As a student, Matt Winkler ’77 H’00 P’13 experienced the full range of housing options available at Kenyon at the time, from newly coed McBride Hall to Hanna Hall on South Campus, then to Peirce Tower, when Collegian editors could live there, and Gambier’s only high rise, Caples, for his senior year.
Now, Kenyon’s newest residence, named for Winkler’s decades of championing and cheerleading his alma mater, combines the best features of all Kenyon housing options, with apartment-style residences and views, all on South Campus with modern amenities.
“It was almost an out-of-body experience, I didn’t see it coming,” Winkler said of the naming. “It’s a huge honor, what can I say?”
Winkler Hall opened to roughly 100 students this fall and will be formally dedicated in a small ceremony Thursday, Oct. 23, with members of Winkler’s family in attendance. (Because Winkler Hall is a residence, the ceremony is not open to the public.)
President Julie Kornfeld celebrated Winkler’s broad and deep generosity to Kenyon. “Winkler Hall presents a unique opportunity for Kenyon to honor a building’s namesake with that namesake in attendance. Today’s students won’t know Lady Rosse, Lord Bexley or Robert Lowell, but they can get to know Matt Winkler. Thursday evening they will hear from him at the Collegian Journalism Conference, an event that highlights Matt’s own journalism origins here and which is also made possible by his generosity and investment in Kenyon today.”
Winkler was a history major who went on to co-found Bloomberg News in 1990 and served as its first editor-in-chief. He is an emeritus member of the Kenyon board as well as the Kenyon Review Board and is especially passionate about highlighting distinguished faculty members.
He remains editor-in-chief emeritus of Bloomberg News and, for the second consecutive year, is a visiting professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism teaching a course based on his book, “The Bloomberg Way.” He also served as a visiting professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, where he gave the commencement address in 2010. In addition, he has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Southern Methodist University, University of Oregon and more. In 2017, he founded the Bloomberg Journalism Diversity Program — a partnership with UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and City, University of London — which now has 300 alumni.
David Lynn ’76 H’23 P’14, whom Winkler met 52 years ago as a student in Chalmers Memorial Library and is now Professor Emeritus of English and Editor Emeritus of the Kenyon Review, lauded his lifelong friend. “Matt Winkler knows no other way than the truth. That was his beacon when he edited the Kenyon Collegian for two exceptional years, his leadership leading it to new journalistic heights — and to ruffling some feelings among the deans. But he was always steadfast, and never more so than in friendships that now stretch across decades and in his generosity of time and resources to Kenyon, his alma mater.”
Thomas Hall across Middle Path, is named for Emeritus Trustee Richard L. Thomas ’53 H’72 P’81 and opened to students in January. Aileen Hefferren ’88 H’12 had the opportunity to work with both honorees on the board, for which she now serves as chair. “I have been so inspired to hear Matt talk about the continued importance of us all doing our part for Kenyon, no matter the level. It comes from a place of deep affection that I hope today’s students will experience as well.”
Both residence halls were built by Smoot Construction and designed by the late architect Graham Gund ’63 H’81 and his Gund Partnership. Winkler interviewed Gund for the 2024 book “Place and Purpose: Kenyon at 200” and proclaimed himself a huge admirer. “Knowing how he thought about buildings and space, and especially about Kenyon in particular, it’s sort of overwhelming to think that there is actually a building on campus that tethers me to Graham Gund, I never would have expected that.”
Winkler Hall is the last of 16 projects designed by Gund since Storer Hall in 1999, including the Lowry Center, West Quad and renovations of Peirce and Bexley halls.
Each ADA-compliant new residence was built to Duke University’s High Performance Building Framework for sustainability. Their construction was made possible thanks to a record-setting $100 million anonymous gift made in January 2021 that allowed for the continuation of the Our Path Forward to the Bicentennial campaign until June 2024. Winkler’s own contributions during the campaign, including scholarship funding, were recognized with the naming of Winkler Atrium in Chalmers Library. He is also a consistent and vocal proponent of alumni giving to the Kenyon Fund.
Winkler said his philanthropy could be tied back to his sense that he was “one of the luckiest students ever to attend Kenyon.”
He pointed to his relationships with professors in the history department, including his advisor Peter Rutkoff H’21, and also Reed Browning H’07, Will Scott H’13 P’82,’02,’06 and the late Roy Wortman H’05. “When my daughter, Lydia (Winkler ’13), got to Kenyon, she wound up in her senior year being advised by the same Peter Rutkoff. And one of the things she did as a senior thesis was addressing America’s relative ignorance about the Tuskegee Airmen (the first black military aviators in the US Army). She brought surviving Tuskegee Airmen to Gambier, to Rosse Hall. And to sit there and see her on the stage with these men, who survived the second World War and the Korean War, and there she is, and I’m sitting next to Roy Wortman and Peter Rutkoff.
“That’s great, you know? And watching this and I’m saying, how could I not think this place is special? How could I not be grateful for how powerful that is? That’s something you’ll never see in a college ranking, but it’s extraordinary and exceptional.”