What is the story about Kenyon?

[TriDeltaSallie]

I'm doing some research for a client and was looking at the Kenyon website. Most of the fraternities are national, but the sororities are all locals.

Do the locals desire to go national? Is it in process? No desire to go national?

Just curious!

[clemsongirl]

I can't help answer your question, but I have a related observation: the oldest sorority is from 1987, whereas three of the six fraternities are from before 1900, and all of them except the colony are from before 1950. Was Kenyon all-male for a while and therefore didn't have sororities? The only NPC sorority was a chapter of DG that only lasted for two years in the 90s, according to Irishpipes' master list. I am just as curious as you are!

[33girl]

I'm pretty sure that Kenyon was all-male.

Paul Newman went there.

Also, there is a lot of support for/longstanding local groups in Ohio.

[AGDAlum]

Kenyon was all-male from 1824 to the late 1960's. I couldn't find it on their website, but they started coeducation with a division called Gambier College. I know that because when I was looking at colleges I got a brochure from Gambier-a-division-of-Kenyon. Evidently they decided to go co-ed rather than establish a parallel college.

When I was the extension consultant for Alpha Gam (74-75) I made some calls in Ohio, but not to Kenyon. (Wish I had -- it looks beautiful.)

[Benzgirl]

I grew up about 30 miles from Kenyon and it originally was all male. Kenyon has always been against women organizing sororities, and has done everything in its power to keep them away. If I remember right, the student government tried to block girls from having their club approved. When DG colonized, the school and the Kenyon President, snubbed them.

I read this article a while back, and it gives a pretty good account of what happened in the 80s and 90s. http://classprojects.kenyon.edu/wmns...enyonfirst.htm

[TriDeltaSallie]

Very interesting link. That explains a lot. Thank you.

And my opinion of Kenyon as a college and place for women dropped significantly.

[clemsongirl]

Okay, reading that really upset me. The fact that such blatant discrimination could go on fairly recently and go unpunished boggles my mind. I'm surprised some kind of legal action wasn't taken against the school. Smells like a Title IX violation to me.

[ElieM]

From the looks of their college website, it seems like there was a push early 00's for more local sororities (2 founded within a year of each other)

[DrPhil]

I love Paul Newman. That is all.

[ZetaLady2017]

Hi TriDeltaSallie!
I am a current student at Kenyon and a member of Zeta Alpha Pi, one of the local sororities at Kenyon. We were founded in 2001 and currently have 25 active members. There are three local sororities including Zeta, the other two are Theta Delta Phi and Epsilon Delta Mu. Alpha Sigma Tau absorbed another local sorority this past semester. I would love to get in touch with you to talk about Kenyon's greek life! There is definitely a recently expressed interest for national affiliation among the local sororities.

Liz '17
Zeta Alpha Pi

[pinksequins]

Hi Liz, I'll wager that there are over 20 other NPC groups that also would love to chat with you. ; - )