Every once in a while as students were wrapping up final exams and projects in April, they’d catch a glimpse of a couple of guys walking around campus snapping photos. With the help of a campus guide, Howard Korn and Chris Myers made their way into classrooms, residence halls, and the Roost, trying to document the Denison experience in pictures. They watched the Homesteaders garden, chop wood, and make dinner. They saw dancers and singers, scientists and artists. And all the while, they clicked away.
The professional photographers are not new to this kind of gig. In fact, they’ve traveled to college campuses all over the country on similar assignments, and they can attest that no two schools are alike. But there is one similarity among college students in general that Korn is noticing more and more. They just love to have their photos taken. “I’m convinced it’s about social media,” says Korn. “My theory is that this generation of students is so used to sending their own pictures to people through email, Facebook, and Twitter, that they’re comfortable with their images being out in the public.” Ten years ago, he says, that was definitely not the case. “They went from not wanting to be on the pages of anything to wanting to be on the cover of everything.”
Denison students were no exception. On the following pages, Denison Magazine shares some of the images taken during the four April days that Korn and Myers were on campus, and Korn tells us, in his own words, what Denison looks like to a couple of outsiders.