United The Past and Present Generation For Kenyon’s Future

By

    February 25th, 2024

    Our group has started researching the archive collections about Kenyon student life one hundred years ago. I found various documents and photographs in the file boxes at the archive collection that documented the activities and clubs that happened during that period. The set of film photograph collections recorded the student parties and scenes and collected various documents and photographs for different activities and clubs, which I believe is a valuable source for reviewing the old student life. We also delved into the file boxes within the archives and searched through the documents including WKCO’s history events and posters, The Chasers’ past members, and Greek students’ lives reported by Kenyon Collegian. I gained a unique feeling from viewing those documents as I sensed a familiarity and connection with them even though we are from different generations. The feeling became stronger as I went through the Kenyon Collegian reports and the events proposals from organizations like WKCO and The Chasers starting from the 80s till now. Those clearly reflected how team members’ had put hard work into improving event quality and their passion for making the group they are in a better place.

The communities I found in the archive reminded me of the passage Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah. Bellah emphasizes the importance of communitarian tradition and argues that to achieve unity, it’s necessary for people to maintain the existence of the community. Some traditions, or events are significant for people to remember, but individuals can hardly achieve that. Only by constantly recalling the shared stories within groups, can the members of the community form the collective memory about certain events. Members will then understand and accept the value of it, and be willing to maintain the continuity of such tradition. The duty and passion of keeping the valuable tradition now become a shared goal within the community that bonds the group members tightly, and such enthusiasm potentially shapes the community into a better place, as  Bellah states “The communities of memory that tie us to the past also turn us towards the future as communities of hope.” (Bellah, 229). A united community is essential for a brighter future for all people.  

Bellah’s argument is reflected in the documents we found in the archival collections, as the community history serves as a reminder for present students to keep developing our community, whether the student organization or Kenyon, a better place. The saved past documents like photos and proposals contain the past student’s passion in establishing the community, and such passion is being passed on as students Fromm later generations read them, slowly forming a collective memory among the group. Such collective memory that exists within these clubs will have a profound impact on individual lives. As we immerse ourselves in the narratives of past students, we are united with them in spirit, recognizing how our respective groups shape us as individuals and instill within us the drive to contribute to the betterment of campus life, echoing what Bellah's call to action of “contributions to a common good” (Bellah, 229).


Citation:

Robert, Bellah. “Habits of the Heart." The Collective Memory Reader, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 229-230.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Junzo Shono: How We Remember Gambier

By
Image
When I entered the Special Collections room, I had no idea where to start or what to do. We were given large files of several notable Kenyon alumni, and it was overwhelming. Without a clear understanding of the responsibilities we were tasked with, we each selected a different file without giving reason or pause as to who we selected. For one reason or another, Junzo Shono’s name caught my eye. I had never heard of the man, but after taking a class on Japanese Literature last fall, I was curious as to who he was and his involvement with the College. Junzo Shono, an acclaimed Japanese writer, first came to Gambier in 1957, where he spent a year in the College capturing and describing the mundane moments of everyday life (Creel, 2022). He would eventually publish these memories in the form of a novel titled “Gambia Taizaiki” (Sojourn in Gambier. He was born in Osaka, Japan on February 9th, 1921, and studied at Osaka University of Foreign Languages for four years, and later studied at Kyu...
Read more

Archival and Canon Memory: Understanding Our Present Through Our Past

By
Image
  This week, one of the many artifacts my group examined, was an old issue of The Collegian. The main story of this issue was the reconstruction of the Brown Family Environmental Center. This edition of the Collegian was significant because it detailed certain transformations being made to the center that would give it more focus on academics and incorporating student education as a part of the BFEC. For example, the article focuses on the construction of a new building that will operate as a hub for both student labs, as well as environmental education programs for the public, which the BFEC is now well known for. This article is also historically significant as it was written right after the BFEC was renamed to the Brown Family Environmental Center. It is important to examine sources like these, as they offer what the earliest perspectives and actions of what the BFEC were, which is interesting to compare to modern activities of the environmental center. This week we also read an...
Read more

Hope, Suffering, and The Kenyon College Campus Guide

By
Image
  Attached above is a screenshot of “The Kenyon College Campus Guide”, which is a near-comprehensive list of buildings that have belonged to the College and Village of Gambier since 1824. Although my group is curating something about the future of the Hill, our first meeting mainly involved discussions of its past. To this end, we tried to develop a picture of what the Hill physically looked like in the past 100 years by reviewing photographs of buildings, construction plans, and the Campus Guide, which you can see above. If you were to review the entire guide, you’d see that under the name of every building is a description of when it was built, what it was used (or being used) for, and when (if) it was destroyed. In the context of this week’s reading, these descriptions call the terms “communities of memory” and “communities of hope” to mind. According to Bellah et al. (1985, 2011), a “community of memory…tell[s]...stories of shared suffering” and orients us towards “future co...
Read more