One highlight of the week was a cancelled BFEC hike. Instead of retreating, Rochelle and Cusick ended up going on a self-guided hike through the BFEC. (Photo via Wikipedia Commons)

How many Allstu emails do you delete in a week? Probably too many. When first-year Mary Sawyer realized she was deleting more emails than she kept, she was unhappy. “I came to college thinking I was going to do a lot, and then by week two, if I saw an allstu I deleted that.” It was then that she and a group of friends decided to do the impossible: go to every event advertised by email for one week.

The idea started as a joke, when Henry Uhrik ’18 wondered “how many friends we’d make if we went to all of them,” but quickly formulated as a scheme that Uhrik, and Sawyer, along with first-years Ramsey Brown, Alice Cusick, Jenna Rochelle, and Austin Smith would take part in. Using Google Drive, the group created a schematic of over fifty events that they would attend, including everything from Kickboxing at the KAC to “Writing Mussolini: II Duce’s American Biographies on Paper and Screen, 1922-1936.”

Some were surprised about the amount of Kenyon students who go to events. Low attendance at certain events–like a session on how to use Google Drive–didn’t surprise the group, but some did, like President Sean Decatur’s Open Forum on March 24th. While it did give them the chance to candidly talk to the President, they were concerned by the lack of initiative taken by Kenyon students. As articulated by Sawyer, the group believes Kenyon students need to “to get on their game.”

Overall, the group was largely positive about the experience. Cusick believes that the Week of Allstu made her “appreciate what campus has to offer, as opposed to hearing about everything that’s going on. Then you have in your head that it’s not wroth it, but it really is.” That being said, Brown and Rochelle had a less postive experience. In response to Cusick’s comment, Brown said, “I think it really varied between us. Alice really had a good experience, but my classes conflicted with the fun ones.”

When asked about the time constraint, Sawyer said that having short bursts of free time made her more productive. Smith added that a clinic on stress-relief hosted by Wellness really put things into perspective for him.  “For many people, [stress-relief] means to go home and sit and watch Netflix, but that actually makes you more anxious.” The Week of Allstus, in comparison, reduced stress. “You feel like you’re getting something done, but it’s actually pretty relaxing.”