I think, therefore IPHS

When I visited Kenyon many moons ago with my parents for an interview, an IPHS pamphlet in Ransom Hall caught my dad’s eye.

“Integrated Program in Humane Studies? Well, they must also have an Integrated Program in INhumane studies!”

All dad-jokes aside, IPHS: what is it? Is it a department with a strangely-capitalized name that actually sounds like the word “iffs”? Aside from offering classes taught by who I understand to be one of Kenyon’s most renowned and popular professors, IPHS offers a diverse, critical thinking-intensive course load over many areas of study.

IPHS: (eye-pee-ehych-ess) n., adj. Integrated Program in Humane Studies. Kenyon’s oldest interdisciplinary department that combines history, literary studies, political theory, and philosophy, centering around intense investigation of art and authority. Sort of the epitome of liberal arts.

Kenyon Kontext:

• Student One: “I have to read 30 pages of the Odyssey, 50 pages of Nietzsche, and 70 pages of Plato tonight!”
• Student Two: “Three classes? Not bad.”
• Student One: “No, IPHS.”