Along Middle Path
Senior Benjamin Bagocius wins Watson Fellowship
Kenyon senior Benjamin D. Bagocius has been awarded a $22,000 fellowship by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation for a one-year independent research project entitled "Masculinity, Femininity, and Figure Skating." He will pursue his studies in Canada, China, Japan, Russia, and Sweden.
During his year-long studies, for which the only requirement is a five-page paper, Bagocius will be responsible for making all of his own travel and lodging arrangements.
Bagocius was one of sixty winners announced on March 24. He was chosen from a field of more than one thousand applicants from fifty selective private liberal-arts colleges and universities. Students must first be nominated by their college or university before competing on the national level.
A native of Stow, Ohio, Bagocius is an English major who began skating when he was in the fifth grade. "I think every little kid dreams of being in the Olympics, but by the time I got to high school, my interests began to shift," he says of his early skating aspirations.
"The Watson people were impressed with the creativity of Ben's proposal from the very start," says Dean for Academic Advising Jane Martindell. "This is really an adventure of the heart for him.
"The Watson is about stretching yourself to do something you're passionate about," she adds. "I think this will be a wonderful opportunity for Ben."
Bagocius says that, through his experiences with skating, he realized that gender roles in the United States are firmly established in the skating world. The traditional rules require that women wear skirts, men's skating programs are longer than women's, and it's common for women to wear white skates, while the men wear black. Women are often given more rewards for being graceful than for their technical ability as athletes.
"Skating is traditionally seen as a more feminine sport. One of the most popular male skaters of our time is Scott Hamilton," says Bagocius. "I think one of the reason he's gained so much popularity is that he pushed hard to make skating more traditionally masculine. He didn't wear sequins on his costumes."
Eventually, Bagocius says, he hopes to attend graduate school in poetry or creative writing. "I don't want a typical career," he notes. "I want to be able to do whatever interests me at the moment."
Anthropologist Rita Kipp named to Oden Professorship
Professor of Anthropology Rita S. Kipp, a long-time member of the Kenyon faculty, has been appointed the first incumbent of the College's Robert A. Oden Jr. Professorship. The announcement was made by President Robert A. Oden Jr., for whom the endowed position is named.
"I will always be grateful to the donor who funded this chair and also suggested that it bear the name it does," said Oden. "Thankful as we are for the generous gifts supporting our new facilities, Kenyon is all about people, and endowed positions enable us to honor some of our finest.
"From the comments of her students and colleagues, from the external review of her department and much more, I know Rita Kipp to be a superb teacher who has worked systematically to revise her courses and teaching methods to meet students' needs," Oden noted. "Her teaching and research are in happy accord with the chair's description, which accents the tenacity required to reach breakthrough moments in the holder's discipline. It is both moving and significant that we are now able to honor another exemplary faculty member in this way."
"It is a great honor to be the first professor to hold this new chair," said Kipp. "I'm especially excited about the research opportunities this will afford students, opportunities I intend to make open to students in Asian studies as well as in anthropology."
Kipp, who joined the Kenyon faculty in 1976, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Oklahoma. She earned her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, where she wrote her dissertation in cultural anthropology on "The Ideology of Kinship in Karo Batak Ritual," focusing on a Sumatran ethnic group. Kipp is the author of The Early Years of Dutch Colonial Mission and Dissociated Identities: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in an Indonesian Society, among other books and articles.
Currently serving as director of the College's Asian Studies Program in addition to teaching anthropology courses, Kipp has long been interested in Southeast Asia. She is also a faculty member of Kenyon's International Studies Program.
Kipp has conducted research in Indonesia and Singapore with grants from the Fulbright Exchange Program, the South-east Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and the College's Faculty Development Fund. Last summer, she codirected a tour, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, that took nine college teachers to Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The Oden Professorship, funded by an anonymous donation of $1.5 million, was the fifth of the six endowed positions announced to date as part of "Claiming Our Place: The Campaign for Kenyon." The others are the John B. McCoy-Bank One Distinguished Teaching Chair (held by Theodore O. Mason of the English department), the Richard M. Thomas '53 Chair in Creative Writing (Lewis Hyde), the Harry M. Clor Chair in Political Science (Pamela Jensen), the James D. and Cornelia W. Ireland Chair in Music (Benjamin R. Locke), and, most recently, the Robert P. Hubbard '53 Chair in Poetry (as yet unassigned).
Sociologist George McCarthy will hold NEH Professorship
George "Mac" McCarthy, professor of sociology, has been named to Kenyon's National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Distinguished Teaching Professorship. He will hold the prestigious post for a three-year term, beginning with the 2001-02 academic year.
"Mac McCarthy is a sterling example of how great scholarship can coexist with distinguished teaching, of how the best scholars are often the most dedicated teachers," said President Robert A. Oden Jr. "We are pleased to be able to recognize him in this way."
The NEH Professorship is awarded through a competitive process that involves submission of a proposal to a selection committee. McCarthy's proposal was entitled "Democracy and Social Justice: Ancient and Modern."
"The selection committee was especially impressed by Mac McCarthy's proposal for its ambition and scope," said Gregory P. Spaid, associate provost and professor of art at the College, who served as chair of the committee. "The members were also impressed with his preparation for leading students through an illuminating examination of ancient and modern theories of democracy and social justice."
In his proposal, McCarthy writes that he intends to examine the influence of Greek and Hebrew traditions on the development of American and German social theory, with special emphasis on issues of democracy and social justice. "The goal is to explore the very foundations of our civilization and expand our knowledge of its major traditions as we probe the fundamental questions that face us in the twenty-first century: What kind of society do we want to live in, and what will be its underlying institutions and values?"
McCarthy, who will be on sabbatical during the 2000-01 academic year, will offer four new courses as part of the project, beginning with "Rediscovering Democracy in America: Liberalism and Communitarianism" and "Social Ecology and Environmental Justice: Aristotle and the Moderns" during the 2001-02 academic year. The following year, he will offer "Modernity and the Ancients: From Nietzsche to Habermas" and "Natural Law and Natural Rights: Ethics and Social Justice." The first year's courses will be repeated in the third year.
A member of the Kenyon faculty since 1979, McCarthy is a summa cum laude graduate of Manhattan College. He went on to earn a master's degree and doctorate in philosophy from Boston College and a master's degree and doctorate in sociology from the New School for Social Research.
A former Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Research Fellow at the University of Frankfurt, McCarthy has been a guest professor at the University of Kassell, the University of Munich, and the Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle in Moenchengladbach. In 1994-95, he was a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar in Germany.
McCarthy is the author of several books as well as numerous articles and reviews. His book Romancing Antiquity: German Critique of the Enlightenment from Weber to Habermas was published in 1997, while Justice Beyond Liberalism: Natural Law and Economic Democracy in U.S. and German Catholicism, his second book with coauthor Royal Rhodes, a professor of religion at the College, is scheduled to appear later this year. McCarthy's most recent work, Objectivity and the Silence of Reason: Weber, Habermas, and the Methodological Disputes in German Sociology, has just been accepted for publication.
The first holder of the NEH professorship was Professor of Sociology Howard L. Sacks, who used his three-year appointment to create the "Family Farm Project" documenting rural life in Knox County. The current incumbents are history professors Peter Rutkoff and William B. Scott, who are in the final year of a seminar series entitled "Great Migrations: The African-American Urban History Project."
Kenyon economists take the road less traveled
Whether creating an in-class "factory" that manufactures peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches or exploring how Peru cornered the organic fertilizer market in the nineteenth century, Kenyon economics professors are known for taking the road less traveled in their teaching methods.
Alys Spensley, a junior from Minneapolis, Minnesota, thinks such offbeat examples enliven the teaching of economic theories that often are perceived as dull and difficult to grasp. Take the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich factory, she says. Associate Professor of Economics William R. Melick supplied her and her classmates one knife, a couple of jars of peanut butter and jelly, and about ten loaves of bread. The goal was to illustrate the economic principle of diminishing returns by making the sandwiches.
"Things went okay with one worker," recalls Spensley. "With two, things sped up wonderfully. With three workers, the sandwiches were made efficiently and quickly. However, by the time we got to four, five, or six workers, things were not as pretty. In fact, our production with three workers was better than with six."
Thus, an economic lesson was learned. "And the best part of the story was that we had PB&J sandwiches for lunch," remembers a smiling Spensley.
Melick says the principle of diminishing returns has many implications for economists, but he observes that "seeing that link can be a little tricky for students." So Melick, who is completing his second year of teaching at the College, borrowed the PB&J factory idea from Jim Keeler, an economics professor at Kenyon since 1984. "There are so many great teachers at the College," says Melick. "It's a challenge for me to measure up."
Spensley and other students believe Melick is up to the challenge. They benefit from his experiences as an economist with the Federal Reserve, where he worked for eleven years before accepting his appointment at Kenyon. Melick was an international-finance expert who, in recent years, provided weekly briefings on foreign currency exchange markets to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Fed's Board of Governors.
In the classroom, Melick encourages students to take much the same approach to their work as he did at the Fed. They study financial data, much of it gleaned from the Internet, to see if the predictions made by economic models hold true. The key for students, he explains, is to translate a real-life situation into an economic model. "Economics is a bit like mathematics or physics--the key is to know how to set up the problem," says Melick. "Once the translation is made, the actual manipulation of the equation is not all that bad."
The lessons learned in an economics class also have value in a number of other areas of study, according to Brendan Rogers, a junior from Dallas, Texas, who is majoring in economics. "For example, the study of economics adds insight to the common debate over the relative merits of capitalism and socialism encountered in political science," he says. "Also, economic reasoning is particularly useful in English classes. . . . The economic approach to Lear sheds light on the morality of Shakespeare's tragic character."
Spensley, an international-studies major, saw economic principles illuminated in her study of imperialism, as well as in her work on the development of political systems. "Courses in anthropology and history also tied into the things I was learning in my economics class," she points out.
Such connections are regularly made in the College's interdisciplinary approach to education, according to Himmelright Associate Professor of Economics David Harrington. "Economics is a tool for under-standing policies that people care about," he says.
As an example, he cites a classroom discussion about an inner-city hospital that could not afford to provide a powerful cancer-fighting drug to its patients. The pharmaceutical company's patent gave it a monopoly on the drug, enabling it to charge a high price that covered development costs and provided a profit to the company's investors. "It became a horror to the students that a company's prices are above the cost of producing something that saves people's lives," says Harrington.
Not all of Harrington's classroom examples are quite that serious. After all, this is a scholar who has studied the economic implications of vanity license plates and cremation, as well as more mainstream subjects such as the taxation of Social Security benefits and the demand for housing.
"I use quirky examples in my classes to dispel the notion that economics is just about dry business topics--to show that it's not just about making widgets," notes Harrington. "We focus on teaching economic reasoning skills, which are particularly valid in business."
A member of the Kenyon faculty since 1986, Harrington has seen a number of his students move on to the country's top graduate schools of business, including those at Harvard and Stanford universities and the University of Chicago. The College's "econ" majors have also fared well in landing positions with Fortune 500 companies and top national management consulting firms, such as Andersen Consulting and McKinsey and Company.
The firms value the students' ability to communicate and defend their positions, a skill honed in the small classes and seminars that are an integral part of a Kenyon education. The College "fosters enough competition to make students work hard, but in a nurturing environment where they are still able to work with each other," says Harrington.
"The changing nature of labor-market economics makes the value of a liberal-arts education extremely high," he says. "Agile, flexible minds are likely to be even more highly rewarded in the future, and that places Kenyon graduates in an advantageous position."
Summer program gives first-year students a head start
The high school I went to was, in my opinion, academically behind a typical high school," says James J. Greenwood, a sophomore from Cleveland, Ohio, and a member of Kenyon's first Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science and Mathematics Workshop in 1998. "I graduated in a class of one hundred students, but the class started out in ninth grade with about nine hundred. The fact that I did `well' by the school's standards meant that I was only `average' by the standards of most high schools."
The College offers a number of programs that seek to ease the transition from high school to college for students like Greenwood. The HHMI program at Kenyon specifically seeks to introduce incoming first-year students to the study of math and science in the college environment. The two-week summer program addresses many of the elements that are perhaps most intimidating about college life, from living away from home to coping with academic demands.
For Greenwood and students like him, the early introduction to academic life at the College, and his success in the program, allayed some of his fears about not being adequately prepared for the college classroom.
While at Kenyon, the participants live with roommates in College residence halls. They meet future classmates, professors, administrators, and members of the support staff while learning to navigate around the campus. When classes begin in the fall, they already know how to find things in the library, how to use the computer for research and e-mail, and where classrooms and offices are located. They are, so to speak, the "experts"--the people to whom other students can turn for information and advice. The enhanced confidence such knowledge confers on the program's graduates is an asset that helps them through an experience that might otherwise seem overwhelming.
"For me, one of the best things about the program was that we came together as a group of strangers, but we came away as friends," says Meheret Birru, a sophomore from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who plans to major in biology. Birru's comment is echoed by nearly all the participants. For many, it's a pleasant surprise to discover that a deep friendship can grow between people of different backgrounds and interests in so short a time.
The heart of the program is the introduction to the rigors of college-level academic life, particularly in math and science. During the course of the two weeks, students engage in three college-level laboratories, one each in biology, chemistry, and physics. Daily readings are assigned, and students are also responsible for two major projects: a multimedia presentation, using PowerPoint, based on library research on a medicinal herb, and a formal report from the lab experience of their preference.
"The technology in the labs at Kenyon just blew me away," says Nathan Hara, a first-year student from Sylvania, Ohio, who says he will most likely not major in a science. "Everything was at a higher level than anything I had experienced in high school."
In all three labs, students use the skills that will be required in any mathematics or science courses they attempt at the College. These include the abilities to follow a protocol, to generate data and record it accurately, to manipulate the data mathematically with the aid of computer software, and to interpret the results. Through the use of a range of techniques and principles, students hone their critical-thinking skills--skills that Kenyon professors emphasize across the curriculum and that will stand the students in good stead regardless of their ultimate choice of a field of concentration.
The formal lab report must include an abstract, background information, materials and methods, results, discussion of key points, and references. In many cases, this is the first time a student has been introduced to the preparation of such a report. The reports undergo many revisions, with plenty of instructor feedback, until they reach the quality expected in one of the College's lab courses.
In addition to the lab work, students and faculty members meet to discuss various scientific topics based on the assigned readings.
"The goal of these discussions is to get students thinking about some of the larger issues in science and to help them see the ways in which science affects our everyday lives," says Associate Professor of Physics Paula C. Turner. "We might talk about cloning or global warming or the ethics of genetic research. We also want to help the students to learn how to ask good questions."
Because of the nature of a liberal-arts education, some of the students who participate in the HHMI program will ultimately find fields of study that engage their intellect outside the math and science arena. But for all of them, their chances of success have been improved by their early introduction to the campus, to the people who make up the Kenyon community, and most especially to the other students with whom they will often remain close friends.
Debaters relish the challenges of constructing a sound argument
When members of the Kenyon Debating Society talk about the rigors of parliamentary debate competition, one wonders how anybody could see this activity as fun. There's ritualized heck-ling, the belittling of your ideas, opportunistic rule-bending, surprise definitions of terms at the heart of your argument, and the occasional personal attack--not to mention the basic challenge of having to be articulate, coherent, and persuasive on your feet, out loud, within a fixed time limit, and with virtually no time to prepare.
And then there are the Model United Nations contests, which pose their own forensic (and personal) challenges, including the need for extensive background research, political astuteness, negotiating skills, and sheer stamina.
A small group of students at the College relishes these challenges. Since its founding in 1997, the Debating Society has held its own in the debate world while bringing home an astonishing victory in its first Model U.N. conference. The team's success is all the more impressive given that many of the members are first-year students and that, unlike most of their opponents -- teams that have coaches, quasi-academic status, and ample funding, including scholarships -- they've done it all themselves.
"It's been a lot of work," says Laura Marx '00 of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, one of the society's founders. "We've learned by teaching one another and by comparing notes. When we started, we had no idea what we were doing, so we were very creative."
The very existence of the society exemplifies the cheerful tradition at Kenyon of students organizing new clubs when none exist to serve a particular interest. Chatting during their freshman year, Marx and Devin Bowles '00 of Carmel, Indiana, realized they and a number of other students had fond memories of high-school debating. They wondered, jokingly at first, whether a team at the College would fly. The next year, with a handful of other students, they decided to find out.
Named for the ritualized but sometimes raucous debating practices of the British parliament, parliamentary debate tests the competitors' logic, verbal adroitness, poise, and verve. Each team in a round consists of two debaters, with one team assigned the "government" side and the other taking the role of "opposition." The judges, generally students at the college hosting the competition, give them two topics: one is a serious, often political subject, such as "This House believes that Congress should return more power to the states"; the other tends to be off-beat, such as "This House would eat sushi" or "This House would rock the boat."
Each duo then has ten minutes to prepare a set of three speeches, each with specified time limit (some are as short as four minutes, others as long as eight). The catch is that the government gets to pick one of the two topics, while the opposition has no idea what that topic will be until the government delivers its opening speech. Thus, while the government team spends ten minutes preparing its arguments and anticipating responses, the opposition must try to anticipate all eventualities.
"For the first three or four minutes, you sit there and draw a blank," says Marx of the meager preparation period. "Then you and your partner start to brain-storm. You think of your best points, flesh out your arguments, and jot down notes for an introduction and conclusion."
In assessing the speeches, judges note the strength and number of the arguments and counterarguments made by each team. Composure and wit will strengthen your performance, says Marx, though she has seen some teams cross the line into condescending gibes and personal remarks. You are not supposed to come in with a "prepared case," but occasionally a team will arrive with a set of carefully rehearsed speeches, hoping they can bend one of the topics to fit their arguments.
There are strategic considerations as well. You might throw in a "dummy point," for example, in the hope that the other side will waste time shooting it down and thus fail to address your real points adequately. You can define a term in an unexpected way, rendering the opposition's planned rebuttal meaningless. Interruptions for "points of information" are allowed -- and can be used to rattle your adversaries. In some rounds, the audience can interrupt as well, or heckle; spectators can move from one side of the room to the other to show their approval for a team's performance.
The Kenyon team has competed in three tournaments, two at the University of Chicago and one, in January, at Georgetown University. Facing schools such as Princeton, Stanford, and George Washington University, the team has had mixed success -- Marx and Bowles went 3-2 in the first Chicago tournament, 1-4 at Georgetown -- but has generally finished with a respectable showing in the middle of the pack.
"Kenyon may not yet have a reputation in debate," says Marx, "but we have been able to take on schools that are tiers above us."
The Model U.N. team, mean-while, outscored fourteen other colleges and universities to win its very first contest, held last November at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Formed just last fall by Debating Society member Rob Passmore '02 of Rochester, New York, and first-year student Cheyne Blair of Tustin, Cali-fornia, the Model U.N. team includes twelve students. Nine had never participated in Model U.N. before getting involved at Kenyon, and of the eight who competed at Case Western Reserve, seven were first-year students.
At Model U.N. "conferences," teams of students are supposed to represent real nations con-vincingly, dealing with actual issues that come before U.N. committees. Success depends on in-depth research prior to the conference, but that's only the beginning. The conference itself involves long hours in committee, debating, drafting resolutions, and negotiating.
"You're judged on your speaking ability and also your ability to listen and reach com-promises, to actually accomplish something," says Passmore, a double major in political sci-ence and economics. "Acting ability is important, toohow well you represent your country's best interests."
Passmore was steeped in Model U.N. in high school, as was Blair. The two served as coaches for the Kenyon team, which represented both South Africa and Kazakhstan at the three-day Case Western Reserve event. "We tried to make it as much fun as possible," says Blair. "We wanted to lighten things up."
At the competition, for example, the students deliberately tried to use the word "zest" in every speech and resolution, a quirky gesture that created good will while making the team memorable. In the end, the team came away with a half dozen individual awards as well as a trophy for best delegation.
While it pleases Debating Society members to be faring so well against teams with estab-lished programs, they have seen how wearing the do-it-yourself approach can be. While attending competitions, the parliamentary debaters have had to sleep on lounge floors in noisy dormitories. And Marx notes that there are times she wishes the team had an exper-ienced coach.
Nevertheless, the society is encouraged by the support it has received from the campus community, in part through fundraisers. In gratitude, Marx offered a five-session public-speaking workshop for members of the administration, faculty, and staff, and society members plan to offer a similar workshop for students, who often find themselves uncomfortable when giving oral presentations in class or as part of senior exercises.
"We've gotten a lot from Kenyon, and we want to give something back," says Marx. She promises not to heckle.
Fall 1999 sports in brief
Men's cross country
(1999 North Coast Athletic Conference [NCAC] Champions)
A standout season for the Lords included an NCAC championship, the first in Kenyon history in men's cross country.
Paced by first-year Lords Ben Hildebrand and Greg Remaly, the team stunned the field by placing four runners among the top thirteen finishers. Hildebrand placed fifth and Remaly seventh, followed by sophomore Cary Snyder in twelfth place and junior Vince Evener in thirteenth. First-year Lord Matt Cabrerra contributed a nineteenth-place effort. All five earned All-NCAC accolades.
Kenyon finished with 56 points to stun defending champion and title favorite Denison University. The Big Red tallied 63 points. Wabash College took third place with 84 points.
All-NCAC honorees: First team, Hildebrand and Remaly; second team, Evener and Snyder; honorable mention, Cabrerra.
NCAC Coach of the Year: Duane Gomez.
Women's cross country
(1999 NCAC runners-up)
Another solid season for the Ladies included numerous highlights, as the powerful duo of Laura Shults and Gelsey Lynn took turns placing first and second in nearly every race in which they competed.
That included the NCAC meet, where Shults took the individual championship in a time of 19:31.20, followed by runner-up Lynn in a time of 19:51.50.
Overall, Kenyon placed second in the title run, with 66 points. Defending champion Denison University placed first with 51 points. Oberlin College was a surprising third-place finisher with 101 points.
Junior Molly Sharp, who placed fourteenth for Kenyon, was named to the All-NCAC team with Shults and Lynn.
All-NCAC honorees: First team, Shults and Lynn; second team, Sharp.
NCAC Runner of the Year: Shults.
Field hockey
(5-14 overall, 3-9 NCAC, sixth place)
It was a learning season for the Ladies, under the guidance of head coach Wendi Weimer. The 1999 season marked Weimer's return to the program she coached in 1996, when she guided the Ladies to a 14-5 finish and a second-place showing in the NCAC.
The Ladies were not far off that pace in 1999, as seven of the team's losses were by one or two goals. Senior goalkeeper Erika Prahl helped to keep Kenyon in numerous contests and finished the season with a career-high 273 saves, the second-highest single-season effort in the College's history. That total also increased her saves mark to 592, placing her third among Kenyon's all-time stoppers.
Offensively, the Ladies scored sixteen goals, with seven off the stick of first-year Lady Whitney Riepe. Sophomore Caitlin Chun-Kennedy added four. Riepe and sophomore Lindsey Jones led the team in assists, each with three.
All-NCAC honorees: Second team, Prahl and Riepe; honorable mention, junior Samara Estroff.
Football
(1-9 overall, 0-6 NCAC, seventh place)
Despite a disappointing record, the Lords' 1999 season was filled with highlights--highlights that focused on senior running back Anthony Togliatti, who finished the season with nearly every rushing and scoring record in the books.
The talented runner tied or set at least eight Kenyon records, including single-game rushing yards (271 vs. Earlham College), single-season yards (1,466), and career rushing yards (2,826). He finished as the leading rusher in the NCAC, averaging 146.6 yards per game. He also ranked second in all-purpose yards, with the same average.
Kenyon's record was a bit deceiving, as the Lords were competitive nearly every time they stepped onto the field. Four losses were by one or two touchdowns.
Sophomore Kris Cheney, junior Andrew Malone, senior Nate Erickson, and sophomore Ben Mellino emerged as the workhorses for the defensive squad. Cheney led the team in total tackles with 131, followed by Malone with 107, Erickson with 94, and Mellino with 93. Malone led the team in tackles for lost yards, with ten for thirty-seven yards.
All-NCAC honorees: First-team offense, Togliatti; honorable-mention defense, senior Ian Nickey and Malone.
GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-District IV: First team, Togliatti; second team, Malone.
GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America: Second team, Togliatti
Men's soccer
(5-12-3 overall, 1-6-2 NCAC, tenth place)
The 1999 campaign started out as a very promising one for the Lords. A 3-1 victory over Marietta College was followed by a strong showing in the Ohio Wesleyan University Invitational, where Kenyon topped Hope College 2-0 and Concordia University of Wisconsin 2-1. Seniors Greg Stephenson and Eric Hakeman, sophomore Nkululeko Moyo, and first-year Lord Tyler Perfect were named to the All-Tournament team.
But as injuries started to plague the Lords, so did losses. Kenyon dropped four consecutive matches before seemingly getting back on track with an impressive 3-2 win over perennial national power Bethany College.
There was only a brief time to celebrate, however, as five consecutive losses followed that victory. Kenyon snapped the skid with a 2-1 win over Hiram College. Overall, the Lords dropped six matches by one or two goals.
It was that kind of season for the injury-hampered team, which scored only twenty-three goals, the lowest total since 1986, when Kenyon managed just sixteen goals. Stephenson led the Lords' 1999 offensive output with five goals and two assists. Senior J.B. Pecorak paced the defense as goalie, recording 108 saves.
All-NCAC honorees: First team, Moyo; honorable mention, Hakeman.
Women's soccer
(8-12-1 overall, 2-6 NCAC, seventh place)
It was a season of improvement for a young Kenyon team that produced the highest total of victories since the 1996 team closed the year with a 9-7-1 record. To say the Ladies were competitive would be an under-statement, as nine of Kenyon's twelve losses were by one or two goals.
A highlight of the season took place in Sewanee, Tennessee, where the Ladies won the University of the South Invitational. Kenyon opened the competition with a 2-1 victory over the University of the South and took the championship with a 1-0 win over highly touted Greensboro College. It was only the second tournament title in the history of the Ladies soccer program.
Junior Shannon Maroney paced Kenyon in scoring with nine goals and an assist. First-year Lady Kari Vandenburg backed that up with four goals and two assists. Kenyon protected the goal with four cap-able goalies, led by first-year Lady Maureen Collins. She played in fifteen matches and recorded 98 saves and four shutout victories.
All-NCAC honorees: Second team, junior Louise Eddelston; honorable mention, sophomore Jess Fertig and Vandenburg.
Volleyball
(9-24 overall, 4-4 NCAC, fourth-place tie)
Single-match records set by senior Maggie Beeler and junior Stephanie Goes high-lighted the 1999 season for Kenyon.
Beeler recorded the mark for most digs with 41 against Ohio Wesleyan University, as Kenyon stunned the Lady Bishops with a 9-15, 15-12, 17-15, 15-7 setback. Goes set her record in the same match, recording 74 assists.
Overall, Goes finished the 1999 campaign with 1,004 assists, increasing her three-year career total to 3,123, a Kenyon record. Her effort eclipsed the former record of 2,418 assists, set by Heather Spencer '89 from 1985 through 1988.
Senior Erin Wimmers finished the year ranked third among the NCAC's leaders in digs, averaging 3.99 per match. She led the team overall with a total of 455.
First-year player Cori Arnold emerged as the NCAC champion in blocks, with a total of 124. Sophomore Karen Orr backed Arnold up with 70 to claim fourth place in the conference.
All-NCAC honorees: Second team, Wimmers.
GTE/CoSIDA All-District IV: First team, Wimmers.
GTE/CoSIDA All-America: Second team, Wimmers.
Winter 2000 sports in brief
Women's basketball
(21-8 overall, 12-4 North Coast Athletic Conference [NCAC] tournament champion, runner-up in regular-season standings)
Stunning is a good word to describe the results compiled by the Ladies basketball team during the 1999-2000 season.
After being tagged in pre-season polls to finish no higher than sixth in the NCAC, the Ladies thumbed their noses at the coaches' poll and the media poll. Not only did Kenyon finish second overall in the conference, but the Ladies also went on to claim the tournament championship by bouncing highly favored regular-season champion Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) on the Lady Bishops' court.
The Ladies' 57-51 victory over OWU gave Kenyon its second NCAC tournament championship in four years and a berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III national championship tournament. The Ladies motored to Wilmington, Ohio, for a first-round game against the Quakers of Wilmington College, but they dropped a 64-46 decision to the host team.
The loss did little to put a damper on an outstanding season, however, as the Ladies gave Kenyon its second season with twenty or more victories in women's basketball. The first was during the 1996-97 campaign, when the Ladies compiled a 26-2 record, the best ever at Kenyon.
Senior Stephany Dunmyer, one of the team's leaders for the past four seasons, was named the 2000 NCAC Player of the Year, following in the footsteps of Karen Schell '99, who received the same honor in 1999. Dunmyer, who received All-NCAC honors for the third consecutive year, was the NCAC scoring champion, pumping in 16.9 points per game, highlighted by a season-high 32 points scored against Denison University. She also led the league in three-point field goals made per game (2.6) and ranked third in assists per game (4.2). First-year Lady Bethy Lye ranked fifth in the conference in blocked shots.
Coach Suzanne Helfant completed her fifth year with the Ladies. During that time, she has compiled a 92-42 record for Kenyon, and she has guided the Ladies to first or second-place finishes in the NCAC four times. She is the only women's basketball coach to produce two seasons of twenty or more victories at Kenyon.
All-NCAC honorees: First team, Dunmyer; honorable mention, junior Jada Twedt.
NCAC Player of the Year: Dunmyer
Men's basketball
(6-19 overall, 4-12 NCAC, seventh place)
It was a season of learning and improving for the Lords, who competed for the first time under the leadership of new head coach Jamie Harless '95, a former Kenyon standout.
The Lords proved to be one of the most competitive teams in the NCAC, pushing all of the conference frontrunners to the edge. But experience came through in most cases for the opposition, as the young Lords dropped numerous games that could have gone their way on the scoreboard.
Senior Dave Houston closed out his career by scoring 225 total points during the season, improving his status as a member of the 1,000 Career-Point Club at Kenyon. He ranked third overall in scoring for the Lords, averaging nine points per game, and second in rebounding, averaging 5.8 caroms per contest.
Sophomore Chad Plotke emerged as the only Lord to receive All-NCAC recognition, as he was named to the honorable-mention squad for the second consecutive year. Plotke led the Lords in scoring and ranked seventh in the NCAC, averaging 14.8 points each outing. Junior Nate Aldinger ranked sixteenth, averaging 11.7 points per game.
Aldinger and Plotke loomed as two of the most dangerous long-range shooters in the NCAC. While Aldinger nailed a team-leading seventy-two triples during the season, Plotke backed him with fifty-six.
First-year Lord Mike Payne ranked sixth among the conference leaders in blocked shots.
All-NCAC honoree: Honorable mention, Plotke.
Men's indoor track and field
(Lords placed ninth in the NCAC championship meet)
Same name, different face: That was the way runners were seeing things in the 2000 NCAC meet, where sophomore Cary Snyder was stunning the field with outstanding runs in the 3,000- and 5,000-meter runs. Last year, it was Ryan Snyder '99, Cary's older brother, who was pushing for top honors in the distance races.
This year, however, Cary Snyder stole the spotlight from veteran runners by helping to pace the field in two distance events. He was the runner-up in both races, clocking a time of 8:50.08 in the 3,000 and a time of 15:16.07 in the 5,000. First-year Lord Matt Cabrera finished sixth (15:39.84) and sophomore Vince Evener placed seventh (15:41.06) in the 5,000.
Kenyon's Ken McNish finished seventh in the triple jump (41-6), and Mike Weber placed seventh in the high jump (6-0).
All-NCAC honoree: Snyder.
Women's indoor track and field
(Ladies placed ninth in the NCAC championship meet)
A runner-up finish by senior Laura Shults in the 1,500 meter run (4:49.12) and by the quartet of Shults and sophomores Katherine Kapo, Becky
Rosser, and Sara Vyrostek in the distance medley relay (12:58.41) highlighted competition for the Ladies in the championship meet at Denison University.
Senior Gelsey Lynn helped Kenyon's cause with a fourth-place showing in the 3,000 (10:55.08), and sophomore Ansley Scott topped field events for the Ladies with a seventh-place showing in the high jump (4-11).
All-NCAC honorees: Kapo, Lynn, Rosser, Scott, Shults, and Vyrostek.
Men's swimming and diving
(First place, NCAC; first place, NCAA Division III national championship meet)
It was a quick finish to a three-day showing at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Lords of swimming.
Kenyon took control of the national championship meet on the first day and never let up, dominating the competition for an unprecedented twenty-first consecutive Division III national crown. Kenyon amassed 670.5 points, swamping the competition in which Denison University took the runner-up spot with 317 points. Emory placed third with 287 points, followed by the University of California at San Diego (287) and Johns Hopkins University (224). Fifty-two colleges and universities scored overall.
Kenyon finished first in ten events en route to the impressive showing, led by junior Tom Rushton, who placed second overall in individual scoring with fifty-six points. Sophomore Estevao Avila placed third with fifty-three points, junior Brett Holcomb placed fifth with fifty points, senior Colby Genrich was seventh with forty-seven points, and first-year Lord Read Boon placed ninth with forty-five points.
Rushton emerged as national champion in the 500-yard freestyle (4:28.50) and the 400 individual medley (3:56.75). His effort in the 400 IM was part of a 1-2-3-4 finish for Kenyon in the event. The Lords finished 1-2-3 in the 200 IM, led by Genrich's winning time of 1:51.75. Boon was a winner for Kenyon in the 200 free (1:39.18), Avila won in the 200 backstroke with a national-record time of 1:42.62, and sophomore Michael Bonomo was the national champion in the 1,650 free with a record time of 15:36.72.
The Lords once again dominated the relays, winning four of the five races--some-thing they have done six times in the past seven years. Kenyon's effort in the relays was highlighted by a national-record time of 3:20.39 in the 400 medley, which utilized the talents of junior Lloyd Baron, Avila, Rushton, and Genrich.
Kenyon also nailed down a fifteenth NCAC championship earlier in the season. The Lords placed first in nine individual events and won three of the five relays.
All-NCAC honorees: Seniors Darrick Bollinger and Genrich; juniors Baron, Holcomb, Rushton, and Josh White; sophomores Bonomo, Jensen Book, and Chris Brose; first-year Lords Boon, Daniel Kiepfer, Flurry Stone, and Carlos Vega.
NCAC Coach of the Year: Jim Steen.
Women's swimming and diving
(First place, NCAC; first place in the NCAA Division III national championship meet)
For the first time in many years, Kenyon's ability to repeat as national champion was seriously in question as the Ladies entered the 2000 title meet in Atlanta, Georgia. Stiff competition was expected from several institutions loaded with talent, but it did little to deter Kenyon. The Ladies responded with an impressive effort that produced 619.5 points, more than enough to extend the longest championship streak in women's intercollegiate athletics to seventeen consecutive years.
Kenyon won eight of the twenty events and piled up points with depth in order to hold off strong challenges from Denison University and the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). Denison once again finished in the runner-up spot with 417.5 points, while UCSD placed third (355.5), followed by Williams College (301) and Wheaton College of Illinois (261.5). Forty-seven colleges and universities scored in the meet.
Juniors Erica Carroll and Neala Kendall, sophomore Abby Brethauer, and first-year Lady Ashley Rowatt were among the Ladies who sparked Kenyon's impressive effort. All four finished among the top ten individual scorers in the meet, led by Carroll who placed third with fifty-four points. Rowatt followed in fourth place with fifty-three points, while Bret-hauer was eighth with forty-three and Kendall was tenth with thirty-eight points.
Kendall was among the individual national champions for Kenyon, as she placed first in the 1,650-yard freestyle (16:59.86). She was one of five individual winners, led by Carroll, who won the national crowns in the 100 butterfly (:57.17) and the 100 backstroke (:58.06). Junior Sarah Leone placed first in the 100 freestyle (:51.72), and senior Becky White emerged as the national champion on the one-meter diving board (378.95). Rowatt placed first in the 200 individual medley (2:06.65) and took the runner-up spot in the 400 IM.
Kenyon also placed first in two relays, the 400 medley and the 400 freestyle. Sophomore Madeleine Courtney-Brooks, first-year Lady Betsy Garratt, Leone, and Carroll combined strokes for a winning time of 3:51.95 in the medley. It was the same quartet that united to win the freestyle event in a time of 3:30.82.
Earlier in the year, the Ladies won a sixteenth consecutive NCAC championship by finishing first in seven events. Kenyon has now won twenty-four consecutive state or conference championships.
Carroll was the only multiple-event winner for the Ladies, placing first in the 100 fly (:58.33) and the 200 back (2:04.86), setting the NCAC
record in the latter.
Becky White was named the female diver of the year, after finishing first in both the one- and three-meter competitions.
All-NCAC honorees: Seniors Jenny Kozak and White; juniors Carroll, Leone, Andreana Prichard, and Nicole Watson; sophomores Brethauer, Courtney-Brooks, and Abby Rokosch; first-year Ladies Garratt, Sarah Retrum, and Claire Tindall.
NCAC Diver of the Year: White.
NCAC Coach of the Year: Jim Steen.
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