Kendal University – Yes, Really

As home to Denison University, Granville is a college town. The residents of Kendal at Granville have long benefited from the advantages of living in proximity to one of the country’s finest liberal arts college. But the first two months of 2016 have demonstrated yet again that Kendal all by itself itself is a center of education, and the breadth of its curriculum is authentically impressive.

I was prompted to think about this point when the marketing department invited two other residents and me to give lunchtime presentations on subjects dear to our hearts, as part of a once-a-week lecture series. This three-week program was dubbed “Kendal University,” and participants from the priority list could earn a “degree” by attending all of them. All three of us presenters were retired professors, and we chose topics that were at once dear to our hearts and close to our scholarly interests. I drew on my interest in British history to speak on “Brexit,” the short code term for the possibility of Britain leaving the European Union. David Skeen, a professor of psychology in an earlier life, spoke on the reasons some people are happier than others and how we might work to bring more happiness into our own lives. Susan Richardson, a literary scholar and author, spoke about her experience with the editing of Tuyo Suyemoto’s I Call to Remembrance, her memoirs of her internship during much of World War II.

I confess that , yes, “Kendal University” was a somewhat cute-sy term for the series. But it was also apt. And in fact – and this is my broader point – it is not inapt as a description of the entire Kendal at Granville experience, at least for residents who remain curious about the world we all live in. As proof of the claim, I give you the calendar of educational events for January and February, which reveals the flow of academic opportunities that have been available to residents since the beginning of the new year.

When the long holiday season receded, we launched our second semester here on January 19 with a history presentation, as lifelong Roosevelt scholar Dick Lucier spoke on “FDR and the New Deal: What Was It and Why Did He Succeed?” The very next evening David Baker, an award-winning poet at Denison, delivered readings from his his latest book of poetry, featuring “nature or environmental poetry with kind of a political edge to it.” On the 25th the Diversity Book Club discussed Debbie Irving’s Waking Up White, a much-acclaimed examination of her long journey to awareness of the place of race in American society.

The pattern continued in February. On the 10th Alan Miller, the new editor of the Columbus Dispatch, spoke about the general challenges facing journalism in the country today and the specific challenges facing the Dispatch, the state’s best and most ambitious newspaper. For this subject we could not have had a more front-line speaker. On the 23rd the acclaimed string quartet ETHYL, currently in the second year of a three-year stint as artists in residence at Denison, presented a concert of twenty- and twenty-first century music from a variety of countries and culture. On February 29 Marilyn Donahue, a docent at the recently reopened and expanded Columbus Museum of Art, talked about the museum’s history, its collection, and its plans for wider community engagement. In short, across the first two months of 2016 Kendal sponsored presentations in six different academic disciplines: history, politics, journalism, literature, psychology, and music. Kendal at Granville is truly a university for seniors.

And looking just beyond the Kendal campus, there was more to be found. The Lifelong Learning Institute, which holds classes around Licking County, offered a varied set of courses in January and February, among them “Human Trafficking: Modern-Day Slavery,” “Lake Erie: Critical Issues,” “Music Music Music: From the Fundamentals and How to Read Music, to the Trends,” and “Beginning Genealogical Research.” Meanwhile, for those who like theater, the two months offered  nearby performances of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Richard II.

Finally, for those who enjoy getting into a college classroom with real live undergrads, there are Denison courses galore available to Kendal residents. Just offhand I know of residents in at least two of them this semester: Medieval History and Modern East Asian History. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t add at this point that across the past eight years – and this will be a very incomplete list – I know of residents who have sat in on Denison courses in economics, English, geology, German, music theory, philosophy, religion, and studio art.)

The facts speak very much for themselves. Kendal residents have a wide range of opportunities to expose themselves to educational encounters. Perhaps it goes without saying then that at Kendal we pride ourselves on our lively minds.