When Philander Chase first descended upon this hill and envisioned the academic community of Kenyon College, it was a quiet, reserved space, nearly monastic, where students could quietly and studiously spend years of their lives pondering questions without interruption. A lot has changed since 1824, not least among which is that Kenyon is—well, it would have been to ol’ Phil—big. The small, quiet community of Kenyon has become a land of endless construction and expansion. I feel like this really gets Chase’s goat, and so I spent some time this Halloweekend trying to pierce the ghostly void, reach his spirit, and find out how disappointed he is in us.

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