The Hot Sheet
Pennies, Pasta, Pompoms, and six other things we love about Kenyon
Penny Wars. The student activities office pitted students against employees in a fundraiser for the Hole in the Wall Camps. Each team contributed pennies to a container, with the idea that the most pennies would win. The catch was that the opposing team could decrease your total (while adding more for charity) by putting silver coins and paper bills into your container.
Kenyon on Ice. Members of Kenyon's administration, faculty, and staff took to the stage in February for a talent show to raise money for the United Way. "Kenyon on Ice" was the theme of the spectacle, which featured absolutely no ice skating, ice hockey, or even Vanilla Ice.
Motown Madness. Groovin' to the sounds of sixties soul music is in again, thanks to Detroit Groove, the latest incarnation of a thirteen-member student band devoted to Motown covers with a little Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder thrown in. The band packs the Village Inn for Friday night engagements, plays campus parties and events, and rocked the house at Philander's Phling. What'll they think of next, doo-wop?
Trading Spaces. In April, Kenyon President S. Georgia Nugent traded places for a day with a Kenyon student. While Richard Wylde '11 attended numerous meetings, Nugent went to class and hung out in the dining hall. Up next: the faculty edition of Trading Spouses?
Anna Quindlen. Best-selling author and Kenyon parent Anna Quindlen delivered the 180th Commencement address in May.
Pompoms. Kenyon women proved that Middle Path mud need not take the fun out of footwear. Boots adorned with pompoms spiced up bleak winter days and the soggy campus thaw of early spring. 
Pasta Puttanesca. One snowy evening, a Kenyon student decided to check out the campus dinner menu online, to see whether the cold trek would be worth his while. Finding the unfamiliar dish "pasta puttanesca," he did some Internet research and shared his findings via e-mail: "The name originated in Naples after the local prostitutes, Pasta alla Puttanesca, meaning 'Pasta in the way a whore would make it.' The reason why the dish gained such a name is debated. One possibility is that the name is a reference to the sauce's hot, spicy flavor and pungent smell." How did hungry young scholars survive before Wikipedia?
William Shatner. Annoying-music aficionados are familiar with the so-awful-it's-hilarious singing career of actor William Shatner,
best known as the original Star Trek's Captain Kirk. In a spasm of perversity or (more likely) boredom-fueled irony, Kenyon students spent the bleak winter months lobbying via e-mail to get Shatner as an act for Summer Send-off, the College's end-of-the-year blowout. At press time, there were no plans to beam him over.
The Swammers. The varsity Lords and Ladies aren't the only formidable swimmers at Kenyon. Students and faculty have formed a campus team. So many of the participants have previous experience--as high school swimmers or former Kenyon team members--that the team's nickname is the "Swammers."
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