It is the oldest private institution of higher education in the state of Ohio and enrolls approximately 1,800 undergraduate students.

The college is located on a hill overlooking the Kokosing River and neighbors Mount Vernon, Ohio.

He sailed to England and solicited donations from George Kenyon, Lord Gambier, and the writer and philanthropist Hannah More.

Dissatisfied with the original location of the college in Worthington, Chase purchased 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of land in Knox County (with the Mount Vernon lawyer Henry Curtis), and reached what he would name Gambier Hill on July 24, 1825.

"[12] When he committed suicide three years afer giving the speech, The Wall Street Journal published an abridged version of it.

During his 21-year tenure, Ransom published work by writers Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, William Empson, Mark Van Doren, Kenneth Burke, and Delmore Schwartz, as well as younger writers Flannery O'Connor, Robert Lowell, and Peter Taylor, among others.

Student associates work with Kenyon Review staff in manuscript evaluation, publicity and marketing, and event planning, among other creative and editorial projects.

[22] Kenyon's Center for the Study of American Democracy (CSAD), established in 2007, organizes conferences and seminars with the goal of promoting nonpartisan civic and political discourse.

[23] The Gund Gallery, a 31,000 square feet (2,900 m2) visual arts center and exhibition space, was opened in 2011.

[26] In 2006, Newsweek selected Kenyon College as one of twenty-five "New Ivies" on the basis of admissions statistics as well as interviews with administrators, students, faculty members, and alumni.

[41][42] Kenyon's sports teams, which compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), were referred to as the Lords and Ladies until 2022 when a new nickname, the Owls, was adopted.

[46] In 2019, Kenyon was one of the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-member colleges to participate in the organization's LGBTQ OneTeam Program, which launched in fall 2019.

Evan McLaren, a prominent white nationalist and director of the National Policy Institute, was a major contributor to the Observer and its editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2008.

[53] The Church of the Holy Spirit, one of Kenyon's oldest structures, features a 10-bell set of chimes which ring the traditional Westminster Quarters.

The bells, installed in 1879, are rung manually in the belltower each Friday by a campus group known as the Kenyon Pealers.

"Kokosing Farewell," sung to the tune of the 1870 hymn "The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ending," is the traditional closing number for concerts of the Kenyon College Chamber Singers.

[57] The first Kenyon seal was designed no later than 1842 and contained a book, a cross, a scroll, a telescope, and a scientific apparatus surrounded by the words "Sigillum Collegi Kenyonensis" and "Ohio Resp".

The shield consists of a chevron, three crosses, a book inscribed with the college's motto (as well as the Kenyon family's motto) magnanimiter crucem sustine ("valiantly bear the cross"), resting upon a bishop's staff, representing the college's founder, Bishop Philander Chase.

A version of the shield that replaces the book and staff with "Kenyon" in block letters while the chevron and crosses remain has become the symbol for the college's athletic teams.

[58] In 2011, American clothier Ralph Lauren discontinued production of a necktie depicting the Kenyon shield after it was found they did not license the rights from the college.

[60]Kenyon College has undertaken a number of sustainability initiatives, including a recycling system upgrade, a biodiesel project, a computer lab conversion to double-sided printing, the distribution of green living guides, as well as the creation of a dining hall composting system that diverts 6,000 pounds of waste from the landfill per week.