Alma Mater: A College Homecoming

Novelist Kluge ( Eddie and the Cruisers ), who graduated from Kenyon College in 1964, returned to the campus in Gambier, Ohio, in the 1980s to teach English and fiction writing. He also went to reflect on change and stability at his alma mater. Here he takes the measure, casually, of a year in the life of Kenyon, critical and yet affectionate in his regard for a rural liberal arts college with a distinguished tradition, especially in letters, formed by John Crowe Ransom, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell and others. As a participant and observer, Kluge notes many events, long-term developments and motley details (e.g., a college-wide ``disintegration of consensus'' about what should be taught and how to teach it that extends, emblematically, beyond Kenyon); considers the circumstances of the 12 or so black undergraduates in a student body of 1500; looks in on a search for a new professor of philosophy; and notes the removal of ivy from the vaunted ivory tower, the better to preserve the stone beneath. This is a chatty, informative portrait that lightly probes the current challenges of higher education--and for a college. As Kluge concludes, ``It is possible to get a wonderful education in Gambier, but it is not required.'' (Nov.)