sacks on the role local foods play in the culture and curriculum of a liberal arts college was published on November 21, 2008, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Sacks wrote, in part, "Liberal-arts colleges, dedicated as they are to holistic education, appreciate the inextricable link between healthy agriculture and healthy communities - and the necessity of putting 'culture' back in 'agriculture.'"

A student-initiated, communal knitting project for charity at the College Bookstore attracted the attention of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on December 20, 2008. Audrey Bebensee '10 of Corinth, Kentucky, who is the student manager of the Kenyon Craft Center, said the project was started so that scarves knitted by students could be donated to the homeless and victims of domestic violence. Encouraging student interest in knitting is another benefit of the project, which will continue at least through Valentine's Day. "They're enjoying an art that they probably wouldn't otherwise," Bebensee said. Peter Moore '10 of Glen Arbor, Michigan, and Elizabeth Thorne '10 of Washington, D.C., were also mentioned in the story.

Amy King Schindler '93 was profiled in Fast Company on December 18, 2008, under the headline "Insight and Futuring Manager." Schindler is an analyst in the market-research office of the Ford Motor Co. "We have to ask what the world will look like in, say, 2010," she said. "We try to understand people's unmet needs."

The December 18, 2008, edition of the Pioneer Local of Glenview, Illinois, included a feature story on Lloyd Hood '50, who is known for his active lifestyle and community service. Hood, who is 80-years-old, continues to work at his insurance agency. He has been a long-distance walker and bicycle rider and a rock climber. Hood founded a men's club at the local senior center.

The Kenyon Lords swimming team was included in a column examining the "most impressive team winning streak in sports" on December 15, 2008, in the Tampa Bay (Florida) Times. "For long-term dominance, it's hard to top the Kenyon College men's swimming team. It has won the NCAA Division III title for a mind-boggling 29 straight years. The Kenyon women's swimming team isn't too shabby either, winning 22 of the last 25 championships. And it's all been under the same coach - Jim Steen, whose 51 titles is the NCAA record."

The December 14, 2008, edition of the Victoria (Texas) Advocate quoted Michael Levine, Samuel B. Cummings Jr. Professor of Psychology, on the subject of banning Web sites that provide tips on weight loss to anorexics. "Ultimately, I think it's a mistake to ban them because I think you're going to be hard pressed to demonstrate in a clear way that these sites have a direct negative effect," Levine said. The story was also posted on www.tmcnet.com ("The world's largest communications and technology community.").

A column in the Straits Times of Singapore on December 13, 2008, mentioned Kenyon in the context of Olaf Palme '48, who was the prime minister of Sweden when assassinated in 1986. The column was focused on the importance of college financial aid in the context of the election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency. Palme, according to the column, "required a scholarship to study at the pricey Kenyon College." Palme was a good student who played football at Kenyon and "washed the college president's car for pocket money."

Sam Chestnut '94 was featured in a December 12, 2008, column on www.jtnews.net (the "Voice of Jewish Washington") after he took a job as director of the Ratner School in Pepper Pike, Ohio. The school, which includes a preschool through eighth-grade, has a "world-cultures curriculum" with Jewish and non-Jewish students. A story about Chestnut's installation as director of the school was posted on www.dbusinessnews.com on November 24, 2008. Chestnut said he intended "to cultivate a unique educational model."

A story in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald on December 9, 2008, focused on Tim Newcomb '74 and A Gaggle of Governors,a book of his collected political cartoons from twenty-five years of work at various newspapers in Vermont. "His love for cartooning" took off while at Kenyon, according to the story. "There were lots of other students with great interests in cartooning," Newcomb said. "And it stuck with me, too."

The famed 2005 Commencement address by author David Foster Wallace at Kenyon will be published in 2009 as This is Water, according to Publishers Weekly on December 8, 2008. The speech was described as Wallace's "only philosophic public address" and has been widely quoted and paraphrased since his death by suicide.

A sold-out public lecture by Ben Schumacher, professor of physics, at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, drew coverage by the Record of Kitchener, Ontario, on December 8, 2008. The story focused on the influence of science fiction on science. "Plenty of really interesting research has been motivated by science fictiony ideas," said Schumacher, who was described as "an American theoretical physicist who has dabbled in science fiction writing." He added, "Physicists think about the impossible in order to help understand the real world." Newswise Science News (www.newswise.com) posted an advance story on the event, describing Schumacher as "one of the founders of quantum information theory" who popularized the term qubit (quantum bit of information).

An Associated Press story on parents who must weigh spending on their children's college education or saving for retirement included comments from Dan Bonder of Beachwood, Ohio, who has a child who attends Kenyon. Bonder is a financial planner who said he trimmed his retirement contributions to focus on tuition payments for three college-age children. "You are better off normally saving for retirement if you've got an immovable goal in mind," he said. "But we decided we'd be willing to work a little bit longer so our kids wouldn't at least have undergraduate debt." The story was published on December 7, 2008, in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch; December 2 in the Daily News of Van Nuys, California; December 2 in the Sun of San Bernardino, California; December 1 on www.cnbc.com, www.cnn.com, and www.msnbc.com; November 30 in the Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon; November 27 in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun; and November 26 in the Boston Globe and biz.yahoo.com.

A story published on December 5, 2008, in Business First of Columbus, Ohio, surveyed central Ohio colleges in the wake of the current financial crisis and found that most schools have avoided hiring freezes and severe budget contractions. Joseph Nelson, vice president for finance, said Kenyon is delaying $24 million in construction plans and is setting aside about $1 million for emergency financial aid. "It makes sense to preserve capital wherever you can," Nelson said. "It does not make sense to us to lower the quality of our product." The story was also published in several other publications in the national chain, including in the Business Journal of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Business Journal of Dayton, Ohio.

Peyton Patterson '78 was named one of three "Community Bankers of the Year for 2008," by American Banker in a story published on December 5, 2008. Patterson is the president and chief executive of NewAllliance Bank of New Haven, Connecticut. The magazine said Patterson has built NewAlliance "into one of the nation's healthiest thrift companies ... that resisted the temptation to deploy capital quickly during the boom years." Patterson said, "We're good at vetting ideas, but we're also good at figuring out that if you can't control risks, it's not worth doing. No short-term profit is worth a long-term disaster." The magazine noted that Patterson "helped start the women's basketball program" at Kenyon.

A story in the November 26, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch about coping with difficult relatives during the holidays included comments from Leonard Felder '75, a Los Angeles-based psychologist and author of When Difficult Relatives Happen to Good People. Felder suggested a focus on the quality moments. "Don't get bent out of shape by the less-important, irritating moments, which don't have to ruin things again this year," he said.

Lewis Hyde, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing, was quoted in a story about the arts published on November 23, 2008, in the Toledo (Ohio) Blade. Described as a philosopher, Hyde said, "Even if we have paid a fee at the door of the museum or concert hall, when we are touched by a work of art something comes to us which has nothing to do with the price."

Writer-in-Residence P.F. Kluge was interviewed for a November 21, 2008, broadcast on WIBG radio of Ocean City, New Jersey, marking the 25-year anniversary of the publishing of the novel Eddie and the Cruisers, which is set in New Jersey.

A "newsmaker" profile in the November 21, 2008, edition of the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Tribune-Review mentioned the Kenyon background of David Cohen '80, a lawyer in the K & L Gates law firm who has advocated the use of electronic data as evidence. "The law is rapidly evolving and there is always more to learn as technology continues to progress," he said.

A column in the November 20, 2008, edition of the News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington, included a comment by Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and finance, on the subject of gender imbalance in college admissions. "We have told young women that the world is their oyster," Delahunty said. "The problem is, so many of them believed us that the standards for admission to today's most selective colleges are stiffer for women than for men. How's that for an unintended consequence of the women's liberation movement?" The story was also posted on www.ecollegetimes.com and published in the Times of Munster, Indiana.

Reed Browning, retired professor of history, was quoted in the November 16, 2008, edition of the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, on the subject of baseball legend Cy Young. "If you wanted to pick a player to name an award after, they just about stumbled on the best choice," he said. Browning is the author of Cy Young: A Baseball Life.

An account of an interview with novelist E.L. Doctorow '52 was published on November 14, 2008, in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. Doctorow did a reading at the Clearwater Main Library. He was asked about his time at Kenyon in the context of Paul Newman '49. Doctorow said Newman "was a great comic actor at Kenyon and after he left I began to get some decent parts. He was quite the rogue at school." Doctorow, the story said, "radiates old-school formality." Asked why he sometimes revisits characters in subsequent novels, he said, "You do things to keep yourself amused."

Children's music performer Justin Roberts '92 was featured in the November 13, 2008, edition of the Mercury News of San Jose, California. Described as in the "vanguard of today's new wave of family-friendly music," Roberts said, "I'm a big fan of listening to music with great lyrics, and I put a lot of time into that part of song-writing." Music producer Liam Davis '90 was also mentioned in the story.

Shawn Meyers '90 announced his 2009 candidacy for judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin and Fulton counties in Pennsylvania, according to the Waynesboro Record Herald on November 13, 2008. The newspaper noted his Kenyon background. Meyers is the Franklin County solicitor and a partner in the law firm of Steiger, Steiger & Meyers.

Michael Green '83 was nominated to be the U.S. special representative and policy coordinator for Burma with the rank of ambassador, according to a White House news release posted online at www.whitehouse.gov on November 11, 2008. The nomination was reported on www.tmcnet.com the following day.

The first clash of the Kenyon and Denison University swimming teams this season, on November 8, 2008, was previewed in the November 6 edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. The dual meet promised to showcase "many swimmers to beat in the NCAA finals in March," the story said. Kenyon, coached by Jim Steen, was described as "the small-school Goliath." Denison is coached by Steen protégé Gregg Parini '82. "He was a terrific competitor for us," Steen said of Parini. "I'm very proud of the work he's done there." A Denison swimmer said, "They're always the team you want to beat." The Lords and Ladies went on to defeat Denison.

Former Kenyon lacrosse coach Dick Watts was the subject of a November 7, 2008, story posted on www.cstv.com (College Sports Television) pegged to the selection of Watts to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog on November 5, 2008, in the context of the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. The blog noted that Obama and Hayes, who graduated from Kenyon in 1842, are the only two presidents to have graduated from Harvard Law School.

The Kenyon background of Andrew Stuebner '95 was mentioned in a story posted on November 5, 2008, on www.minorleaguebaseball.com. Stuebner was named general manager of the Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league baseball affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Under Stuebner's leadership, the story said, the franchise "has placed itself on the leading edge of creativity in Minor League Baseball."

Carl Djerassi '42 was featured in the Sofia (Bulgaria) Echo on October 24, 2008, after the staging of his play Taboos. The story in the English-language newspaper mentioned Djerassi's role in developing the steroid oral contraceptive known as "the pill" and his chemistry degree from Kenyon. The play examines the complications that follow a laboratory conception.

Stephen Van Holde, associate professor of political science, was among nonpartisan foreign affairs specialists from around the country who signed an "open letter to the American people" calling for a change of course in American foreign policy regarding the war in Iraq. The group called the results of the policies of the Bush Administration "overwhelmingly negative" and based on "speculation instead of facts." The group called for a "fundamental reassessment" of American policies in Iraq. The statement was published on October 12, 2008, at www.counterpunch.org (the political newsletter CounterPunch).

An upbeat review of the novel Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge, writer-in-residence, was published in the November 17, 2008, edition of the New York Times with a photo of the author. Gone Tomorrow is "a sharply observed yet tender novel of academic life and its many sand traps," according to the review. The novel "contrasts transience and permanence in life, love and literature." An excerpt of the review was published on November 20 in the Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer. The review was also published on November 23 in the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi.

Lewis Hyde, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing and the author of The Gift, was featured in the November 16, 2008, edition of the New York Times Magazine, with a photo of Hyde by a meadow "near Kenyon College." The story examined Hyde's iconic status as a creative thinker who has grappled with the concept of "the public life of the imagination." Some of the finest fiction writers in English "routinely use words like 'transformative' and 'life-altering' to describe his books, which they've been known to pass hand to hand like spiritual texts or samizdat manifestoes," the story said. Hyde told the magazine, "One thing I've always liked to read is the kind of literature you find in Jung and Freud, which combines personal anecdote, philosophy, mythology, dreams. I like the way it jumps from one discursive realm to another."

Media attention turned to Kenyon on Election Day and afterwards in the wake of a smooth voting experience in 2008.

• Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, writing in the November 9 edition of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal, said, "At Kenyon College, student voters reported 15-minute waits, not 10-hour ones they endured four years ago."
• A story posted November 5 at www.insiderhighered.com quoted Anna Salzberg '09, of Bethesda, Maryland, president of the Kenyon chapter of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment. "I am working at the polling place," she said. "It's been a steady stream of people, but nothing crazy at all. We have eight electronic machines and paper ballot options, versus 2004 where we had one working machine and no paper ballots. I know that they've really been giving Kenyon special attention."
• The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch published an Election Day blog on November 4 noting the smooth flow of voters. David Vick '12 told the newspaper he waited a few minutes to vote in Gambier. Vick said he voted in Ohio rather than at his home in Haddonfield, New Jersey, because Ohio in this election "was a much more important state." The Dispatch followed up with a story on November 5 that said "voting was a snap" in Gambier.

The final echoes of the 2004 presidential election, which thrust determined Kenyon voters into national prominence, were heard in the news media as the 2008 election made its own history.

• A column by Anna Quindlen H'08, P'10 in the November 10, 2008, edition of Newsweek hailed the youth vote in the 2008 election and referred to the Kenyon students who waited for hours to vote in 2004 as "the heroes of that election night." She added, "Those students wouldn't budge. They were determined to be counted." The column was also published in the Chicago Sun-Times; the Daily Herald of Columbia, Tennessee; and the Erie (Pennsylvania) Times-News.
• A column by Margaret Carlson P '96 of Bloomberg News was posted at www.bloomberg.com on November 4 with a mention of the 10-hour waited endured by some Kenyon students in 2004. The column was also posted at www.businessday.co.za and at www.chinapost.com.
• An editorial in the November 4 edition of the Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, demanded election reform and mentioned the ordeal of Kenyon students.
• In a pitch for students voting at college instead of at home, Matthew Segal '09, executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said in an October 30, 2008, column on www.huffingtonpost.com, "Students not only care about their college communities, but also give tremendous service to them." He added that the community service of Kenyon students in Gambier has left "an indelible mark."

The Kenyon Review Literary Festival and Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who received the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement this year, were featured in the November 4, 2008, edition of the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, and the November 6 edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. The Plain Dealer suggested a trip to Gambier to hear Ford as a way to "cleanse your palate" after the election. The Dispatch published an interview with Ford.

Teri Blanchard, associate vice president for finance, was featured in a report on WBNS-10TV in Columbus, Ohio, and in a story in the November 2, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on the increasing use of tuition insurance. "I think every family has to weigh whether it's something they want to do - the same way you would decide about any life or homeowner's insurance," she said. The story was also posted on www.topmedicaltips.com.

As the 2008 presidential campaign winds down, the perseverance of Kenyon students, who waited for hours to vote in the 2004 election, continued to resonate in the media.

• A column that focused on U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and mentioned the Kenyon student voters was published on October 27 in the Daily News Tribune of Waltham, Massachusetts; the Enterprise of Brockton, Massachusetts; the Norwich (Connecticut) Bulletin; and the Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star. The column noted that Kerry later thanked the student voters of Kenyon in a commencement address.
• Matthew Segal '08, executive director of the nonpartisan Student Association for Voter Empowerment, figured in stories about challenges facing student voters. Segal told WTHR-TV of Indianapolis, Indiana, on October 14, that his voting experience in 2004 was a mix of frustration, shock, and disappointment. A story in Time magazine, posted at www.time.com on October 14 and a story by Cox News Service, posted on October 10 at www.coxwashington.com, both quoted Segal. He told Time, "The media angle was, 'Aren't these young kids heroic to have stood in line all day?' rather than, 'There's something inherently wrong in the first place.'" And Segal said in the Cox story, "We estimate that literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of college students will be forced to vote provisionally this November. They might never know whether their ballots were counted."
• The voting experience of Ben Peterson '08 was recounted in a report published October 10 in the Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper published in Washington, D.C. Peterson is the scheduler for Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minnesota, and said the 2004 election sparked his interest in electoral politics. After voting in 2004 Peterson made sure he picked up an "I voted" sticker, which he still carries in his wallet.

The tradition of frowning on cell-phone use on Middle Path in favor of face-to-face contact was explored by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on September 8, 2008 and in an October video posted at www.palestra.net, a Web site that calls itself the "College Network." The Dispatch story said, "On a recent morning students seemed to honor the tradition by putting down phones and abruptly ending calls before reaching Middle Path," the story said. Katie Weber '10 of Arlington Heights, Illinois, told the newspaper, "I've yelled at people, 'Hey, get off your phone!' You don't have to be a jerk about it, but you don't want (others) to be inaccessible." The video report included Caroline Lindy '12 of New York, New York, who said she steps off Middle Path if her phone jingles to honor what she called "a great tradition." And Daniel Caplan '09 of Scarsdale, New York, described how he corrects underclassmen he spots with a phone in use. "It's a respect thing," he said.

A profile of Connecticut State Rep. Melissa Olson '92 was published on October 22, 2008, in the Day of New London, Connecticut. Olson, seeking re-election, said her top priority is access to quality, affordable and portable health care.

The October 22, 2008, issue of Entertainment Weekly included a review of Gone Tomorrow, a novel by P.F. Kluge, writer-in-residence. The novel earned a B-plus grade and was called a "witty and astute tragicomedy about academia and the trajectory of an artist's life."

Pamela Barker '79 won praise but not the endorsement for judge by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, in an editorial on October 21, 2008. Barker is running for a spot on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. The newspaper said Barker is "bright, experienced and possesses what seems to be an ideal judicial temperament."

The October 18, 2008, edition of the Lima (Ohio) News profiled Joe Bline '90, who was appointed athletic director for St. Marys City Schools in St. Marys, Ohio. The story mentioned that Bline was an offensive tackle on the Lords football team and is the former head basketball coach at Johnstown High School and Dublin Jerome High School, both in Ohio. "Sports teach values and hard work," he said.

A cross-country journey in a car powered by waste vegetable oil and diesel fuel was retold in the October 12, 2008, edition of the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press. Former Kenyon classmates Greg Melville '92 and Peter Igneri '92 took the trip in 2006, and the journey became the topic for Melville's book Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future. The college buddies turned the trip into a tour to research renewable energy. "When you start driving around the country, you can't help but think about things like your impact on the environment," Melville said. Igneri has since converted a diesel pick-up truck into a waste vegetable oil-powered vehicle.

Vernon Schubel, NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor of Religious Studies, was among those who signed a statement of "concerned scholars about Islamophobia" in the 2008 presidential campaign. The statement was posted on October 10, 2008, on www.ikhwanweb.com. The statement sought to correct "false claims generated by extremist critics that Sen. Barack Obama is a stealth Muslim."

A column in the October 9, 2008, edition of the News-Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, featured the American music research of Howard Sacks, interim provost and professor of sociology, and Judy Sacks, affiliated scholar in American studies. The column described how the couple shared their research into the origin of the 19th -century song "Dixie" with a trio of African-American musicians who perform as the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The song is generally attributed to Dan Emmett, who held the copyright. Howard and Judy met the trio after an Ohio concert, took them to dinner, and gave them a copy of their book Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem. Their research traced the song to the African-American Snowden family of Mount Vernon, Ohio. The trio, which plays old-time string band music, recorded the song as an instrumental and use it to introduce an Emmett song they play in concert - Snowden's Jig.

The Kenyon background of Stephen Walker '88 was mentioned in a profile in the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Business Journal on October 3, 2008. Walker was included on a list of Philadelphia business leaders. He is the senior vice president of global wealth management for Morgan Stanley. He described his investment philosophy as "conservative and contrarian."

A controversy in the Mount Vernon City Schools over the alleged teaching of creationism in a middle school science classroom drew a comment from Dick Hoppe, an affiliated scholar in the Department of Biology, in the October 2, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. The case of the middle school teacher, John Freshwater, has attracted national attention. Freshwater was suspended without pay pending the outcome of a hearing to determine his future with the district. An independent investigator found that Freshwater failed to follow district curriculum and rules. "He has put his religious views above his duty to the students," Hoppe said. "It looks to me like he was running what amounts to a private Christian school embedded in the public school."

Jeremy Bauman '03 is back in Georgia after the Peace Corps volunteer was evacuated to Albania during the Russian invasion of Georgia in August. The Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record, on October 2, 2008, described Bauman's experience in the country where he is now assigned to help develop a higher-education fund for Gori University in Gori, Georgia. "There has been civil war and regional instability is a major problem," Bauman said.

Kenyon was propelled into the economic news when the Wachovia Corp. limited access to a $9.3 billion investment fund used by more than 900 colleges to hold money needed for expenses. In comments to Bloomberg News on October 2, 2008, on www.bloomberg.com, JosephNelson, vice president for finance, said Kenyon had about $3 million in the short-term fund. "We expect to be fully whole on the transaction and we're just dealing with the situation as it develops," Nelson said. "We have no reason to believe there will be any material impact. Kenyon is very liquid." Wachovia was the trustee for the Commonfund Short Term Fund. Commonfund is seeking a new trustee. The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported the story in its October 4, 2008, edition, noting that Kenyon anticipates waiting about a year before recovering all of the $3 million. The short-term fund has been used by Kenyon for years. It operates like a checking account from which investors essentially could withdraw money on demand for routine expenses, Nelson told the newspaper. "We're seeing a lot of things for the first time today," he said. "We'll just let it take its course." The Dispatch story was also posted on www.tradingmarkets.com.

The presidential campaign has generated these mentions of Kenyon in the news media:

• A Cox News Service story on student voting was published on October 10, 2008, in the Detroit (Michigan) Daily News and noted the determination of Kenyon students to overcome obstacles and vote in the 2004 presidential election.
• A story in the October 9, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on students who must choose to vote where they attend college or where their parents live quoted Matthew Segal '08, executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment. Segal encouraged students to vote in their college communities "to really engage with their new home."
• The appearance of actor Luke Perry in Gambier on behalf of Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was noted in an October 6, 2008, story in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

The Flint (Michigan) Journal featured children's performer Zak Morgan '94 in a story published on October 1, 2008. Morgan's act was described as "zany, high-energy" with elements of comedy, magic, music, and theater. "I encourage kids to believe in themselves," he said. "I'm a big believer that kids are very smart so I don't dumb down."

The death of actor and philanthropist Paul Newman '49 and his long history with the College sparked more than 1,300 media mentions around the world in the days after his death on September 26, 2008. Many of the references were playful in the vein of a tribute published in the Times of London, which provided this quote by Newman about himself: "He did graduate from Kenyon College magna cum lager and in the process begat a laundry business, which was the only student-run enterprise on Main Street." The many news outlets reporting the Newman death with some Kenyon context included: Chicago Tribune; CNN; Denver Post; Detroit News; Guardian of Manchester, England; Hollywood Reporter; Honolulu Advertiser; La Republica of Montevideo, Uruguay; L'Express of Mauritius; Mail & Guardian of Johannesberg, South Africa; New York Daily News; New York Times; Nine O'Clock of Bucharest, Romania; Peyamner NewsAgency of Iraq; San Jose (California) Mercury News; Seattle Times; Straits Times of Singapore; Turkish Daily News of Istanbul, Turkey; USA Today; Voice of America; www.motorsport.com.

The Los Angeles Times, on September 27, 2008, included comments from author E.L. Doctorow '52, who said Newman was popular on campus and entrepreneurial. "There was no question about his talent," Doctorow added.

Curt Foxx '02, lacrosse coach at Hood College, was the subject of a story in the Frederick (Maryland) News-Post on September 28, 2008. Foxx was an assistant coach for the Danish national lacrosse team that played in the European Lacrosse Championships in Finland in August. The team finished tenth in an 18-team tournament. Foxx became involved with the Danish team through an assistant coach at Hood. "Some teams had a lot of Americans on them and others some really good European players," Foxx said. "What was great about coaching ... was that the players were so enthusiastic."

A story in the September 28, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch detailed Newman's generosity to Kenyon, including the time in 1978 he spent on campus directing the first production in the Bolton Theatre and his 2007 donation of $10 million for scholarship. That story quoted President S. Georgia Nugent, who said, "Kenyon has lost a dear friend, a loyal alumnus, and a role model for how our students might use their education and their talents as a force for good." David Brand '09, of Los Angeles, California, added, "He was our most prestigious alumni and he contributed a lot to the school. It's sad, and we're going to miss him a lot."

David Horvitz '74, emeritus trustee and chair of the leadership phase of the current "Drive for Excellence" capital campaign, appeared on NBC Nightly News on September 28 in a segment on Newman's philanthropy. Horvitz, also a distinguished philanthropist, discussed Newman's leadership in establishing the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for seriously ill children. "He thought he was the luckiest man in the world," Horvitz said of Newman. "He thought he had to give back." In an Associated Press story distributed on September 28, Horvitz described how Newman, a fishing partner, felt about his own legacy. Newman wanted to be remembered for the Hole in the Wall camps, Horvitz said. "He loved the camps," he said. "He loved being with the kids."

The experience of Kenyon students who waited for hours in line to vote in the 2004 presidential election kicked off a story about the importance of student voting in the Indianapolis (Indiana) Star on September 26, 2008. Kenyon students "earned a place in Ohio political history," the story said. Ohio has more colleges than any other state except California, according to the story, "ranging from small liberal arts institutions like Kenyon to Ohio State."

The Kenyon background of Joe Hagin '79 was mentioned in a story posted on September 25, 2008, on www.prnewsire.com about Hagin's selection as the chief executive officer of Jet Support Services in Chicago, Illinois. Hagin is a former deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush, former personal aide to Vice President George H.W. Bush, and former appointments secretary to the fortieth president. He is a former executive at Federated Department Stores and Chiquita Brands. The story was also posted at www.aviationtoday.com, www.breitbart.com, and www.macroworldinvestor.com, among others.

Six college presidents, including President S. Georgia Nugent, signed a letter to the editor of the New York Times, published in the September 24, 2008, edition, taking issue with an editorial that criticized college administrators for not doing enough to combat underage drinking. The editorial followed considerable publicity generated by the Amethyst Initiative petition signed by more than a hundred college presidents calling for a new dialogue on the drinking age. The letter to the Times said that "drinking has moved behind closed doors or off campus, where detection is next to impossible." The letter added, "We strongly believe that this debate should begin with a much better understanding of the monumental efforts higher education institutions have already taken."

Kenyon is a role model for other colleges seeking to clarify criteria in tenure policies, according to a September 19, 2008, story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The story was one of a series in the publication pegged to results from a national survey conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education. "It uses explicit language in its faculty handbook about the criteria for evaluation," the story said of Kenyon, noting that "teaching excellence is the sine qua non for retention and advancement."

A story about multi-media artist Mary Jo Bole in the September 18, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch was pegged to Bole's exhibition at the Olin Art Gallery. Bole "transformed the Olin Art Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier into a wunderkammer filled with her art," the story said. Gallery director Dan Younger was quoted in the story saying, "She's kind of fearless in the way she works across the media."

The September 18, 2008, edition of Atlantic City Weekly of Atlantic City, New Jersey, included a feature story marking the 25th anniversary of the release of the film "Eddie and the Cruisers" and the fall re-issue of the novel by the same name by P.F. Kluge, writer in residence. The story also delved into the Jersey Shore music scene celebrated in the novel and film. Kluge said his inspirations for the novel included early rock 'n' roll music and "wondering about what happens to the survivors of a group after its star, its leader, perishes." The author still watches the movie from time to time, he said. "Just like the music that it describes, it has a way of sticking around, of echoing through people's lives. It means something to them."

Will Melick, Gensemer Professor of Economics and economic advisor to U.S. Sen. John McCain, discussed the crisis on Wall Street on September 17, 2008, on Open Line, a WOSU radio call-in program in Columbus, Ohio. WOSU is affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service. The show aired before the crisis had evolved to the point that U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. proposed a $700 billion private-sector bailout. Melick advocated a well thought-out plan. "I don't think there's a potentially simplistic answer in terms of more regulation or less regulation," Melick said. He noted that people should not be concerned about bank deposits.

Business Wire mentioned the Kenyon background of Jonathan Spira '84 on September 17, 2008, when it reported his appointment as chief financial officer of Blinkx, a video search engine based in San Francisco, California, and London, England. Spira joined Blinkx from J. Phineas International, a business consultancy company he founded. The appointment was also reported at http://bizyahoo.com, http://bousier.com, http://digital50.com, www.eleconomista.es, www.freshnews.com, and www.totaltele.com.

The Kenyon background of Michael Nuzzo '92 was mentioned by www.marketwatch.com on September 16, 2008, when it reported his appointment as chief financial officer for General Nutrition Centers, a global specialty retailer of nutritional supplements based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nuzzo had been senior vice president at Abercrombie & Fitch. The appointment was also reported www.npicenter.com.

The generosity of actor and philanthropist Paul Newman '49 resonated in the news media. A September 14, 2008, edition of Parade magazine listed the thirty "most generous stars" with Newman placing fourth, thanks to the 2007 $10 million gift for scholarship at Kenyon. The gift was made jointly by Newman and the Newman's Own Foundation. Oprah Winfrey was in the top spot. The list was published worldwide, including in the Boston (Massachusetts) Herald; the Independent of Dublin, Ireland; the New York Times; OK! Magazine; Reuters China; Reuters India; St. Petersburg (Florida) Times; the Telegraph of Guayaquil, Ecuador; Yahoo! India; and www.canada.com.

The death by suicide of writer David Foster Wallace on September 12, 2008, triggered a wave of interest in Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon. A San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote an appreciation of Wallace on September 17, noting the address at Kenyon "is being re-posted everywhere, and is just terrifically worthy of your time." In the days after Wallace's death, references to the Kenyon speech were sprinkled throughout the media, including in the Chicago Tribune; the Guardian (Manchester, England); Entertainment Weekly; Hindustan Times (India); Los Angeles Times; New Republic; Newsweek; New York; the Times (London, England); Toronto Globe and Mail; Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald; Wall Street Journal ; www.abcnews.com; and www.msnbc.com.

Meredith Harper Bonham '92 was the subject of a September 11, 2008, story in the Utica (New York) Observer-Dispatch as a winner of the annual Accent on Excellence award given by the newspaper to recognize community contributions made by residents under forty years old. Bonham is the executive assistant to the president of Hamilton College. The mother of two, Bonham does volunteer work for the YWCA, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute and other organizations. She praised the support she receives from her family and employer and noted, "I'm freakishly organized."

Vernon Schubel, professor of religious studies, commented about discrimination against Muslim-Americans in a story on the subject in the September 10, 2008, edition of the Oregonian of Portland, Oregon. The story noted that anti-Muslim sentiment has grown recently with the false accusation that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency, is a Muslim. Schubel said the discrimination experienced by a Muslim-American family in Portland is not unusual.

The appointment of Richard Brean '70 to general counsel of the United Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was reported on September 10, 2008, at www.prnewswire.com, including mention of his Kenyon background. The appointment was also reported in the Houston (Texas) Chronicle.

The tradition of eschewing cell phones on Middle Path in favor of face-to-face contact was explored by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on September 8, 2008. "On a recent morning students seemed to honor the tradition by putting down phones and abruptly ending calls before reaching Middle Path," the story said. "A few who sneaked in a call or a text message looked around nervously." Katie Weber '10 of Arlington Heights, Illinois, told the newspaper, "I've yelled at people, 'Hey, get off your phone!' You don't have to be a jerk about it, but you don't want (others) to be inaccessible." The story was also posted on www.macroworldinvestor.com.

The September issue of Vanity Fair includes a profile of Paul Newman '49 and mentions his experiences at the College, noting he had been involved in a brawl and had been thrown off the football team. The magazine repeats this Newman quote from Rolling Stone: "No great loss. I was one of the worst football players in the history of Kenyon." Given the extra free time, Newman auditioned for a play. "By the time he graduated, he had acted in around a dozen and had written, directed, and starred in a musical," the story said.

Cartoonist Jim Borgman '76 and his departure from the Cincinnati (Ohio) Post were the subjects of a story in the September 3, 2008, edition of Editor and Publisher magazine. Borgman won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons and draws the comic strip "Zits." He accepted a voluntary buyout offer from the newspaper where he worked for thirty-two years, starting "right after graduating from Kenyon College," the story said. Borgman will continue to work on "Zits" and will develop a new comic feature.

Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, was quoted in the September 1, 2008, edition of U.S. News & World Report in a story about how students can sell themselves. Delahunty said admissions officials ask themselves, "Who is this person, and why would we want him or her to join this community?" She went on to suggest students use each part of the application process to stress the positive and demonstrate how they will contribute to the greater good.

A hug from presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, brought media attention to Shelley Fort '11 of Kearney, Nebraska. The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported the meeting of Fort and Obama during an August 30, 2008, campaign stop in Marengo, Ohio, in the newspaper's August 31 edition. Fort told the candidate, "You're an inspiration to me." Seeing in Obama a kindred spirit, Fort added, "I'm so blessed to meet this man." Fort's mother, Wendy, who is deceased, was white and her father, poet Charles Fort, is African-American. The Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald, on September 2, 2008, focused on the meeting and said Fort told Obama about "trying to fit in as a person of mixed race, growing up in a single-parent household." The newspaper said she received "kind words" from Obama.

Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, was quoted in a story in an August issue of Forbes magazine analyzing how students, their families, and colleges have been coping with the "baby boomlet" that will come to an end in 2010. Despite student anxiety about admissions, the magazine reported, most students are accepted by their first-choice school. Delahunty spoke about the gender imbalance in colleges. By 2009, 58 percent of undergraduate degrees will go to women, close to what Delahunty called the "tipping point" of 60 percent, when you'll hear "a dint of desperation in the voices of admissions officers."

Teri Blanchard, associate vice president for finance, was quoted in the August issue of SmartMoney magazine in a story about the increasing popularity of tuition insurance for parents. Blanchard said she bought tuition insurance for her son, and about 13 percent of Kenyon students bought tuition insurance for the last academic year. "This seems like a relatively small amount of money for peace of mind," Blanchard said. "As expensive as college is, it's not a bad investment."

John Elliott, professor of political science and an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention, was quoted by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the party's choice to run for vice president. In a blog posted on August 29, 2008, and in a story published the following day, Elliott predicted the surge of questions about Palin and the excitement sparked by the selection. "Questioning in the sense of, wow, who is she, and excitement about the idea. This is going to be an interesting feature of the convention," he said. "The question is, 'How is she going to come across to the American public?' Can she be sold ... as someone with executive experience?"

A story about the "overspecializing" of graduate students, published online in the August 28, 2008, edition of Inside Higher Ed, reported on the mentoring done by Kenyon faculty with graduate students at Ohio State University. The focus of the story was on problems in the training of graduate students in the social sciences. The students are seen as too narrowly focused, lacking in teaching skills, and taking too much time to finish. Ohio State is using a Council of Graduate Schools program to prepare students for the college work force, including mentoring by Kenyon faculty.

Rabbi Stacy Offner '77 was named the first female vice president of the New York City-based Union for Reformed Judaism, which represents more than 900 congregations in North America, according to an Associated Press report on August 28, 2008, that was also carried by the Canadian Press. Offner has been the leader of the Shir Tikvah Congregation in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 1988. The story was published in the El Paso (Texas) Times; the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Indiana; the Times andDemocrat of Orangeburg, South Carolina; and posted on http://calibre.mworld.com.

Claudia Esslinger, professor of studio art, was quoted in the August 27, 2008, edition of the Post-Journal of Jamestown, New York, before the opening of her interactive video installation titled "The Synergy Project" at the State University of New York at Fredonia Art Gallery. The interactive video project features images and sounds that can be manipulated by the viewer. "Although I prepare intellectually through wide reading and research, it is a visceral, intuitive approach that guides these ideas into their physical form," Esslinger said.

A preview of the North Coast Athletic Association football season in the August 27, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch called senior Yancy Edwards of Wesley Chapel, Florida, "one of the best offensive linemen in small-college football" and mentioned first-year receiver Charles Small of Columbus, Ohio, as a possible impact player.

The University of Wyoming hired Scott Willard '97 as the director of basketball operations, according to a report posted on August 25, 2008, at www.cstv.com. Willard had been head basketball coach at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Princess Hogue '92 was quoted in a Wall Street Journal story on August 23, 2008, about the sense of identity in the African-American community in the wake of the Barack Obama campaign for president. Hogue, described as a social worker from Newark, New Jersey, said, "Playing the role of the nonthreatening black works for me; I went to boarding school and Kenyon College and I have a master's degree. But we know within ourselves the compromises we made."

A visit by the Ohio State University football Buckeyes to McBride Field for a practice followed by a conversation with Kenyon's legendary swimming coach Jim Steen was reported by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on August 22, 2008. Steen and OSU coach Jim Tressel had found common ground during a Tressel visit to Gambier earlier in the year, prompting the inspirational trip to Kenyon. "We have a lot of the same concerns, similar issues and philosophies and desires," Steen told the Plain Dealer. "There was a relationship built on mutual respect." Tressel spoke to the Kenyon football team during the visit. In an August 21 blog posted by the Plain Dealer, Kenyon football coach Ted Stanley said, "If you want to talk about successful programs, there's nothing more successful than Kenyon swimming. Coach Steen kind of wrote the book." The visit, Stanley said, "was beneficial for everybody."

The Kenyon background of Joel Holmes III '85 was mentioned in a story posted on August 20, 2008, on www.prnewswire.com about the appointment of Holmes to the foreign-exchange platform of Bank of America. Holmes was named principal and senior foreign-exchange trader. The appointment was also reported on http://biz.yahoo.com, www.earthtimes.com, and www.stockwatch.com.

President S. Georgia Nugent appeared on the Public Broadcasting Service program NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on August 19, 2008, to discuss the Amethyst Initiative, a move by more than a hundred college presidents to open a new dialogue about the drinking age. During the telecast, Nugent jousted with Joseph Califano, president of the National Center on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse and the former U.S. secretary of health, education, and welfare. Nugent said she was motivated to sign the Amethyst letter because of her concerns for "the health and safety of our students, the health of our society, and for educational values." Nugent was quoted in a story on the subject in the New York Times, on August 22, 2008. The Times story reported that two college presidents withdrew signatures after a blitz of criticism led by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving but that another fifteen presidents added their names. Commenting on the drinking age, Nugent told the Times, "I think there's a direct connection between this law and this pattern of secret, fast consumption of high-octane alcohol." That story was also published in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun and International Herald Tribune of Paris, France. Nugent was also quoted in the August 19, 2008, editions of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio. "The vast majority of college presidents feel that the twenty-one-year-old drinking age has not been very beneficial with regards to young people drinking," Nugent told the Dispatch. She told the Plain Dealer that the prohibition encourages "disrespect for the law." An Associated Press story on the subject was published on August 18, mentioned Kenyon, and received wide distribution around the country.

Gambier, Ohio, was one answer in a light-hearted multiple-choice quiz written by columnist Greg Sellnow in the August 16, 2008, edition of the Rochester (Minnesota) Post-Bulletin. The question: "In what small college town are there nearly as many deer in the city proper as there are people when classes aren't in session?" Sellnow had visited his daughter, Caitlin Sellnow '09, this summer. "I have never seen so many deer in an urban area as I saw in Gambier," he wrote.

An August 15, 2008, review of the novel Gone Tomorrow, by P.F. Kluge, writer in residence, in the Library Journal recommended the book for all fiction collections. "Kluge dispenses lively gems of wisdom about the writing process itself while sprinkling the narrative with references to contemporary culture, giving the story a worthwhile bounce," the review said.

The Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal, on August 6, 2008, reported that a Burton D. Morgan Foundation grant of $246,600 was awarded to Kenyon to create the Burton D. Morgan Emerging Leadership Program. The pilot program provides entrepreneurial leadership training and seed money for fledgling businesses based on student ideas. Ted Rice of Mount Vernon, Ohio, was named program director.

Laura Kessler '82 of Brecksville, Ohio, was featured in a story about adult competitive swimming posted on the Web site of the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, on August 5, 2008. Pegged to the Olympic hopes of forty-one-year-old Dana Torres, the story looked at participants in the U.S. Masters Swimming program. Kessler practices in the Solon, Ohio, municipal pool. Kessler competed in swimming at Kenyon and continued to swim through two pregnancies. "At this point now I'm really amazed at how fast I can swim for how little training I do, compared to when I was in college," she said.

Hartford (Connecticut) Courant and Los Angeles (California) Times.

The relocation of "Understorms," an outdoor sculpture by Barry Gunderson, professor of art, was described in a story in the August 3, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. The whimsical piece of painted aluminum represents rain, clouds and "critters" and was initially placed outside the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio, in 1992. The sculpture was the first work in Ohio's Percent for Art program, which provides money for the installation of art works at public buildings. The conservatory is undergoing a major renovation and decided to move the piece. Gunderson felt the sculpture needed to be repainted and sought help from the College in finding it a new home. Sarah Kahrl, vice president for college relations said, "So we began working on it with the full support of the studio art faculty, who were eager to have an example of Barry's work here in Gambier." With the help of Gambier officials, the sculpture was placed at a new park near the Kenyon Athletic Center. "It's kind of a natural area on the south side of Gambier with trails through it and some unusual habitat," Gunderson said. The story was also posted on www.individual.com .

The New York Times mentioned Kenyon in its August 3, 2008, review of "Off the Deep End" by W.Hodding Carter '84. Carter's book is an account of his ultimately failed attempt to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in swimming. Carter discusses his experience as a Kenyon champion. The book's premise is irresistible and Carter tells his story with zeal, "putting on a real show without going deep," according to the review. An interview with Carter was published on June 24, 2008, in the Miami (Florida) Herald. "Writing and swimming to hand in hand," Carter said in the interview. "Both take a dogged determination." An Associated Press story featuring Carter's quest was published in June in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, and the Memphis (Tennessee) Commercial Appeal, among other newspapers. In that story, Carter is described as "seeking escape from his name--the son of a well-known official in President Jimmy Carter's administration and the grandson of a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist." The book was also reviewed by Associated Press reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins '83, who said it sometimes appears to be "the selfish quest of an aquatic Don Quixote" but is redeemed by Carter's love of the sport and of his family. That review was published in June in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Ithaca (New York) Journal and Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer.

Tim Shutt, professor of humanities, and his recorded lectures on the history of baseball were the subjects of a feature story in the July issue of Ohio Magazine. A photo of Shutt wearing a replica of a vintage New York Yankees hat at McCloskey Field covered two pages in the magazine. Shutt wrote and recorded "Take Me Out to the Ballgame: A History of Baseball in America" on seven compact discs. The magazine called the recordings of fourteen lectures a "nine-hour literary opus" and a "labor of love." Shutt said, "My mission was to capture the flavor of each decade and how each fit into the larger American scene, as well as the ebb and flow on the field."

Comments by Dean of Students Tammy Gocial on coping with beer pong, the drinking game, were included in a Time magazine story posted on July 31, 2008, at www.time.com . The story was pegged to a new virtual drinking game of the same name. Gocial noted that Kenyon had once banned the game but repealed that ban because it did not work. "You can't drink if you're not twenty-one, but that does not seem to have deterred (students) in any way," Gocial said. Kenyon, she said, is developing a student-responsibility campaign to change campus culture and reduce binge drinking.

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch covered a Washington forum hosted by the Student Association for Voter Empowerment that attracted media heavyweights for a discussion on how young voters can make their voices heard. The Dispatch reported on the event in its July 26, 2008, edition, quoting Karl Stark '09, who said his peers should not rely too much on blogs and social networking Web sites like Facebook to air their thoughts. "Our generation, growing up with technology and being so vested in it, thinks that might be the only solution," Stark said. The non-profit, non-partisan organization is directed by Matthew Segal '08. "We're the largest generation since the baby boomers, and we are an incredible force," Segal said. Participants in the forum included Washington Post columnist David Broder, Newsweek contributing editor Eleanor Clift, and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

The selection of John C. Fortier, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., as the first director of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon was reported online by the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch on July 22, 2008.

A New York Times story published July 21, 2008, on new voting equipment in use around the country mentioned that Ohio will use touch-screen machines and back-up paper ballots. The story noted that hundreds of voters in Knox County, "many of them Kenyon College students," waited in line for up to nine hours to vote after one of two voting machines in a precinct broke down during the 2004 presidential election. The story was also published in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun and the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California.

Darrick Bollinger '00 was the subject of a July 22, 2008, story in the Pacific Daily News of Hagatna, Guam, pegged to his competition in the 1996 Olympics, where he represented Guam in swimming sprints. Bollinger was an All-American swimmer at Kenyon. "It's a small Division III school," he said, "but most of our competitions were against Division I schools, and we did pretty well against them. It's something I am pretty proud of." Bollinger works in financial services.

A story about the Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse and its Acting Immersion Programs for Youth in the Yellow Springs (Ohio) News on July 17, 2008, included mention of Charlie Cromer '09. Cromer of Yellow Springs worked with youngsters in the summer program and ran a one-day, combat-basics training session to show children how to punch, choke, and kick without causing injury. "We're teaching the kids the very basics of what theater is," he said.

Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, was a guest on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, the New York City public radio station, on July 15, 2008. The segment was called "Getting In." Delahunty and guest Lloyd Thacker, director of the Education Conservancy, fielded questions about college admissions. Asked what matters most to admissions officials, Delahunty said, "Let them be themselves. We're looking for really interesting community members, good and interesting high school students. The best applications come from students whose parents encourage them to be their whole selves." Asked how the economic downturn affects enrollment, she said applications typically hold steady in tough economic times and colleges continue to contribute financial aid. "Higher education remains one of the best investments you can make," she said.

John Riazzi '85 was named to the board of trustees of the University of Dayton, according to a story posted at dBusinessNews.com on July 13, 2008. Riazzi is a financial analyst and founder of Riazzi Asset Management in Oakwood, Ohio.

A panel discussion on the short-story collection "The Banana Tree Crisis" by Isankya Kodithuwakku '05 was previewed on July 13, 2008, in the Sunday Times of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The stories map the journeys of individuals from different places and lifestyles in Sri Lanka. Kodithuwakku was described as a one-time mathematics major who decided to concentrate on writing while a student at Kenyon.

The Daily American of Somerset, Pennsylvania, reviewed the book The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage by Daniel M. Epstein '70 on July 11, 2008. The reviewer wrote, "I had to keep reminding myself that this isn't a novel, because it was so readable."

A college guide published July 9, 2008, by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, included Kenyon in a story about how colleges cope with assigning roommates in the age of Internet social-networking sites. Some students scope out prospective roommates online and, uncertain about they learn, ask for a change. Kenyon bases its roommate selections on application forms, matching students based on residence-hall location, gender, and preferences on bedtime and cleanliness, among other factors, the newspaper reported. Roommates sign contracts, reviewed after six weeks.

Jess Book '01 joined the Ohio State University swimming team as an assistant coach, according to a story posted July 8, 2008, on www.collegeswimming.com . Book was an All-American distance swimmer at Kenyon, an Academic All-American, and a former assistant swimming coach. "One of the things I've learned as a swimmer and as a coach is that success is a by-product of doing the right things on a day-to-day basis," Book said.

A July 6, 2008, story in CityBeat of Cincinnati, Ohio, focused on European performances by the band Walk the Moon, founded by Nicholas Petricca '09. Described as a Kenyon music major, Petricca arranges the band's music, "anchoring the songs, creating a modern, artistic edge," according to the story. "The songs sort of lead us," he said. "Now I have two keyboards and a really great synth. It's started to characterize what Walk the Moon is."

A column in the June 30, 2008, edition of the Washington Post examined the viability of Leopoldo Lopez '93 as a candidate who may one day oppose Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. Described as a "hyper-articulate graduate of Kenyon College," Lopez is the mayor of Chacao, a central district of Caracas. The country's national electoral council has unfairly banned Lopez and other candidates from elections in November, the column said. Lopez was seeking election as mayor of the capital district of Caracas. "We are being obstructed because we can win," Lopez said. "What's important is that the United States advances an agenda that makes a priority of democracy and human rights, as well as poverty alleviation and addressing inequality." The syndicated column was later published in a number of other newspapers, including the Miami (Florida) Herald, the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the Sacramento (California) Bee.

A June 30, 2008, column on the origin of Minnesota city names appeared in the Republican Eagle of Red Wing, Minnesota, with a mention of Kenyon, Minnesota, founded in 1856 and named to honor the College.

Pamela Hollie, former New YorkTimes writer and now a senior philanthropic advisor at the College. "You live a while, you see a lot of things die: like bookstores, record stores, doubleheaders," Kluge said. "I hope typewriters don't die on my watch."

An outbreak of illness caused by E. coli-contaminated meat prompted an interview with Joan Slonczewski, professor of biology, in the July 26, 2008, edition of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch. Slonczewski said some E. coli bacteria live safely in humans, but E. coli O157:H7 resists stomach acid, is impervious to freezing, and is a threat to humans. "It not only causes diarrhea, it produces a toxin that causes kidney failure." The story was later posted online at www.individual.com and www.redorbit.com .

The Rural Life Center was a source for a story and graphic about buying local foods, published June 30, 2008, in the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. Boosting the local economy, freshness, nutrition, taste, and variety are reasons to buy local food, according to the story.

Artist Virginia Fitzgerald '86 was featured in a story on June 20, 2008, in the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham, Massachusetts. Fitzgerald has created a line of "sculptural" dresses, each regarded as "a multifaceted metaphor" for the roles of a woman in family and society. The dresses are being exhibited in galleries and shows in Massachusetts. "I think I know that I need to create," she said.

The Frederick (Maryland) News-Post, on June 15, 2008, published a story about the appointment of lawyer Josh Craven '01 to the Frederick County State's Attorney's Office. The story noted that Craven's father, Thomas Craven, is a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge in Maryland. "Coming here was a good move," Josh Craven said. "Here, I can stand on my own."

Josh Mabra '05 was named the 2008 Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun Area Boys Tennis Coach of the Year and the newspaper reported the honor on June 14, 2008. Mabra coached at Yellow Springs High School in Yellow Springs, Ohio. "I approached it with a teaching-pro mentality," Mabra said. "I couldn't have asked for a better team."

An interview with Eric Newman '96, portfolio manager for TFS Market Neutral Fund, about choosing long-short funds, was published online at www.gurufocus.com on June 4, 2008. Long-short funds combine investments in stocks expected to rise with investments expected to decline. The "short" strategy involves an investor borrowing shares from a broker and selling them. When the price of the shares falls over a short period of time, the investor buys the shares back and returns them to the broker. The investor keeps the profit. "We hold hundreds of stocks long and hundreds more short," Newman said. "Of course, we aren't right on every one of those stocks. Our goal is to have each basket of stocks overall add value. We've had disappointing stocks both long and short, but the large number of holdings minimizes their impact on the portfolio."

A story about the T Tauri Film Festival in the June 3, 2008, edition of the Batesville (Arkansas) Daily Guard-Record mentioned Pell Osborn '70 as the instructor for a digital-animation workshop. Osborn founded MotionArt Studios in Boston, Masschusetts, in 1982. His "lifelong passion for animation led him to create the interactive workshop approach that merges traditional and computer animation to explore and clarify complex issues and ideas," the story said.

An Associated Press story on registering young voters quoted Matthew Segal '08, executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment. "Student Democrats and student Republicans are both guilty of just registering their own people and almost trying to discourage or attenuate the other side from being able to turn out," Segal said. "I don't care what party they're with, as long as they're an educated voter." The story was published May 21, 2008, in the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal and in the Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record.

The May 23, 2008, edition of the News and Advance of Lynchburg, Virginia, included a story about the selection of Dennis Stevens '73 as vice president of academic affairs and dean of Randolph College. Randolph is making a transition to a coeducational college from an all-women's institution. Stevens' experience as a Kenyon undergraduate when Kenyon first admitted women and his work at the formerly all-female Lake Erie College were mentioned in the story. "It's a very exciting opportunity for me," Stevens said. "I can hardly wait to arrive and get to work." Stevens left a job as dean of the college of liberal arts at the University of Findley.

Patti Sponaugle '11 wrote a final column in her series on her first-year experience at Kenyon for the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California. In her piece published May 18, 2008, Sponaugle takes her readers on a stroll around the campus, reflecting on what various landmarks mean to her. "These places have become familiar and lovely and mine," she wrote. "They belong to me, and I to them. Even apart, I am a part. This thought comforts me as I stare ahead into three more beautiful years of life on the Hill."

The Nashville (Tennessee) Business Journal published a profile of Renata Soto 1997 on May 16, 2008. Soto is executive director of Conexion Americas in Nashville. The non-profit organization provides business, legal, and social help to Latino families. Asked to describe her leadership style, Soto said, "Enthusiastic."

On May 7, 2008, the Detroit (Michigan) News reported the hiring of Josh White '01 as an assistant swimming coach at the University of Michigan. The story noted that White is a former NCAA Division III champion swimmer at Kenyon.

The promotion of Clark Kinlin '81 to president and chief executive officer of Corning Cable Systems was reported on April 6, 2008, in the Hickory (North Carolina) Daily Record. Kinlin has spent recent years with Corning in China. "Living and breathing with very stiff competition for nearly five years has helped prepare me for what's to come," Kinlin said. "I fell well-armed for the fight." Kinlin is a director of the National Bureau of Asian Research and is on the board of governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The hiring of Shaka Smart '99 as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Florida sparked interest with media mentions starting on June 1, 2008, in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun and online at http://cbs.sportsline.com. The hire by head coach Billy Donovan was also reported on June 2 in the State of Columbia, South Carolina, and the Naples (Florida) News; on June 3 in Florida Today of Melbourne; and on June 4 in the Miami (Florida) Herald. Florida Today called Smart "one of the hottest young names in college basketball."

H. Abbie Erler, assistant professor of political science, was quoted on May 27, 2008, in the Washington Post in a story about presidential pardons. The story was focused on the recent presidential appointment of Ronald L. Rodgers as head of the U.S. Justice Department pardon office. Erler has written a study about the factors behind pardons. She told the newspaper that Rodgers's military background and role as an investigator in narcotics cases could indicate a reluctance to recommend pardons for felons. "That sort of sets the tone," she said.

President S. Georgia Nugent took part in a spirited roundtable discussion with other higher-education leaders and newsman Dan Rather on the challenges of the admissions process facing young people and families as well as colleges. The discussion was part of an hour-long segment of "Dan Rather Reports" called "Stress Test: Getting into College." The program aired on May 27, 2008 on HDNet. The dialogue touched on admissions fairness, the competition among students and colleges, and the controversy over subjective college rankings. Families should know that more than 3,000 colleges and universities in this country provide wonderful educations, Nugent said. "Who's going to reach their hand across the table and work together to change the system? Those efforts are beginning," she said. "There are efforts by school counselors and by the colleges themselves in different kinds of groupings to try and change the system and make it more effective and more appropriate, both for students and ... the country."

The quixotic quest of author W. Hodding Carter IV '84 to qualify for the Olympic Games and his book on the subject has attracted media attention around the continent. "Off the Deep End," published in June, tells the story of Carter's attempt, at forty-five, to qualify for the Olympics. Carter was featured in stories in USA Today on May 27, 2008, and in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 9. His status as a Division III All-American and national champion while at Kenyon was noted in the Times-Picayune. Carter was also interviewed by the Bangor (Maine) Daily News for a story published on June 9. "There's a floodgate that's been opened for older athletes," Carter told the Bangor newspaper. "There's some humor, I'm joking, and this is my personal quest. But I want people to walk away thinking, 'I can still be a great athlete at the age of fifty, or forty-five, and I can beat twenty-year-olds.'" An Associated Press story, published June 9, 2008, said Carter's 1984 time in the 200 freestyle was close to the Olympic trials qualifying time, but he instead chose to join the Peace Corps. The book includes an account of Carter's week-long return to Kenyon in 2006, when he lived in a residence hall and worked out under Jim Steen, the head swimming coach. The Associated Press story, written by Andrew Welsh-Huggins '83, was carried in the Brandon Sun of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada; the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago, Illinois; the Erie (Pennsylvania) Times-News; the Honolulu (Hawaii) Advertiser; the Palm Beach (Florida) Post; and the Sun Journal of Lewiston, Maine.

Michael Greenberg '10, Division III national champion tennis player, was mentioned in an online column on http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com on May 23, 2008 in a list of Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) award winners. Greenberg is the ITA rookie player of the year.

In a twist on presidential election reporting, the Associated Press took a look at candidate-themed T-shirt, boxer-shorts, and hat sales in a story published May 15, 2008. Matthew Segal '08, president of the non-partisan Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said in the story, "Young people can be a very impressionable and sometimes naïve demographic." The story was published in the Ledger of Lakeland, Florida, the Palm Beach (Florida) Post, the Santa Barbara (California) News-Press, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minnesota ; the York (Pennsylvania) Dispatch; and online by the New York Times.

USA Today included Kenyon on a sample list of college commencement speakers published on May 14, 2008. The newspaper noted the May 17 address of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen P '10. On June 9, the Wall Street Journal online Buzzwatch column included a quote from Quindlen in a feature that captured a thousand words from twenty-six commencement speeches around the country. In her speech about putting fears aside and ignoring naysayers, Quindlen said, "The voice of conformity speaks loudly. Don't listen."

A Wall Street Journal story published on May 14, 2008, covered the challenges facing students studying abroad as the dollar weakens. Sarah Ott '09, who was studying in Paris, France, was among the students quoted. "Just to lead a normal student life here is so expensive," she said. Ott and her peers tended to avoid cafés, where soft drinks ranged up to $8 a glass, and relied on take-out sandwiches. They looked for bars with cheap beer and steered clear of nightclubs. Pennies were pinched on tours. "I went into it thinking traveling would be a cheap little weekend away," she said. "Not so much."

A review in the (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer of an exhibition of art at the Spaces gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, included a critique of the work of Claudia Esslinger, professor of art. The review, published on May 9, 2008, described how viewers could create a wall-sized projection piece on three screens, with video clips and soundtracks. "It was exhilarating to have control over so much hardware and software," the newspaper's art critic wrote. "But the end result of all this sound and fury is a work that creates endless possibilities for subjective interpretation without really signifying much of anything in particular. It's about futility as much as it is about wonder."

Justin Roberts '92 was described as "one of the biggest stars in children's music" in a story posted on May 9, 2008, on the Web site of Minnesota Public Radio (http://minnesota.publicradio.org). Roberts has made six children's albums and "has won a place in the hearts of kids and parents across the country," the story said. Roberts formed a rock band while at Kenyon called Pimentos for Gus and moved to Minneapolis, where three albums were made and a small cult following developed. Roberts also worked at a Montessori school and took advantage of his music and song-writing skills while there. That spawned a change in his career. "I mean the thing I'm trying to do with the kids music is write songs that I would want to listen to as an adult, that have some lyrical content that I think is either ... touching or something that makes me laugh." His songs include "Everything Else Starts with E," "Giant Sized Butterfly," and "Henrietta's Hair."

In a story about long-lived animals, published on May 7, 2008, in the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Post-Gazette, Mark Haussmann, assistant professor of biology, discussed telomeres in the storm petrel bird species, which enjoys a relatively long life. Telomeres are the protein caps at the end of chromosomes, and scholars disagree about their effect on longevity. The shortening of telomeres during cell division could be related to aging. Haussmann said the longest-surviving birds had the longest telomeres at birth. Telomeres may not affect longevity, he said, but they could serve as a "kind of scoreboard in the cell that is saying this cell is becoming more damaged or less healthy."

The spring 2008 issue of Ms. Magazine includes a column on the objectification of women with comments by Sarah Murnen, professor of psychology. Girls, she said, "are taught to view their bodies as 'projects' that need work before they can attract others, whereas boys are likely to learn to view their bodies as tools to use to master the environment."

Voting-rights activist Matthew Segal '08 of Glencoe, Illinois, was featured in a story posted on May 6, 2008, at www.politico.com . The story described Segal's balancing act as a "pretty typical senior at Ohio's Kenyon College" and as the Washington D.C.-based executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment. Segal's work with the nonpartisan student association is focused on voter identification laws and other restrictions facing student voters. Kenyon colleague Charles Bitterman '11 of Chicago, Illinois, said of Segal, "On campus, he's known as a guy who works his tail off constantly." Segal said he might eventually go to law school but is now committed to working for voter rights. "I want to put myself out of business," Segal said. "I hope there's no need for someone like me, but unfortunately there is."

A campus speech by actress Jamie Lee Curtis P '09 to mark National Women's Health Week attracted coverage by the Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal on May 3, 2008. Curtis discussed aging gracefully and in good health. "Our obsession with what we look like is killing us," she said. "It's sick what women are doing to themselves in the name of beauty and turning back the clock."

The Chronicle of Higher Education included Kenyon in two admissions-related articles in the May 2, 2008, edition. President S. Georgia Nugent and Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, were mentioned in a story about the demands and rewards of being an admissions dean. Delahunty said she had received an encouraging e-mail from Nugent after Delahunty had reported that the weak national economy complicates admissions predictions. Nugent responded that Delahunty's challenging job was becoming even more difficult, adding, "It must feel like you're now being asked to do the same thing -- on a skateboard. While juggling. Flaming batons." Another story covered the increase in so-called stealth applicants whose first contact with colleges comes via the application itself. The story reported that about 15 percent of Kenyon applicants are of the stealth variety and that the College last year added an application supplement to better gauge how an applicant would fit at Kenyon. The supplement asks applicants to select one of four essay topics. One topic prompts applicants to consider ancient maps that marked unexplored areas as the land of monsters and to write about what lies at the edge of their personal maps. "Admissions officials there believe the requirement inevitably functions as a kind of funnel -- students who aren't fairly serious about Kenyon aren't likely to sit down and write an essay about metaphorical monsters."

In a May 2, 2008, editorial on voting rights, the New York Times made a reference to Kenyon in the context of voting problems during the 2004 presidential election. Kenyon students "waited up to ten hours" to vote that day, the newspaper said. The editorial called for national standards for the number of voting machines per voter and for balanced distribution of the machines. Ballot forms, election-day challenges, and voter-identification laws should all meet a national standard, according to the editorial.

William Soukup '79 won the endorsement of the Charlotte Observer of Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 1, 2008, in his race for a district court judgeship in Charlotte. Soukup, a public defender, has the support of defense attorneys as well as prosecuting attorneys. "Those who know Mr. Soukup say his experience, intelligence and demeanor should make him an excellent judge," the editorial said.

Michael Levine, Samuel B. Cummings Jr. Professor of Psychology, was quoted in an April 29, 2008, www.newsweek.com column on the effectiveness of government intervention in correcting eating disorders. The column mentioned a French government proposal to make it illegal for anyone to encourage anorexia in advertising and publications and on Web sites, as well as a New York City initiative to require fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts. Levine said that public education is a start but is not always effective in turning around lousy eating habits. His own problem with sleep apnea is aggravated by his weight, he told the columnists, but he still finds it hard to resist fast food. "I don't think the answer is posting calories," Levine said.

The Morning Journal of Lorain, Ohio, on April 22, 2008, reported on an Oberlin College dance program that includes companion performances by Kenyon and Oberlin students choreographed by K.T. Niehoff. Niehoff, artistic director of the Lingo Dance Company of Seattle, Washington, is a guest artist at Kenyon. The companion pieces were performed at Oberlin on April 26-27 and will be repeated at Kenyon on May 1-3.

A witty column on travel abroad by Wendy MacLeod, playwright-in-residence and co-resident director of the Kenyon program at the University of Exeter, was published on April 22, 2008, by the International Herald Tribune of Paris, France. "I'm here to tell you the only people you're going to meet when traveling in Ireland are other Americans," MacLeod wrote. "There we all are in the pubs listening to 'traditional Irish music.' There we are again taking pictures of the wild swans at Coole. The problem with guidebooks is that they've given everybody the same itinerary."

The Morning Journal of Lorain, Ohio, on April 22, 2008, reported on an Oberlin College dance program that includes companion performances by Kenyon and Oberlin students choreographed by K.T. Niehoff. Niehoff, artistic director of the Lingo Dance Company of Seattle, Washington, is a guest artist at Kenyon. The companion pieces were performed at Oberlin on April 26-27 and will be repeated at Kenyon on May 1-3.

The Washington Post of Washington, D.C., mentioned the College in an April 21, 2008, story about how colleges encourage admitted students to accept offers to attend. Kenyon's practice of subsidizing student travel to the campus drew the newspaper's attention.

The candidacy of William Soukup '79 for district judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, was reported in the April 21, 2008, edition of the Charlotte Observer. Soukup earned a degree in English literature. He told the newspaper that his favorite book is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

An obituary for Cleveland, Ohio, architect Robert Gaede, published on April 21, 2008, in the Plain Dealer noted his dedication to historic preservation and his work on "historic buildings at Kenyon College." Gaede and his partners supervised the renovation and restoration of Old Kenyon and Ascension, Hanna, and Leonard halls in the late 1980s.

An April 20, 2008, column on the college experience written by Patti Sponaugle '11 was published in the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California. Sponaugle reflected on the accomplishments of first-year students at Kenyon. She included playwright Christa Minardi of New York, New York; musicians Evan Hall of Montclair, New Jersey, and Jonathan Brown of County Donegal, Ireland; Ai Binh Ho, of Columbus, Ohio, founder of the Asian Awareness Club; and Diana Deoki, of Bronx, New York, who created a diversity festival. "We are more than just naïve freshmen," Sponaugle wrote. "We are the future."

A story about popular memoirs was published on April 16, 2008, by CNN.com and CNN.com International, including comments from Patricia "Patsy" Vigderman, assistant professor of English. Memoirs have become a trend and now outstrip the publishing of debut novels. Vigderman sees a parallel between memoirs and the rise of so-called reality television programs, and she has a dim view of most current memoirs as appealing to prurience. "Memoirs are a form of self-display," she said. But she also provided some historical perspective and quoted the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho: "It is deep autumn/My neighbor/How does he live, I wonder."

Michael Levine, Samuel B. Cummings Jr. Professor of Psychology, was featured in a story about anorexia and the influence of Web sites. The piece was published on April 15, 2008, in the InternationalHerald Tribune of Paris, France, and on April 16 in the Boston Globe of Boston, Massachusetts; the Gainesville Sun of Gainesville, Florida; and the New York Times of New York, New York. The story was in reaction to a proposed law in France that would ban Web sites promoting eating disorders with starvation tips. Levine argued that banning the sites could backfire and create more demand for them. "Ultimately, I think it's a mistake to ban them because I think that you're going to be hard-pressed to demonstrate in a very clear way that these sites have a direct negative effect," he said. Levine was also quoted in the April 14, 2008, edition of the Vancouver Sun of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in a story that anticipated Levine's workshops at Simon Fraser University on curbing eating disorders. "My focus is on the intersection of education, prevention and community psychology," he said.

An April 12, 2008 column in the Washington Post of Washington, D.C. by Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov mentioned the frustration of Kenyon student voters in Gambier during the 2004 presidential election. Krislov praised a recent ruling by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner that allows colleges to issue utility bills to students who can then prove their local residency and vote. "Numerous studies have shown that young people who vote are likely to become lifelong voters. So a young person's first experience of voting should be welcoming, not frustrating," Krislov wrote.

The opening of a Chicago, Illinois, office for Proskauer Rose, an international law firm, was reported on April 10, 2008, on www.businesswire.com with a mention of MarcRosenthal '85, who joined the firm.

Gambier is among cities nominated as Titletown USA on www.espn.com . Kenyon's NCAA Division III dominance in swimming led to the online nomination by a fan on April 10, 2008. The College has collected fifty-one national championships in the sport. A national panel will choose nineteen cities from the list of nominees in June, and another city will be chosen by online fan voting. ESPN will visit each of the finalist cities in July, and Titletown USA will be determined by online voting.

A group of five Swedish businessmen, part of a Rotary Club exchange program, toured central Ohio, including Gambier, in April, according to a story published April 10, 2008, in the Coshocton Tribune of Coshocton, Ohio. "The team visited Kenyon College and was quite impressed with that," said Bjorn Klemming, president of the Jarfalla-Kvarnen Rotary Club.

An April 7, 2008, column in the Daily Princetonian, the Princeton University student newspaper, mentioned President S. Georgia Nugent. The column, by Anthony Grafton, the Henry Putnam University Professor of History, was, in part, a tribute to Robert Goheen, the former Princeton president who died on March 31. Described as a distinguished scholar, Nugent had once reflected on the origins of her interest in the study of Greek and Latin, Grafton wrote. "As a newly hatched freshman from Florida ... she had no idea what she wanted to study," the column said. "But then she heard Goheen address her class. She had never heard anyone speak with such clarity, such power, or such love of learning, and when she found out that he was a classicist, she knew that she had to become one, too."

A New Hampshire program that prompts high-school student involvement with business and community leaders was co-founded by Elizabeth Foy '01, the New Hampshire Business Review reported on March 28, 2008. The Social Entrepreneurial Student Leadership Challenge was embraced by eighteen high schools, whose students competed to find initiatives they believed would help their communities. Foy developed the program with Howard Brodsky, founder of CCA Global Partners and the Howard Brodsky Foundation. Foy tries to spark a connection between curriculum and real-world applications. She is motivated by her experience as a struggling elementary-school student with a learning disability that was overcome with the help of a teacher. Foy was transformed "into a voracious reader and eager learner" who graduated cum laude from Kenyon, with a double major in chemistry and English. The story appeared on www.redorbit.com on April 21, 2008.

The "now-famous" 175-year-old Torah scroll donated last year to Kenyon was taken to Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio, for an interactive program led by Marc Bragin, Hillel director, according to a story in the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, on March 26, 2008. The event was also reported that day in the News-Herald of Willoughby, Ohio.

Le Loup, an indie-pop band on tour, hit Texas with a March 25, 2008, story in the Houston Chronicle built around Sam Simkoff '06, described as the alpha male of the group. The story noted that Simkoff's lyrics and music are idiosyncratic but alluring. Simkoff, who earned a degree in political science, said he socialized at Kenyon by finding other musicians. "All of my roommates were musicians. I was in an ill-conceived funk band for a while, but mostly I was just playing for myself."

John Porter '79, chief executive of Australian telecommunications company Austar, was featured in a story on March 15, 2008, in the Age of Melbourne, Australia. Porter, a Minnesota native, earned a degree in history and launched a career in pay television. He moved to Australia in 1995 to help develop Austar as chief operating office. "There's a lot of name-calling and vitriol that goes on between competitors in Australia," Porter said. "Our approach has always been to respect our competitors the most."

The April 14 issue of Time magazine quoted Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, in a column about gender parity in college admissions. The column noted that a gender gap in admissions around the country has blocked some qualified young women in order to achieve class gender balance. About 58 percent of undergraduates in this country are female. "It's a gross generalization that slacker boys get in over high-achieving girls," Delahunty said. "But, developmentally, girls bring more to the table than boys, and the disparity has gotten greater in recent years." Young women should step up and make their opinions known, she said. "It isn't fair, and young women should be saying something about it not being fair."

The Columbus Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio, published a story on April 6, 2008, noting an upcoming Kenyon program on April 11 and 12 that featured a panel of visiting playwrights who will discuss playwriting, spirituality, and religion. The panel was hosted by playwright Molly Rice, visiting assistant professor of drama.

An April 4, 2008, column in the Chronicle of Higher Education examined the state of college presidency and suggested a successful president is an architect of the middle ground. The column mentioned Robert Oden Jr., president of Carleton College and former Kenyon president. Oden calls for leading from "the messy middle," a phrase coined by a Kenyon faculty member about Oden's work at Kenyon. Oden said a college president must be tolerant, reasonable, and broad-minded as an antidote to ideological positions.

A column that shared the inner workings and personal side of college admissions, by Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, was published on April 3, 2008, by the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio. The column examined how admissions officers considered the situation of a young man who was abandoned by his surviving parent and suffered some loss in his grade-point average. Delahunty cast her column in the context of the financial-aid challenges faced by colleges. "And that's what the no-loan movement hasn't fully addressed: Economically disadvantaged students have an abundance of challenges that are more complex than the barrier of loans. And while not every college can afford to eliminate loans, the lesser endowed schools like Kenyon can still give poor kids a shot at a better future," she wrote. The column was praised in an April 6 letter to the editor written by a Cleveland-area college counselor, who said, "Bravo to Jennifer Delahunty on her passionate article about the college admissions process. As a college counselor, I thank God that there are still schools like Kenyon College, which look at all aspects of a student's experience and which also consider that life often doesn't go according to a plan."

Kenyon swimmer Matt Harris '09, of Laurel, Maryland, was featured in a story published April 3, 2008, by the Gazette of Gaithersburg, Maryland. The story described Matt's role in the Lords' March 22, 2008, clinching of the College's fifty-first national championship in swimming. Harris won the 100-meter butterfly and was part of the winning 400-meter freestyle relay team. Losses in those events the previous year motivated him, he told the newspaper, particularly Denison University's 2007 relay win, which did not derail Kenyon's title in 2007. "Seeing those Denison swimmers celebrate like they had won the whole meet sort of left a bitter taste in our mouths," he said. "Going into this year's NCAA meet we wanted to make sure that we ended it with a victory."

The Wall Street Journal included Kenyon in a chart accompanying an April 3, 2008, story that examined the percentage of applicant rejections by colleges. The story reported a record number of rejections by many colleges this year. Kenyon shared space on the list with Harvard University, Princeton University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others. The list showed 4,550 applicants to Kenyon in 2008, with an acceptance rate of about 30 percent, slightly higher than in 2007.

The April 2 issue of Global Traveler published a story on campus visits that included a mention of Kenyon as "an undiscovered gem in the middle of the state's fertile Kokosing River Valley."

The Times of Trenton, New Jersey, focused on swimmer Kaitlyn Meirs '11, of Cream Ridge, New Jersey, in a story published April 1, 2008. "Meirs got Kenyon rolling toward its twenty-second national title by winning the first event of the NCAA Division III ... championship for the Purple and White," the story said. Meirs said, "My coach told me, 'You're the best around here, but are you the best miler today?' He said it to me right before my race, and I really wanted it."

Editor & Publisher, on April 1, 2008, reported the promotion of Timothy Stautberg '85 to chief financial officer and senior vice president of the E.W. Scripps Company after it splits into two companies in July. Stautberg, of Terrace Park, Ohio, is now vice president of communications and investor relations at Scripps. His new role will be with a media company that will focus on local print, television, and Internet businesses. The change was also reported by biz.yahoo.com; the Business Courier of Cincinnati, Ohio; the Business Journal of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, FinanzNachrichten.de; KLFY-TV in Lafayette, Louisiana; and www.broadcastnewsroom.com , among others.

Stories by P.F. "Fred" Kluge, writer in residence, were published in the March and April, 2008, editions of National Geographic Traveler, where Kluge is a contributing editor. He wrote about a visit to the Czech Republic spa town of Karlovy Vary in the March issue. "I have enrolled in a one-week 'anti-stress program.' Surely I qualify: I deal with college students and administrators, with editors and agents," Kluge wrote. His story in the April edition recounts a journey to Malacca, Malaysia. "I went to Malacca because of a (W. Somerset) Maugham story and because I loved the sound of its name," Kluge wrote. "It resonated ... like the lyrics of an old song."

A review of a recorded lecture on compact disc by Timothy Shutt, professor of humanities, won praise in the Daily Pilot of Newport Beach, California, on March 29, 2008. The review described "Take Me Out to the Ball Game: a History of Baseball in America" as "a fascinating lecture ... that gives the entire history of baseball." The newspaper said the lecture is excellent for commuter listening, particularly for fans headed to a game.

Josh Mitchell '08, of Iron Mountain, Michigan, was mentioned as the NCAA Division III Swimmer of the Year in a report on WLUC-TV of Negaunee, Michigan, on March 28, 2008. "Kenyon College won an unheard of twenty-ninth straight men's swimming national title," the report noted.

The appointment of Howard Sacks, director of the Rural Life Center, to the Ohio Food Policy Advisory Council was reported on March 27, 2008, by the Mansfield News-Journal of Mansfield, Ohio. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland appointed Sacks, who is also a professor of sociology and senior advisor to President S. Georgia Nugent.

Swimmer Victoria Lederer '11, of North Wildwood, New Jersey, attracted a feature story in the March 24, 2008, edition of the Press of Atlantic City, of Atlantic City, New Jersey. "Victoria Lederer likes to win. And she's in the right place to do it," the story said. Her role in the Ladies' NCAA Division III national championship was detailed in the story. "It gives you confidence to know that our school has won all those championships," she told the newspaper. "We have a lot of top swimmers, and everyone on the team gets along really well. I think the competition really pumps you up." Coach Jim Steen said Lederer has a "remarkably bright future" in the program. "Everybody loves her. She is an extremely hard-working young lady," he said. Lederer praised Steen as a coach who is "really involved" and talks to all of the swimmers individually about their classes and training.

The Mansfield News-Journal of Mansfield, Ohio, interviewed William Melick, Bruce L. Gensemer Professor of Economics, for a March 13, 2008, story about high gasoline prices. Melick said higher gas prices will drive research into new methods of finding and extracting oil. "Instead of some dopey government scheme to encourage more oil production, I think higher prices will make technology possible that wasn't available when prices were low," Melick told the newspaper. Be patient, he advised. "That's the nature of the petroleum beast," he said. "It's going to take time."

A Business Week story published March 13, 2008, on the struggle within the Democratic Party over the Florida and Michigan delegations mentioned Kenyon in an account of the Ohio primary election. The story said U.S. Senator Barack Obama needs college student voters and volunteers, and the Ohio vote, on March 5, took place during spring break for several Ohio colleges, including Kenyon. The story was also published online in Singapore on sg.yahoo.com.

A March 5, 2008, story in the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Ohio college students "devising creative ways" to overcome the state's voter-identification laws. Voters must provide government-issued identification or a utility bill. Some students at Kenyon and Oberlin colleges decided to vote by absentee ballot, the story said. "It's the easiest way to avoid the ridiculously backwards law," said Matthew Segal '08, of Glencoe, Illinois. Segal is executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Student Association for Voter Empowerment, based in Washington, D.C.

The success of the Ladies and Lords swimming teams continued to resonate around the country. The Lords captured their twenty-ninth consecutive NCAA Division III championship on March 22, 2008, at Oxford, Ohio, and appeared on ESPN2on March 28 on the program ESPN First Take. The Associated Press carried the story. The New York Times, on March 23, reported the Lords' feat, noting that the team sealed the victory by collecting three individual titles and taking the 400-yard freestyle relay. The Dayton Daily News of Dayton, Ohio, covered the Lords' title in a March 24 story that also noted the Ladies' championship, marking the College's fiftieth in swimming. The Ladies' championship effort, sealed on March 15 in Oxford, was reported that day at www.collegeswimming.com; March 16 in the Columbus Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio; and March 18 in USA Today. These television stations mentioned the Ladies' title on March 15: WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana; WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio; and WTDN-TV in Dayton.

Gettysburg College President Katherine Haley Will announced her resignation for personal reasons, the Evening Sun of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, reported on March 26, 2008. Will is a former provost and professor of English at Kenyon. Will said the main reason for her resignation is her husband's job as editor of Grit magazine in Kansas.

Business First of Columbus, Ohio, on March 21, 2008, addressed tuition "sticker shock" in the wake of the College's ranking among the country's most expensive colleges and universities as reported January 21, 2008 in Forbes magazine. "Kenyon administrators say the school isn't as extravagantly priced as outsiders might think," the story said. "And they insist it's worth it." Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, explained that some room-and-board charges are folded into the cost of tuition, unlike the practice at other colleges. "It's an accounting issue," Delahunty said. "It comes up every year. We explain it and then move on." About two-thirds of Kenyon students receive financial aid and about 90 percent graduate in four years. Kate Hellman '08 of New York, New York, said her cost to attend the College has been about $15,000 a year, with financial aid. "It was definitely a sacrifice for [my parents], but one they chose to make and wanted to make," Hellman said. Comparing Kenyon students to those at Northeastern liberal arts colleges, Hellman said Kenyon students are considered less pretentious. "The professors are highly accessible, we get a lot of attention," she said. Tuition for the current academic year is $37,030.

The Forward of New York, New York, profiled actor Josh Radnor '96 in a March 12, 2008, story. Radnor, star of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, was interviewed while "sitting cross-legged on a striped modern chair in his minimalist but cozy house tucked away in Los Angeles's Hollywood Hills." In the context of Radnor's years at Kenyon, the story mentions that he is an avid reader of fiction. The Forward has a long history of covering the Jewish community and noted that Radnor "is among the mafia of Hollywood writers and actors who ... spent their childhoods at Jewish camps and Jewish day schools." Radnor said he does not limit himself to Jewish roles and his television character, Ted Mosby, is not Jewish. "To me, a lot of these Jewish signifiers are actually human signifiers," Radnor said.

A 1918 letter sent from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Kenyon alumnus Morres Liepman, an American soldier, was found in a bottle in France, according to a February 19, 2008, story in the Fort Scott Tribune of Fort Scott, Kansas. The letter was written by Liepman's aunt, who recounted news from home while he served in the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Liepman attended Kenyon for two years, which is indicated on his 1917 draft card. He was stationed near Messein, France, where the bottle was found. He survived that war and enlisted again to serve in World War II. He retired from the Army as a major and died in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1980. The bottle was found during an excavation of a Merovingian settlement dating to the sixth century. Liepman's aunt wrote, "It's so hot here that you could cook eggs in the sand ... I wish I could visit you now. It sure would be some trip."

USA Today toasted Kenyon on March 13, as the Ladies went to work in Oxford, Ohio, to earn the College's 50th national championship in swimming. "Gambier is home to a collegiate superpower, not Ohio State, which is in nearby Columbus, but Kenyon College," the story said. "Coach Jim Steen presides over both swimming teams, programs that have helped the 1,600-student school grab more NCAA titles than any other Division III member." Described as a master motivator, Steen said, "In no way do we think our past will shape our present. We never go in with the idea of defending something, or presuming we own something."

"The greatest dynasty in sports history" was celebrated in a column in the March 12 edition of the Columbus Dispatch in Columbus, Ohio. Coach Jim Steen was featured in the column, which noted that the Ladies were favored to capture their 22nd title in twenty-five years, while the Lords have won twenty-eight consecutive titles. "John Wooden won ten in basketball, and he is hailed as the best coach, in any sport, in our nation's history. What of Steen who ... has been rasping away, rat-tat-tat, poolside, in a D-III blip on the map, since 1975?" Steen's "otherworldly" ability to connect with the student-athlete won praise in the column. The coach told the newspaper, "We always get them to back up their intentions. It's so easy to say what you want to do, but if you focus too much on that, you're not focusing enough on what you need to do, and you lose the rhythm and the art."

A March 11 column in the Baltimore Sun of Baltimore, Maryland, discussed the expense and time it takes for prospective students to visit colleges. (The column was lightly pegged to the film comedy College Road Trip.) An owner of a business that provides video tours on DVD of more than 350 colleges mentioned Kenyon as an example.

Stewart Peckham, director of the Career Development Center, was quoted in the March 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal in a story about how students can craft internships to suit their interests. Peckham cautioned that persuading employers to create an internship can be a tough task. He advised students to be prepared to submit specific proposals with areas of interest and goals. "If the student outlines that a bit, it could get them further along," Peckham said. The story was also published on March 7 by the Globe and Mail of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and on March 10 in the Baltimore Sun. The story was posted online by a number of other media outlets.

Kenyon's initiative to provide loan-free financial aid packages each year to at least twenty-five selected students, who will be known as Newman's Own Foundation Scholars, was covered in a March 2 story in the Columbus Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio. The story examined how Ohio's private liberal arts colleges are coping with rising costs as the state's public universities face a government-mandated tuition freeze and Ivy League schools expand financial aid to middle- and higher-income students. JenniferDelahunty, dean of admissions and financial aid, said, "Borrowing for an investment in education is worthwhile, but some students find that loans just seem too daunting. Many have watched their families struggle with debt." The loan-free initiative was also mentioned on January 30 in the Philanthropy Journal, which reported that the program was launched with the help of a $10 million donation from Paul Newman '49 and the Newman's Own Foundation as well as by $30 million in other gifts.

The basketball Ladies were mentioned in the Columbus Dispatch, under the headline "Kenyon women perfect" on February 26. The story reported that the Ladies finished undefeated in the North Coast Athletic Conference regular season.

A January 29 column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted the retirement of Gerald Duff as provost at McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois. The column profiled Duff, who was described as a chairman of the Kenyon Department of English during his stay from 1972 until 1980. Duff is the author of six novels and two books of poetry. Asked if his temperament is better suited to being an author or college administrator, Duff said, "Being an author. I think I'm a little subversive and was the type of administrator who made a few too many sarcastic comments."

A January 23 story in the Lincoln County News of Damariscotta, Maine, focused on a children's nature camp directed by Tenley Wilder '03. The story mentioned Wilder's work with environmental education programs at the Brown Family Environmental Center. "I look forward to another year of having fun, making new friends, and teaching our youth about the wonders and mysteries of our natural world," she said.

Student-athletes Rachel Goheen '10 and Stephanie Caton '10 were featured in the January 11 edition of the Forest Hills Journal of suburban Cincinnati, Ohio. The work of the young women with the Lifestraw program that provides clean water to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the focus of the story. Goheen, who plays soccer, and Caton, who plays softball, have sold water bottles to raise money to buy straws that contain chemicals to make tainted water potable. Each straw can clean about 185 gallons of water.

Alec Egan '07 was quoted in the Southeast Examiner of Portland, Oregon, on January 8 in connection with a gallery showing of his paintings of abstract, figurative pieces of mixed media on wood. "I moved to Portland because I did not want to go back and get caught in the whimpering charade of Los Angeles, which is where I was born and raised," Egan said.

In a February 1 story in the Chronicle of Higher Education about barriers to student voting, Matthew Segal '08 of Glencoe, Illinois, discussed his work as executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Student Association for Voter Empowerment. The group is pushing for laws that allow voters to register on Election Day and for students to use college identification at the polls. Segal said he is fighting "egregious attempts to filter out student voters." Segal also appeared on camera and was quoted in an online report posted February 7 by Voice of America on the influence of young voters in the current presidential election. "The level of (campaign) outreach to youth has never been done at the level of this cycle," he said.

A series of thefts by fraudulent use of credit and debit cards pushed Kenyon students and employees into the news for several days starting on January 26, when WBNS-TV in Columbus, Ohio, reported that a computer problem at a Gambier restaurant was the likely source of the stolen information. The story was reported by the Columbus Dispatch on January 29 and carried by the Associated Press to other media outlets. Reporters noted that Kenyon computer systems were not the source of the breach.

Actress Allison Janney '82 was featured in different stories published on January 26 in the Guardian of Manchester, England, and the Times of London, England, pegged to her role in the film Juno. Both newspapers mentioned Janney's time at Kenyon and her work with mentor Paul Newman '49, who had returned to the College as a guest director. Janney told the Times, "Everybody in the whole school auditioned, even people who didn't want to be in the play. They just wanted to meet Paul Newman." The Dayton native told the Guardian, "It's a generalization, but people from Ohio tend to be salt-of-the-earth, friendly. That and coming from the theater really grounded me when I came out to L.A. and when all this hoopla started around West Wing."

Robert Oden, former Kenyon president, wrote a first-person account of a trip to Egypt with students from Carleton College, where he is now president. The story was posted online on January 25 at insidehighered.com. "What was I thinking? Why devote weeks in Egypt to teaching and learning with thirty-two undergraduates? Because liberal arts colleges ... are committed to teaching, and it had been some time since I exercised this commitment," Oden wrote. "One can always, always shape a finer class."

Dana Harrison '93 was mentioned in the January 25 edition of the Berkshire Eagle of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in a story that features Harrison's husband, independent filmmaker Marc Maurino. Maurino credits Harrison with jump-starting his film career. Harrison, a former theater teacher and director of her own theater company in Massachusetts, is now an occasional performer on stage and the manager of audience services for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts.

P.F. Kluge, writer-in-residence, was celebrated on his sixty-sixth birthday in a story on January 24 in the Saipan Tribune. Kluge had returned to visit and lecture on Saipan, where he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1960s. Saipan is the capital of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. "A part of me always stayed here," Kluge said. Described as "a noted writer," Kluge said he is working on a fiction story set on Saipan. His novel The Day That I Die is also set on the island. Marianas Variety reported on a Kluge lecture in a story published January 28. "There is truth emerging from the islands," he said.

Basketball athletes Anne Dugan '08 of Dublin, Ohio, and Hilary Gowins '08 of Delaware, Ohio, were mentioned in a January 22 column in the Columbus Dispatch under the headline "Kenyon at it again." Dugan and Gowins were identified as the top scorers for the team leading the North Coast Athletic Conference. The story noted that the Ladies have a shot at a third twenty-win season in four years under coach Suzanne Helfant.

The January 21 celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. provided an opportunity for historical perspective by Glenn McNair, associate professor of history. His insights, and those of other historians, were reported by the Associated Press and were aired, posted, and published in more than 100 media outlets around the world for several days, starting on January 20. The story explored how King's iconic status has oversimplified his message and obscured the rich complexity of the man. McNair said King's legacy has been used by politicians for their own ends. King, he said, "has slipped into the realm of symbol that people use and manipulate for their own purposes."

Among media outlets that carried the story were: the Albuquerque Tribune, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, Arizona; the Bennington Banner, Bennington, Vermont; Black America Web; Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts; the Caymanian Compass, Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands; Chico Enterprise Record, Chico, California; Daily Herald, Chicago, Illinois; CNN; CTV, Canada; Daily World, Grays Harbor, Washington; the Guardian, Manchester, England; Gothenburg Metro, Gothenburg, Sweden; Hattiesburg American, Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Home NewsTribune, Neptune, New Jersey; HoustonChronicle, Houston, Texas; Journal-Advocate, Sterling, Colorado; Journal Star, Lincoln, Nebraska; Leading the Charge, Marimbula, New South Wales, Australia; Los Banos Enterprise, Los Banos, California; Kingston Whig-Standard, Kingston, Jamaica; Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville, Tennessee; Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo, Japan; Miami Herald, Miami, Florida; Muzi.com; Newsday, Long Island, New York; MSNBC; News Star, Monroe, Louisiana; Omaha Daily Record, Omaha, Nebraska; Pan-African Newswire; Peoria Journal Star, Peoria, Illinois; the Pioneer, New Delhi, India; Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minnesota; Rutland Herald, Rutland, Vermont; San DiegoUnion-Tribune, San Diego, California; San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, California; Santa Barbara News-Press, Santa Barbara, California; Southern Illinoisian, Carbondale, Illinois; Springfield News-Leader, Springfield, Missouri; the Star, Cape Town, South Africa; the State, Columbia, South Carolina; SunJournal, Lewiston, Maine; Tacoma News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington; USA Today; Wellington Daily News, Wellington Kansas; Yahoo.

These television stations were among those airing or posting the story: Fox 5 News, Washington, D.C.; KFOX-TV, El Paso, Texas; KRCG-TV, Jefferson City, Missouri; KSDK-TV, St. Louis, Missouri; NBC-11, San Francisco, California; WAAF 48, Huntsville, Alabama; WLBZ-TV, Bangor, Maine; WNBC-TV, New York, New York; WSB-TV, Atlanta, Georgia; WSMV-TV, Nashville, Tennessee; WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Neff Cottage is pictured in the Winter 2008 issue of Cottages and Bungalows magazine. In a story about the diversity of midwestern domestic architecture, Neff Cottage is described as picturesque with "striking blue shutters and Gothic details, which give the house a church-like façade."

A January 14 Associated Press story on an Ohio legislative proposal to allow college students to work at polling places quoted Matthew Segal '08, who is the executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Student Association for Voter Empowerment. "There is no better model of civic engagement than to have the college students participate in the community where you live rather than to feel like an outsider," he said. Ohio law says poll workers must work in the county where they are registered to vote. The story was published by the Akron Beacon-Journal of Akron, Ohio; the Columbus Dispatch, of Columbus, Ohio; and the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette of Lancaster, Ohio.

An interview with Lewis Hyde, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing, was published January 13 in the Los Angeles Times, pegged to the quarter-century anniversary reprint of his book The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. The story said the book has developed a cult following among artists and writers. Asked to describe the book, Hyde said, "The main assumption of the book is that certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice, which is what the book is mostly about, but also pure science, spiritual life, healing and teaching." The book was also the subject of a New York Times blog posted January 15. The blog describe The Gift as "a many-stranded meditation on art and commerce ... never easy to describe."

Olof Palme '48, the prime minister of Sweden at the time of his 1986 assassination, was the subject of a January 14 story about his relationship with the United States in the Swedish newspaper Kvallposten. Known for his criticism of U.S. foreign policy, Palme also provided the Central Intelligence Agency with information about three Swedish leftists, the newspaper reported. Palme's son Marten Palme dismissed the allegation as a "trifle." The story mentioned Olaf Palme's Kenyon education.

The technical-services link between the libraries of Kenyon and Denison University was discussed in a January 11 story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Denison libraries director Scottie Cochrane described the unified system at a meeting of the American Library Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After a difficult period of adjustment for librarians and staff, the combined system works well, saves money, better serves students and faculty, and makes it easier to take advantage of electronic information, Cochrane said.

Transplanted Louisiana State University (LSU) football fans Alicia Dugas, assistant dean of students for housing and residential life, and her husband, Lee Dugas, were part of stories in Louisiana newspapers before and after the Bowl Championship Series football game between LSU and Ohio State University. Stories in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, on January 5, and in the Daily Iberian of New Iberia, on January 8, related how Lee, a Louisiana native, has been a lonely LSU fan since the couple moved to Mount Vernon last year after Alicia took her job at Kenyon. The couple had four LSU flags flying at their home. "Our next-door neighbors are big Ohio State fans," Alicia told the Times-Picayune. "That's a problem between us and them, but our dogs love each other." The story in the Daily Iberian mentioned that Alicia wore two temporary LSU tattoos as she entered the operating room for gall bladder surgery the day after the game.

The January 8 edition of the Medfield Press of Medfield, Massachusetts, discussed a community-theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest, which was directed by Adrienne Boris '07.

A profile of Robert King '97 in the January 7 edition of the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, was pegged to his job as business development manager of Vertex Computer Systems in Twinsburg, Ohio. The story mentioned that King is the former assistant director of admissions at Kenyon. Asked for his best advice, King said, "Positive energy creates constant elevation."

was mentioned on NoticieroDigital.com on February 22, 2009, as a potential presidential candidate in Venezuela in 2012. A profile of the former mayor of Chacao Municipality mentioned his degree in economics from Kenyon.

The spring 2008 issue of Ms. Magazine includes a column on the objectification of women with comments by Sarah Murnen, professor of psychology. Girls, she said, "are taught to view their bodies as 'projects' that need work before they can attract others, whereas boys are likely to learn to view their bodies as tools to use to master the environment."

A campus speech by actress Jamie Lee Curtis P '09 to mark National Women's Health Week attracted coverage by the Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal on May 3, 2008. Curtis discussed aging gracefully and in good health. "Our obsession with what we look like is killing us," she said. "It's sick what women are doing to themselves in the name of beauty and turning back the clock."

In a story about long-lived animals, published on May 7, 2008, in the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Post-Gazette, Mark Haussmann, assistant professor of biology, discussed telomeres in the storm petrel bird species, which enjoys a relatively long life. Telomeres are the protein caps at the end of chromosomes, and scholars disagree about their effect on longevity. The shortening of telomeres during cell division could be related to aging. Haussmann said the longest-surviving birds had the longest telomeres at birth. Telomeres may not affect longevity, he said, but they could serve as a "kind of scoreboard in the cell that is saying this cell is becoming more damaged or less healthy."

Justin Roberts '92 was described as "one of the biggest stars in children's music" in a story posted on May 9, 2008, on the Web site of Minnesota Public Radio (http://minnesota.publicradio.org). Roberts has made six children's albums and "has won a place in the hearts of kids and parents across the country," the story said. Roberts formed a rock band while at Kenyon called Pimentos for Gus and moved to Minneapolis, where three albums were made and a small cult following developed. Roberts also worked at a Montessori school and took advantage of his music and song-writing skills while there. That spawned a change in his career. "I mean the thing I'm trying to do with the kids music is write songs that I would want to listen to as an adult, that have some lyrical content that I think is either … touching or something that makes me laugh." His songs include "Everything Else Starts with E," "Giant Sized Butterfly," and "Henrietta's Hair."

A review in the (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer of an exhibition of art at the Spaces gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, included a critique of the work of Claudia Esslinger, professor of art. The review, published on May 9, 2008, described how viewers could create a wall-sized projection piece on three screens, with video clips and soundtracks. "It was exhilarating to have control over so much hardware and software," the newspaper's art critic wrote. "But the end result of all this sound and fury is a work that creates endless possibilities for subjective interpretation without really signifying much of anything in particular. It's about futility as much as it is about wonder."

USA Today included Kenyon on a sample list of college commencement speakers published on May 14, 2008. The newspaper noted the May 17 address of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen P '10. On June 9, the Wall Street Journal online Buzzwatch column included a quote from Quindlen in a feature that captured a thousand words from twenty-six commencement speeches around the country. In her speech about putting fears aside and ignoring naysayers, Quindlen said, "The voice of conformity speaks loudly. Don't listen."

A Wall Street Journal story published on May 14, 2008, covered the challenges facing students studying abroad as the dollar weakens. Sarah Ott '09, who was studying in Paris, France, was among the students quoted. "Just to lead a normal student life here is so expensive," she said. Ott and her peers tended to avoid cafés, where soft drinks ranged up to $8 a glass, and relied on take-out sandwiches. They looked for bars with cheap beer and steered clear of nightclubs. Pennies were pinched on tours. "I went into it thinking traveling would be a cheap little weekend away," she said. "Not so much."

In a twist on presidential election reporting, the Associated Press took a look at candidate-themed T-shirt, boxer-shorts, and hat sales in a story published May 15, 2008. Matthew Segal '08, president of the non-partisan Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said in the story, "Young people can be a very impressionable and sometimes naïve demographic." The story was published in the Ledger of Lakeland, Florida, the Palm Beach (Florida) Post, the Santa Barbara (California) News-Press, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minnesota ; the York (Pennsylvania) Dispatch; and online by the New York Times.

Michael Greenberg '10, Division III national champion tennis player, was mentioned in an online column on http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com on May 23, 2008 in a list of Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) award winners. Greenberg is the ITA rookie player of the year.

The quixotic quest of author W. Hodding Carter IV '84 to qualify for the Olympic Games and his book on the subject has attracted media attention around the continent. "Off the Deep End," published in June, tells the story of Carter's attempt, at forty-five, to qualify for the Olympics. Carter was featured in stories in USA Today on May 27, 2008, and in the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 9. His status as a Division III All-American and national champion while at Kenyon was noted in the Times-Picayune. Carter was also interviewed by the Bangor (Maine) Daily News for a story published on June 9. "There's a floodgate that's been opened for older athletes," Carter told the Bangor newspaper. "There's some humor, I'm joking, and this is my personal quest. But I want people to walk away thinking, 'I can still be a great athlete at the age of fifty, or forty-five, and I can beat twenty-year-olds.'" An Associated Press story, published June 9, 2008, said Carter's 1984 time in the 200 freestyle was close to the Olympic trials qualifying time, but he instead chose to join the Peace Corps. The book includes an account of Carter's week-long return to Kenyon in 2006, when he lived in a residence hall and worked out under Jim Steen, the head swimming coach. The Associated Press story, written by Andrew Welsh-Huggins '83, was carried in the Brandon Sun of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada; the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago, Illinois; the Erie (Pennsylvania) Times-News; the Honolulu (Hawaii) Advertiser; the Palm Beach (Florida) Post; and the Sun Journal of Lewiston, Maine.

President S. Georgia Nugent took part in a spirited roundtable discussion with other higher-education leaders and newsman Dan Rather on the challenges of the admissions process facing young people and families as well as colleges. The discussion was part of an hour-long segment of "Dan Rather Reports" called "Stress Test: Getting into College." The program aired on May 27, 2008 on HDNet. The dialogue touched on admissions fairness, the competition among students and colleges, and the controversy over subjective college rankings. Families should know that more than 3,000 colleges and universities in this country provide wonderful educations, Nugent said. "Who's going to reach their hand across the table and work together to change the system? Those efforts are beginning," she said. "There are efforts by school counselors and by the colleges themselves in different kinds of groupings to try and change the system and make it more effective and more appropriate, both for students and … the country."

H. Abbie Erler, assistant professor of political science, was quoted on May 27, 2008, in the Washington Post in a story about presidential pardons. The story was focused on the recent presidential appointment of Ronald L. Rodgers as head of the U.S. Justice Department pardon office. Erler has written a study about the factors behind pardons. She told the newspaper that Rodgers's military background and role as an investigator in narcotics cases could indicate a reluctance to recommend pardons for felons. "That sort of sets the tone," she said.

The hiring of Shaka Smart '99 as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Florida sparked interest with media mentions starting on June 1, 2008, in the Gainesville (Florida) Sun and online at http://cbs.sportsline.com. The hire by head coach Billy Donovan was also reported on June 2 in the State of Columbia, South Carolina, and the Naples (Florida) News; on June 3 in Florida Today of Melbourne; and on June 4 in the Miami (Florida) Herald. Florida Today called Smart "one of the hottest young names in college basketball."