Celebration Luncheon Remarks

The luncheon included remarks by Jan Guifarro '73, Barbara Johnson '73 P'99,'07, Kay Koeninger '73, Susan McGannon '72 and Buffy Hallinan '76 H'91.

Remarks by Jan Guifarro '73

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all today. I’m going to start at the end — with my experience during the comprehensive exams or "comps" as we called them. For the uninformed, in order to graduate, at the end of your senior year, you had to pass comprehensive exams which were comprised of a written test, a paper and then orals, and as an English major you could be asked about anything from Beowulf to Bellows. 

So there I am at my orals, about to be questioned by a panel of three professors, and one professor — who can remain nameless — asks me why I wrote that Jonathan Swift was pedantic. Long pause (by me), some quick (I hope) thinking — I didn’t remember writing that — but I began to formulate a cogent, detailed response, I get a few sentences in when one of the other professors on the panel (who can also remain nameless) leans over and says to the first professor, "That’s not her paper — you're looking at someone else’s exam." Ooops! I was saved (and I did pass the comps).

So what did this experience teach me? What lessons did I learn from that experience — and really my total experience at Kenyon — that I’ve put into action over the last almost 50 years?

After a long career in communications I learned the "power of three" (and alliteration), so I’ll summarize with three ideas that all begin with the letter "C:" critical thinking, community and carry on (or as the British would say, "Keep Calm and Carry On"). 

Critical thinking: a liberal arts education teaches you to think, to study, consider, deliberate, formulate opinions, come to conclusions, build a strategy. It’s not rote learning memorizing facts, learning a skill. And this ability to utilize critical thinking has been an immense advantage for me in the business world. Critical thinking, along with another "C," the ability to communicate both in writing and orally, are a huge benefit of a liberal arts education.

The second "C" is community. In my intro it was mentioned that after Kenyon I went into the Peace Corps (if we have another three or four hours — or days — I can tell you all about that experience!). But the thing about Peace Corps volunteers is that they are a community of people who care and give back, and they never stop caring and giving back. At the National Peace Corps Association, we called creating a community that continues to give back the third goal (the first two goals of the Peace Corps are your actual assignment in-country, and your representation of America as an American in another country). Creating a community and caring is, of course, more than just community service — it’s caring about other people. And there isn’t a better example of a community than what we have here at Kenyon. Just being back on campus I can see how Kenyon’s community is strong, and how students, facility, administration care about each other and look after each other — just like that second professor at my comps who could have just let me continue to twist in the wind, and see what answer I came up with, but he didn’t. He cared about my success. And the Kenyon community thrives after graduation where most of us stay close to those from our class. But I’ve also made some of the best of friends from later Kenyon classes through participating in alumni activities.

The third "C" is to carry on. I do believe that you should wake up every day, say thank you for another day and then carry on — whether that’s your job, your family, your friends, giving back, one day at a time, step by step.

As a women in business, I get asked a lot for career advice. What I usually speak to, especially for those early in career, is that it’s a good idea to plan your career but maybe not too much. If I had a detailed specific plan for my career, I would have never ended up at a company with a job I loved. I didn’t even know communications existed as a career when I left Kenyon! Throughout my time at Colgate (and other companies before), I was many times offered what were called "broadening assignments." Try this, lead this task force, take on this project. At one point I thought I was going to become so broad from these assignments that I wouldn’t fit through the door! But taking on risks, trying something new — carrying on — always looking to the next day and not back, led to a very satisfying career and life so far. 

So, we’re back to those "C's" — starting with comps at Kenyon and then on to critical thinking ,community and carrying on.

At the risk of overdoing this "C" thing, this past 50 years for me, and I would guess for most of us alums here, has been a "continuation" of our life and experience at Kenyon — a "consolidation" of everything we’ve learned and experienced, and now you can give a “collective sigh of relief" that I’ve concluded.
 

Remarks by Barbara Johnson '73 P'99,'07

Good afternoon, my class of 1973 sisters. How quickly fifty years pass! During that time, I have often embraced and fondly remembered Kenyon College. The college has given me much. First, as a citizen of segregated Gary, Indiana, I circuitously met my first Kenyon friend, Janet Harvey, in 1968. Engaged to my cousin, William Graddick, Janet is the daughter of Kenyon professor, Ed Harvey. Knowing that I was wary of getting lost in Indiana’s huge state schools, she suggested that I apply to Kenyon, which was opening an affiliate school for women in the fall of 1969. To let her know that I valued her suggestion and as an avid Paul Newman fan, I applied. When the college accepted me and offered me a $3000 scholarship, more than any other scholarship announced at the 1969 cotillion, Mama said, "That’s where you’re going." Janet was and will always be my friend.

Secondly, Kenyon gave me a safe, supportive and pastoral environment in which to develop and test my principles. Just a few of my early challenges were: should I protest the hours Dean Crozier established for the young ladies of the Coordinate College? Should I attend an Episcopal church? Should Doretha and I go to Tommy Frye’s room —a boy’s room — to hear the profanity-laced speeches of Black Panther Eldridge Clever? Should I, against my father’s instructions, embrace the black upper class men who could possibly be MILITANT? Well, I did not protest — it wasn’t yet in my blood. I attended the church, went to Tommy’s room, and, to my father’s chagrin, totally embraced the intelligence and support of those wonderful men of the Black Student Union: the late, great Ed Pope, Eugene Peterson — Buddha — Roland Parsons, Gary Hayes, Keith O’Donnell, Tommy Frye, Ulysses Hammond, the late, lovable Larry Parker and Johnnie L. Johnson — especially John.

John and I have been married 47 years and have together raised four lovely children: Kamille '99, Garrett, William '07 and Rachel. They, in turn, have given us seven beautiful, intelligent grandchildren. 

Through my roommate, Sara Sedgwick, I became a member of the Senior Society. As a member, I was privileged to have breakfast with Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Above all, Kenyon gave me exposure to some of the finest professors of the day: Roelofs, Crump, Lentz, Duff, Church, Marley, Ward, McLaren, Browning — erudite teachers who taught me to question and think critically — to write and to love the writings of Shakespeare, Milton, Hawthorne, Ellison, and others. My professors’ instruction made me a more confident scholar and writer, so that I eventually submitted opinion pieces for public consumption in the Collegian, the school newspaper. I eventually entered the Honors Program in English and graduated with high honors. Through their Socratic instruction, I learned to teach — my life’s work. And through teaching and writing, I eventually earned a summer scholarship to study Shakespeare and Romanticism at Oxford University in England.

My life has truly been enriched by Kenyon College. Indeed, Janet’s suggestion blossomed into a life-changing experience for me. 
 

Remarks by Kay Koeninger '73

Hello everyone, it is a real honor to be here. I know that all of you have wonderful stories to tell.  

I have one that actually took place before I even enrolled. Marci Barr Abbott said to be sure to tell the truth, not alternate facts. After 50 years, I am not sure I can tell the difference between the two. But here is what I remember.

In my family, there was no question that I would go to college. My mother, grandmother and two of my great-grandmothers were college graduates. And the decision was left up to my mother and me. My dad was there hovering around somewhere, but not really a part of the equation. That’s how dads were back then. And my dad really was hovering because he was a pilot.

My mom was a proud graduate of Texas Women’s University and I think that she felt that Texas Women’s University was the eighth member of the Seven Sisters. She a real fan of women’s colleges. For some reason Vassar and Smith were active recruiters at my high school. So, for my Mom, the choice was simple: Vassar or Smith. OK. 

I was clueless about all this and certainly didn’t take a strategic or research-based approach to thinking about college choices like students do today. One day I was reading Sports Illustrated instead of studying and saw an article about Kenyon basketball. It didn’t matter to me that Sports Illustrated was probably not the best source for choosing a college. I mentioned Kenyon to my mom and her face lit up: Kenyon? The Kenyon Review! Liberal arts! Episcopalians! My mom is a serious Episcopalian: hell to her is having to eat your dessert with a salad fork. So she said, "The choices are Vassar, Smith and Kenyon?" with a slight question mark at the end. My mom has always been a woman of extremes: my college choices were two women’s colleges and a men’s college that had been a men’s college since 1824. OK, I said.

Then we were off for the interview and admissions tour at Kenyon. I was petrified. I brought my best friend along for support. My mom of course also brought her best friend. 

I loved the campus from the very first. It looked like my ideal of a college, even though it was a dreary November day after all the leaves had fallen. The tour guide was a soft-spoken young man who wore a pea coat in dark navy. He politely took us along Middle Path and on a tour of Peirce, where I felt many pairs of male eyes looking my way. Flattering yet creepy. We were probably the only women within a ten mile radius. At the end of the tour, the guide took me aside and said, "I need to let you know this, but most of the men don’t want women to come to Kenyon." Wow — what a unique marketing tool!

 And you know, I was quiet. This was 1969, after all. But deep down inside I was saying: "Thank you for helping me make my decision. I am coming to Kenyon!" And so I did.

How has this small interchange influenced me? Simply, it taught me to be brave and try something different. To do something scary, even. There have been many times when I have to admit I have failed miserably at being brave and have taken the easier alternative. But whenever have I lived up to that lesson I learned 50 years ago at Kenyon, I feel the gravel crunch beneath my feet, just like the first time I walked down Middle Path. 

Thank you.

Remarks by Buffy Hallinan '76 H'91

I was in the first class to enter after the dissolution of the coordinate College. Was I aware that I had applied and been admitted to it and not Kenyon? No, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I had heard of Kenyon for my whole life. Living in Cleveland, being an Episcopalian in a family of the faithful, Kenyon was part of the fabric made of conversation and family friends. That it had recently become co-ed, which appealed to my sense of adventure, made it a possible destination. Looking for a college to attend, I wanted no part of sororities or physical education requirements. I definitely wanted a good education but I also wanted to meet boys, smoke weed, drink and have fun. Check check check. Kenyon was all that. 

In a Founders Day address in 1998, our beloved Professor Don Rogan asked us to help others be the "Founders of the Future." He went on to say that "Founding does not last forever."

We early women were some of these founders who helped establish the framework for what Kenyon has become over the last 50 years. You were organization presidents, poets, team captains, editors, prize and scholarship winners, artists… it’s a long list. LOOK AT ALL OF YOU! 

This weekend we’ll hear more of how our founding work has shaped our lives after our departure from the Hill. 

In my many years as a trustee, we often, in retreats, worked to identify Kenyon’s strengths and distinctive qualities. This was about the future of Kenyon:  about attracting the best students, about gaining a diverse student body, about maintaining "the most beautiful campus."  But at the top of that list of strengths — always — was the faculty. Teaching was a definition and a value of the College. 

Our look this weekend won’t focus too much on the faculty’s contributions and stories though I must also tell you that there is a considerable history of the contributions by women of the faculty (and others) who insisted that Kenyon hire more women to teach and that the curriculum evolve to recognize the diversity of non-male intellectual contributions. 

Barriers were broken at every step of the way. Those foundings were not easy either.

An early initiative was the creation in 1976 of the President's Advisory Council on the Status of Women at Kenyon, which took seriously the College’s mission "to afford its students a high sense of their own humanity and to inspire them to work with others to make a society that would nourish a better MANkind." Sorry, that’s what they called it. 

The Council argued that "commitment to equality of the sexes is consonant with the College’s goal of inspiring students to understand their own humanity." Some of you may remember the curricular "battles" of those years. 

At issue was much more than simply hiring more women faculty. Some people were threatened by the inclusion of feminist theory in the curriculum. It was seen by them as an one of those existential threats to the integrity THEIR version of the traditional liberal arts curriculum. Quite honestly, as students we may not have been aware of the internal strife that these discussions engendered. It wasn’t until 1983 that women’s studies was taught for the first time and not until 1990 that women’s and gender studies was legitimized with the hiring of Laurie Fink to oversee that curricular advance.

In 1991, the Commission on Student Life made recommendations which included a 50 percent limit on group housing in any residence hall thus allowing women to live in spaces traditionally reserved only for men. This broken barrier still rankles a few who continue to say that the College was better off without women (They have such good memories!). 

I’ve often thought that it really wasn’t until that decade, the late 80s/early 90s, that the College had become successfully co-ed. It took that long for us to arrive in the symbolic real estate that is Old Kenyon.  

Today, there are 20 women on the Kenyon Board of Trustees. There are 21 men. Up from ZERO in 1969: 50 years…. 

Fortunately, Kenyon women have never been willing to wait for top-down changes. The Crozier Center, the Horn Gallery, Stage Femmes and Colla Voce, the newest a capella group — these are a few — were started by students at their own initiative. 

We’ve gone from being individual pioneers to groups of women coming together to problem solve, work together, and use our voices and brains to make a difference on the Hill. There is still much to do as the critical issues of inclusion and equality swirl around, especially as we mark this significant anniversary for Kenyon women and, in two weeks, the 50th anniversary of the Black Student Union. 

Many of us have learned the hard way about the difficulty and importance of speaking up. In the larger world around us now, it’s clear that we have plenty of work to do there too, don’t we? 

Let me quote Don Rogan again from the speech I mentioned a minute ago. 

"Founding does not last forever. Foundings get things going and influence other things to get going and cause still other things to happen." This is our story. Let’s keep writing it.