A Proposal for the Kenyon Farm: 1-Year Extension of the Residency Program
Since hearing of Provost Bowman and President Decatur’s decision to end the residential program at the Farm, we, the Kenyon Farmers, have pursued all avenues available to us to engage in conversation with them about our concerns over their decision, from holding an open forum to striking along with over two hundred of our fellow student workers. Now, we are renewing our invitation to the administration and the full Kenyon Community to have an open conversation about the Farm, its role on campus, and how the residential program fulfills the Farm’s purpose. We ask that the residential program at the Kenyon Farm be frozen in place for the 2022-23 academic year, during which time we propose that a committee of student farmers, faculty, administrators, and the new farm manager conducts a thorough review of the program in order to arrive via shared governance at a more informed and deliberate conclusion as to the future of the Farm as a whole and the residential program in particular. If, after reading the entirety of our proposal, you support its adoption, please send a letter of support (like this template) to the President and Provost to encourage them to join us in this endeavor.
Below you will find:
A brief history of the Farm’s trajectory and vision and how it has been modeled to fit into the Kenyon community and academic experience so far;
Our perception of the unresolved problems that have arisen on the farm during this history;
Our proposed year-long study as an opportunity to collaboratively find a solution to these problems;
Starting points for the committee’s investigation
As we have demonstrated over the last several weeks, the Kenyon Farm is important to the Kenyon community; the four to six students who live in the house itself are far from the only ones who care about its existence. Nearly one thousand and four hundred people signed a petition supporting the residential program, including current and prospective students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Sixty people, including many alumni willing to donate to the Farm’s expansion, attended the open forum we held on February 23, which Provost Bowman and President Decatur declined to attend. A week later, two hundred of our fellow student workers joined us on the picket line as we struck in protest of the administration’s unfair treatment of us as workers during this process. That picket was the largest undergraduate strike in U.S. history. Clearly, there is a large community who cares about the Farm and wants to engage in conversations about its future. This creative, collaborative energy is exactly what Kenyon as an institution purports to encourage.
We have been encouraged by the willingness of Kenyon’s administration to extend the residential component of the Kenyon Farm through the summer of 2022. This step was taken in response to the argument we made that caring for the goats to be born in April will require our presence on the property throughout May-August. We are relieved at the continuation of the residential program for this summer because it means that we can ensure the wellbeing of our animals for one more season. Perhaps even more encouraging is the fact that senior administrators took the case we made for residing at the Farm over the summer seriously, heard our argument, and then acted on what we said. They took to heart President Decatur’s call to respect the expertise of all staff at Kenyon. We would like to build on this encouraging beginning by promoting a more in-depth and far-reaching conversation about the Kenyon Farm and its future, a conversation that involves all stakeholders in the program. In this way, the perspectives and expertise of the different people who want to see the Farm succeed can be brought to bear on deciding the program’s future. We think this discussion should begin with defining the Farm’s goals.
The Farm’s Relation to Kenyon: In reviewing the Farm’s history, it is unclear what the long-term visionfor the program has been. When it first began, it appears that the bare-bones plan for the Farm was to be used as a source of mixed produce for AVI dining services. We infer that there was some idea that this provisioning of AVI with crops and poultry would be expanded as part of the College’s efforts to provide locally sourced food to the dining hall. During this period, supervision of the farm passed among managers who oversaw activities at the Farm in addition to their other duties. At this time, the attitude among student workers at the Farm was that they were engaging in an independent academic project, one that was outside the scope and supervision of typical Kenyon operations.
A broader vision of the Farm as an educational program seems to have emerged with the hiring of a full-time manager in 2016. Unlike the previous managers, this manager was the first person to occupy this position who was expected to devote their full attention to working with students on the Farm. They were also expected to teach sustainable agriculture and winter permaculture courses directly related to aspects of farming. Consequently, we presume that the vision of the Farm’s relation to Kenyon had changed from primarily a provider of food to AVI to a form of experiential learning for students. By ‘experiential learning’ we mean a course of study in which concepts learned in class are put into practice on the Farm, with students initiating and pursuing projects in, say, sustainability or regenerative strategies for land use. In other words, the Farm was being transformed into something new, a place where students, under the direction of a manager, could experiment with applying abstract ideas learned in readings, lectures, and seminar discussions in real-world contexts.
The relation of the residential program to either model for the Farm was never clearly stated in materials, such as Collegian articles and the Kenyon website, that are available now. In the first model (2012-2016), having students live at the Farm was important to monitor developments on the property and deal with problems, such as those caused by storms or sick animals, as they happened and before they got out of hand. The 24/7 supervision of the Farm was also important in the second model (2016-present), though now the reason was to provide students with the opportunity to learn round-the-clock in addition to ensuring the constant maintenance of the operation. For example, during a heavy rain that occurred last semester, several of us observed run-off patterns that led us to think how crop beds might be reoriented to channel that water in ways that reduced erosion while enhancing crop yields. These observations were made at 7 in the evening and continued on into the night, something that would have been impossible had we clocked out and gone to our dorms at 5pm.
There are several conclusions that we draw from this history of the Farm’s relation to Kenyon over the past decade. First, there never seems to have been a consistent vision of that relationship. In particular, there never appears to have been a systematic consideration of the Farm’s educational goals; the Farm has not been invested with the deliberation and care that it takes to build a strong mission and vision. Hence, the Farm comes across as a neglected appendage to the College. Second, what we take to be an attempt to address the question of the Farm’s educational potential was poorly handled. Talking with Farm alumni, and based on our own experiences working and learning on the Farm over the years, it is clear that the attempt to link classroom learning with Farm practices has largely been a failure. Under managerial leadership, no comparable projects were undertaken, and relations between class and practice were never clearly and systematically articulated.
The Problems: The problems we see with the Farm are as follows:
No clear and consistent goals for the Farm as an educational experience;
No systematic oversight of the Farm by the relevant academic committees whose members can assess the performance of teachers and the educational value of the courses they teach and projects they initiate;
No clear commitment from the administration to make the Farm as a learning experience succeed;
No explicit plan to ensure that student work on the Farm benefits students as workers and learners;
No systematic consideration of the relationship between the residential program at the Farm and that program’s educational and practical objectives.
Given Kenyon’s well-earned reputation as an educational institution, we feel that these problems require immediate attention.
The Solutions: Bearing in mind President Decatur’s call to value the expertise of all stakeholders in an issue, we suggest that defining the Farm’s future should involve all those with an interest in the Farm’s success in a model of shared governance. These participants include, but need not be limited to: students who work and volunteer at the Farm; faculty with a direct interest in the Farm as a place to conduct hands-on work with students as extensions of classes or research projects in which they are jointly engaged; faculty on committees that oversee the College’s courses of study; the Farm manager; members of staff, including those in the Maintenance and Finance departments, whose responsibilities include the Farm; Farm alumni; and senior administrators and their staff, especially the Provost, who are charged with ensuring that the Farm constitutes a robust educational experience. Based on Kenyon’s stated commitment to shared governance, the policies that emerge from these discussions should be those on which we collectively agree. To be sure, the outcome will be a compromise but it should be a compromise to which we all contribute and with which we all feel we can live.
In response to our proposals and discussions about the Farm’s potential over the last several weeks, the President and Provost have repeatedly told us that they feel no conversations should be held about the future of the Farm before a new manager is hired. We agree that the decision to end the residential program should therefore be forestalled, and that this broader conversation about the residential program and the Farm’s role in education should start after the Farm manager is hired and has had a chance to establish themselves at Kenyon. A possible starting date might, therefore, be some time in May with participants joining remotely if they cannot be on campus. Given the importance and long-term consequences for the Farm of these deliberations, we suggest that they should continue throughout the 2022-23 academic year; making the farm an integral part of the Kenyon experience should not be rushed.
Starting Points: As a starting point for the proposed conversations we suggest the following:
Define the academic goals of the Farm, specifically how that program is related to Kenyon’s educational mission.
Decide which faculty committees will work with the manager, student-farmers, and the Provost to ensure that the Farm reaches its full potential as a vital and continuing part of the Kenyon curriculum.
Provide adequate support for those who manage and teach at the Farm. Specifically, we feel that the educational experiment that our previous manager Ryan Hottle was supposed to run failed in part because he was not given adequate support. It is not clear to us, for example, that Ryan was provided with mentors to specifically help him with his teaching. In addition, it is not obvious to us that Ryan’s courses were evaluated as part of a regular review process, as is the case for other Kenyon faculty. Such feedback is essential to a faculty member’s success. From our perspective, it is equally important for our education that the courses we take are regularly vetted by experienced faculty.
Regularize and monitor the Farm’s finances. For example, management-initiated projects, such as the hoop barn and water-collection system from the barn roof, were either never completed or not used to accomplish educational or practical objectives. Again, more support and supervision by the relevant College administrators might have obviated these problems, leading to a better use of Kenyon’s resources.
Hold off making any changes to the residential component of the Farm before the Farm’s goals and place at Kenyon are defined by general agreement among all stakeholders. What work on the Farm is intended to accomplish determines how the residential program supports that vision. We therefore strongly suggest that no move be made to terminate the residential program at the Farm before the conversations proposed here have been completed. At the very least, continuing the residential program for student farmers ensures that the Farm’s crops, as well as the animals under our care, are protected and sustained until the future of the farm is determined. Continuing the residential program will also allow the manager and those involved in conversations about the Farm to experiment with ways in which this aspect of the Farm might be used in enhancing the program’s educational benefits. Such experiments would, in the absence of a residential program, have to be conducted in the abstract, their conclusions being far less reliable as a result. In short, do not make any changes in the Farm’s residential program until the Farm’s future has been decided among the stakeholders in that program. At the most, this would mean a delay of one year in reaching a final decision on the residential program, ensuring that the decision is not made without the due deliberation of all those who are committed to the Farm’s success.
In Sum: The Farm is too important a part of Kenyon to rush any decisions about its future. The Provost and President are right that the Farm could be a more vital and significant part of the Kenyon experience than is currently the case. We want to work with them in achieving that goal. We are also convinced that these aims can only be secured through the collective efforts of those who have a stake in making the Farm an essential part of Kenyon. Such cooperation cannot be rushed. As we approach Kenyon’s bicentennial, we want to see the Farm well embarked on a successful and sustainable future, an educational program that achieves its full potential to enrich the lives of students. That is why we love the Farm, and that is why we want to work with others who share our passion for the Farm to make it a success. We urge the administration to join with us in this common project.
Sincerely,
The Kenyon Farmers