Night Owls: A Photo Essay
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They tromp along Route 229 and up the hill to the Miller Observatory to gaze at the stars. They hit the books in Olin or Gund computer lab.
They shoot hoops at the Kenyon Athletic Center and grab a bite at the After Hours coffee house in Weaver. When the sun goes down and the lamps bordering Middle Path light up, Kenyon's night owls come out to work and play.We invited photographer Megan Nadolski to spend a few fall nights in Gambier from sundown to sunup. Here, alongside the Kokosing (literally, the "place of owls"), Kenyon students inhabit a nighttime world filled with activity and contemplation, conviviality and solitude. From the bio major testing avian blood samples in a deserted Fischman lab at 2:30 a.m. to the student band Magnum practicing ear-splitting riffs in the Horn, from the pair of friends discussing a Platonic dialogue in the silence behind the library to the Kokosingers rehearsing "Hey Julia" in Rosse, ours is the village that never sleeps.
Pull an all-nighter with the Bulletin as we visit the dimmed and illuminated spaces of the nocturnal campus, no less stirring after dark than in the daylight. For, in the words of John Milton's Comus, "What hath night to do with sleep?" As the following sampling of Nadolski's images attests, only a little.
--Amy Blumenthal
Igniting Friendships
A bonfire--complete with apple cider, s'mores, and marshmallows speared on roasting forks--lights up the night on a crisp fall evening for several dozen students gathered round on Caples lawn.
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Starry, Starry Night
Observers take turns glimpsing nebular rings and a globular cluster on open observatory night at the Franklin Miller Observatory. Enlightenment compliments of physics professor Paula Turner, Kenyon's guide to the stars.
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Prompted to Laughter
Offstage improvisational comedians relish the antics of their fellow troupers at a well-attended performance of the Fools on the Hill held in Philo.
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Awake at the Wheel
Hands take to the wheel in pottery class at the Craft Center. Senior Annie Lambla (foreground) throws down the clay, while sophomore Cari Ficken (background) performs detail work on her pot.
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Noises Off
In the green room of Bolton theater on dress rehearsal night, costumed actors chat, nap, study, and read the newspaper while waiting to be called for their scenes in Our Town. On the couch, left to right, are Clay von Carlowitz '09, Christopher Audain '08, and Christopher Basile '07.
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Club Jugglers
(left to right) Chris Laco '07, Ann Pedtke '09, and Andrew Duffy '01 skillfully toss the clubs at a meeting of the juggling club in the Old Bank Black Box theater.
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Strictly Ballroom
A dancer dons her shoes for a samba lesson as practice commences in Gund Lounge for Kenyon's ballroom dance team.
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A professor's work is never done
Still in her Sunset Cottage office, English prof Sarah Heidt '97 looks up the word for a lover of maps (no, it isn't "cartophile") on her computer while a stack of yet-to-be-graded papers waits at her elbow.
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Editorial Voices
It may be production night at the Collegian (relocated to temporary quarters while Peirce undergoes renovation), but all editors break into song when the theme from Titanic ("My Heart Will Go On") comes on the radio. Left to right: Hannah Curran '09, Mara Alperin '07, Willow Belden '07, Leslie Parsons '09, and Charlotte Nugent '07.
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Closing time
It's thirteen minutes to closing time at Olin library as Sarah Goldstein '07, manning the circulation desk, checks in a book returned by fellow senior Justine Lacy.
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For the love of knowledge
In a Fischman laboratory, Emily Vaughn '07 performs middle-of-the-night research on avian blood samples collected last summer at the Brown Family Environmental Center.
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All swimmers on deck
Members of the Mount Vernon High School swim team do stretching and strengthening exercises after their practice at the Kenyon Athletic Center pool.
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Story time
In the Gund study lounge, James Flaherty '09 works on a submission for his fiction-writing class. "It's giving me a run for my money," he says.
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Take another little piece
The Jigsaw Society meets in junior Shawn Gulati's room to work on a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel in 8,000 pieces. Gulati built the puzzle board and painted it Kenyon purple. Pictured left to right are puzzlers Adam Shoop '09, Anna Griffin '10, Anna Kephart '10, and Steven McCulloch '08.
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Pencils Up
Students in professor Read Baldwin's drawing class put the finishing touches on homework assignments due the next day.
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Radio nights
Deejay Steve Klise '08 dissolves into laughter during his show "Inside Voices," broadcast from the Farr Hall studios of WKCO.
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Musical bike ride
First-years Jeremy Fischer (left) and Philip Ardery pause at the intersection of Brooklyn and Gaskin to synchronize their iPods. As the strains of "Kid-A" by Radiohead begin to pipe through their earbuds, they'll take off on a wee-hours bike ride through the village.
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Jammin'
The sounds of Irish hornpipe and Beirut's "Postcards from Italy" fill the freshman quad, with Alex Murphy '10 on banjo and Travis Cook '10 on alto sax. Visiting friends from Clark University (guitar) and the Coast Guard (accordian) complete the impromptu quartet.
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Hour by Hour
Time seems to stand still as a beautiful, ghostly light illuminates the clock face on the tower of the Church of the Holy Spirit.
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Dawn on Middle Path
New day dawning: the lanterns extinguish themselves as the sun rises over Middle Path, and two students set out to begin the day.
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