gossip, banter and chaos — The Kenyon Collegian

Seventy years ago, The Kenyon Collegian was a really completely different learn. Vol. 80, which ran from Oct. 2, 1953, to Could 21, 1954, featured many editorialized articles, satirical op-eds and one full web page in every challenge devoted to current fraternity actions. 

The web page was titled “The Division Diary,” after division housing within the dorms, and would normally share a web page with the native ads. There have been 10 completely different one- or two-paragraph sections, one for every fraternity, which would supply weekly updates and element what they had been as much as that weekend: “The Psi U’s had a lobster get together within the woods Saturday Night, and their tv set is damaged,” an excerpt from one Diary mentioned.

A couple of different snippets from the Diary:

“Saturday afternoon the Archons will calm down with setups after which with the primary casting of night’s darkening shadows, they may actually begin to drink.” (Archons)

“To disperse the concept that Alpha Delts at Kenyon are illiterate, the chapter can level to the truth that Invoice Greaves, ’53, gained the fraternity literary contest.” (Alpha Delta Phi)

“Bartels has switched from Scotch to Gin Rickeys. Quoth he: ‘It’s extra intoxicating this fashion.’” (Delta Kappa Epsilon)

“On Sunday night final, Bob Ritzi had a toothache.” (Delta Tau Delta)

The Diaries had been principally targeted on what every fraternity had been ingesting that weekend, pledging and initiation updates and who received “pinned,”— that’s, who had a brand new girlfriend, whom they normally met at one of many dances that girls had been invited to. 

In these Diaries, there’s a clear lack of a filter or sense of professionalism, which provides these points a neighborhood really feel. A 2019 Atlantic article by Adam Willis mentioned the best way school newspapers have develop into bureaucratic, inevitably altering the tone of pupil papers throughout the nation. As with the Collegian, “few faculty newspapers are financially unbiased from the establishments they cowl,” he wrote. “School directors maintain highly effective leverage over pupil journalists and their school advisers.”

In an analogous vein, the Division Diaries and non-news sections had been very private. College students had been talked about by first names and nicknames, the completely different fraternities would make sport of one another and the paper typically lined extra of the social points and traditions of Kenyon. 

The Division Diary stopped showing within the spring of 1954. Till then, nevertheless, they had been constant. Even when the problem solely spanned 4 pages, one can be devoted to the fraternities, which had been inextricably linked with Kenyon’s social life. Within the final fall version of 1954, an nameless letter to the editor was printed criticizing the column.

“It’s abominable to the nth diploma. In no newspaper above the highschool degree have I seen such a infantile, trite, slanderous, and petty column. It’s clearly a way for the writers of it to ‘slam’ their enemies with vulgar and plenty of instances obscene references. It’s briefly, nothing however the most cost-effective form of a gossip column,” the editorial mentioned.

The tough critique might allude to a way of freedom that college students had inside the publication to specific each opinion and criticism. 

In the identical challenge, the editor wrote in response, “I wish to reply our nameless buddy’s criticism of the Division Diary. The Diary’s unique function was to inform the information of the assorted fraternities on the Hill. In lots of respects, it has deviated from this goal into extra of a column involved with personalities within the fraternities. I’m sorry that our buddy doesn’t recognize the nice natured kidding discovered within the Diary.” And with that, the Diary disappeared.