Invasion of Privacy: Wes Kennison
Humanities is currently a general education requirement that brings about much controversy among students. Many students complain about the “archaic” readings, the “boring professors,” and the lack of diversity, and perhaps there are some faculty who would agree with them (looking at you Doggett). However, Professor Wes Kennison has a deep passion for the humanities subject, so much so that he has been teaching humanities at Geneseo for about thirty-six years. A former student of Geneseo, Kennison cultivated his love of Thoreau and Thucydides into a wealth of knowledge that he adores spreading to students. However, it had been a long, adventurous road for Kennison between his first day of freshman year and today.
“My breakout book [in high school] was Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and I became a Walden fanatic. But Thoreau told me that when I got to college, I needed to start with the ancient books and work my way forward.” So, as Kennison sat with his advisor at the beginning of freshman year, he knew he wanted to take any class studying ancient philosophical tests; and so Kennison began his journey into the humanities.
“I sat down with my academic advisor, Professor Jim Garvey, who was one of the really great teachers here. [Those] 20 minutes of my freshman year, [that] academic advisement was probably the most important 20 minutes of my life.”
When Kennison first came to Geneseo, freshmen had the option of taking an exam during orientation and testing out of the core classes, or general education requirements, and then graduate in only three years. “I looked at Garvey, and I said, ‘So what do I need to take?’ And he said, ‘You don't have to take anything. You tested on your freshman core.’ I said, ‘So what should I take?’ [Garvey said] ‘Wherever you want to take.’”
“Well Thoreau said I should start with the ancient stuff.” Kennison said to his advisor. Garvey pointed Kennison in the direction of some “hot young professors” who “liked to teach the old stuff.” At the time there was no humanities program, but as Kennison learned more about “the old stuff,” he began to see the world differently and wanted to learn more.
“I said [to Garvey] ‘I’ve just been through an experience where a whole bunch of stuff that I thought was true about the world I know now [not to be] true, and I’m worried about how much else I've been fooled about. And so, I want to do an English major.’ I said ‘I have questions and I want to answer my questions. I’m a shop major from high school, I can be a carpenter for the rest of my life. I’m fine with that, [but] I have questions.” And so Kennison became an English major and set out looking for the answers to those questions about life.
Sophomore year, Kennison had the opportunity to study abroad with the fencing studio at Geneseo. “I did study abroad my sophomore year, at a time when not too many people did that. It was a really weird thing to do in 1976, but I did a year at the University of Nottingham, in England. And at the end of that time, I had $350 left. And basically, two months before I had to be back at my job at the [Geneseo] bookstore. And so, I tried to see how much of Europe I could see on $350. It was a $350 trip and 52 days, I hitchhiked onto the continent across Germany, down into the Alps and to Venice. I took a boat from Venice to Greece [and] did a lot of noodling around in Greece, got on to Crete, came back to Italy, came up the Italian peninsula and ended up in Amsterdam. And with $16 in my pocket, I had to fast-talk the border people into letting me on the boat back into England so I could fly home from London.”
The experience was so formative that Kennison went again. “I went back to Italy with Bill Cook [an English professor at Geneseo]. Just the two of us. I got an undergraduate research grant to work on a Dante project. And so, we basically spent two months exploring Tuscany and I’ve been back to Tuscany 67 times since then.”
Kennison today works with students in the study abroad office to bring their dreams of international travel to light. “For most of the last 20 years Geneseo has occupied the position of the number one school and SUNY as far as percentage of base population of our students studying abroad; and one of the big reasons for that is that we just had a wonderful array of faculty-led programs, faculty that want to travel with students and so forth and lots of really interesting stuff over the years.” Kennison has taught HUMN 100 in Italy, and taught classes in Greece, Germany, and Nicaragua.
“Now working in the study abroad office is like working in a candy store—everybody wants to do it. We’re here just to knock down the obstacles and the staff here is fantastic at doing that. So any students who want to study abroad you just get up here and tell us why you can't do it and we’ll tell you why you’re wrong.”
Kennison is also the Town Supervisor for Geneseo, a position he was nominated for and found out about through the grapevine; according to Kennison: “[Friends of mine said] ‘Congratulations on your big news.’ I said ‘What big news?’. She said, ‘The Democrats’ nomination to run for town supervisor.’” Kennison’s immediate reaction was to fill out a mountain of paperwork to prevent becoming the town supervisor. But, Kennison thought back to his education in the humanities.
“Except that that afternoon, my words came back to haunt me because of course teaching two Saturdays and teaching the origins of democracy in the United States—American history documents and stuff like that. I’m always blah, blah, blah, teacher of the humanities telling my students that you need to get involved in democracy. Well, all of a sudden, I was looking in the mirror, and [decided] to put up or shut up.” Kennison was sure he would lose the election, as Livingston County was predominantly Republican; however, much to his surprise, he won.
“It was a steep learning curve, but I highly recommend elected office if you’re a person who likes learning stuff. I had to learn about all kinds of different things but the great thing about the job was every single day there was something new to learn. And also, I began to see the community in ways that I never saw before. I also am able to see my humbugs in a way I never saw them before, because one of the things that really struck me was that you know, when Plato or Thucydides, or Machiavelli, talk about politics— [and] they’re all talking about politics—the politics of places where people actually know each other, okay, in communities where, you know, if Machiavelli were walking down the street and Florence, other Florentines would know that was Machiavelli—not because he was famous, but because they knew everybody walking down the street. And the politics that they talk about is a politics of familiarity. That’s very different from much of the presidential and statewide politics that we have, which are politics of fantastic mythological invention.”
Eventually, Kennison was not re-elected to office after two terms, but he regards that experience as a positive one too. “I also had the great, very necessary experience [of] losing my third election… when they went to a very controversial development project and the community split the Democratic Party, and if you’re a minority party, you don’t get to win elections if you split the party. We have to pay attention now to the people who conceded and how important it is to say okay, I lost the election [and] another person has the job, because without that, democracy doesn’t exist.”
Today, Kennison still teaches humanities and Latin alongside working in the study abroad office. Geneseo is a special place for Kennison and his family. In Kennison’s freshman year, his parents “decided to have a particularly nasty all-to-public thermonuclear divorce. I was the oldest child at home. I had a younger brother, my dad kind of left town, my mom was not a totally functional human being, and I kind of had to run the house at the age of 17.”
“So, my plans [of ROTC engineering at Syracuse University] changed. And I ‘had’ to come to Geneseo. That was the best worst thing that ever happened to me in my whole life, because I would have to say that the teachers that I had my freshman year in Geneseo when I did [have] five saved my life. I’ve no idea what kind of crazy idiotic, stupid things I would have done in my life had it not been for the teachers that I had at Geneseo. For that reason, I am firmly committed to marching into a blazing fire to protect and save this place. Because I know what it’s done for me.”
Kennison says the most important facet of teaching is the relationships between students and faculty, which played an intricate role in his own development. “The highest objective of teaching is that the teacher and the student become life-long friends. That’s when teaching has really done what teaching can do—when it begins a lifelong dialogue of two people meeting rather interesting questions, interesting dialogue, and that dialogue wants to continue, even after the diplomas have been given and the paperwork has been done and all the boxes have been checked.”
Lastly, Kennison gives thanks and tribute to his wife, children, and grandchildren who make his life full. He and his wife met at SUNY Geneseo and live on Wadsworth St. in his wife’s grandmother’s old home. He is also thankful for what a gift his daughters and grandchildren have been to him. “In addition to getting an education at Geneseo, I also have a family.”
