May 3rd, 2012

From Karrie Kalich, Health Science:

Early Sprouts recently expanded its initiative from working with preschool age children to also children in kindergarten through 6th grade participating in afterschool programs. In the afterschool setting, Early Sprouts continues to focus on nutrition by engaging children in gardening, exploring, and cooking fresh produce. However, a new addition has been incorporating activities that also foster math, science, and art skills.

Dr. Beverly Ferrucci and her fourth-year math students graciously partnered with the Early Sprouts team to create fun and engaging math activities that utilized the Early Sprouts vegetables. For example, children explore the connection between the size of a squash and the number of seeds it contains, determine the volume of a bell pepper by measuring how much water it holds, and calculate the perimeter of a room using green beans.

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From Patricia Pedroza, Women’s and Gender Studies:

Over the course of this semester, the Women’s & Gender Studies Capstone worked on a “Granny D” Oral History Project to document the stories of the many New Hampshire citizens and activists who worked and campaigned with Doris “Granny D” Haddock for campaign finance reform and social justice.

This project was completed under the guidance of Patricia Pedroza and supported by the expertise of College Archivist Rodney Obien from and technology assistance by Judy Brophy, CELT.

The class designed a website as the visual product of this project and would like to offer it as a community resource: visit their work at https://sites.google.com/site/civicengagement2012/.

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From Marie Duggan, Economics:

The students of Econ 455: US Economic History are doing a project collecting oral histories from machinists, engineers, and managers to understand industrial change in Keene 1970-2012. Check out the website of a presentation made by the eleven students to executives from some of Keene’s most innovative firms at http://sites.keene.edu/marieduggan/.

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Keene State men’s basketball player Rashad Wright is one of Sports Illustrated‘s “Faces in the Crowd” in the current issue. Stuart Kaufman, Sports Information, nominated Rashad following his outstanding game against Middlebury College. Read abut Rashad and the rest of the “faces” at SI’s website.

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From Peggy Walsh, Honors Program:

Christina Anderson, a first-year student in the honors program, made it to the quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award Contest’s young adult/romance category of the ABNA awards for her (now published) novel, Hardly Perfect. She’s now working on her second novel.

You can see the cover at Amazon.

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The Royal-Wedding obsessed among you may be interested to hear that a Keene State student was in the throng on the Big Day.

The Sentinel had a nice piece on Tyler Patria, kindly passed on to us by Skye Stephenson, GEO. Cheerio!

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From Karen Couture, Psychology:

A team of KSC psychology majors won the “Psychology Cup” competition at the 3rd annual NHPA Annual Psychology Student Convention hosted by UNH April 16. Psi Chi (psychology honor society) team members Sarah Davies-Mitchell, Nicole Shears, Demitria Loyd, and Tarah Halloran handily won this “Jeopardy”-inspired contest of psychology knowledge, prevailing over teams from 5 other New Hampshire schools. The loving cup trophy will be displayed in the Psych Department for the next 12 months.

The inaugural statewide Psychology Student Convention was held here at KSC in April 2009 and we will again be the host in 2012. In addition to the psych cup competition, events include a student research poster session, workshops on grad school and employment, featured speakers, and opportunities for interaction with psychology professionals and peers from other schools.

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From Linda Toomey, Financial Aid:

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From Jim Chesebrough, Music:

Clarinetists Alyssa Comeau (‘13) and Katy Lundstedt (’14), alto saxophonists Mark Perry (’11) and Jake Potelle (’11), trombonist Rob Skrocki (’14), and tubist Cote Lagerberg (’14) performed with the New England College Band Association’s (NECBA) twenty-ninth annual New England Intercollegiate Band on Friday and Saturday, April 1-2, at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. Approximately 60 musicians were selected by audition from over 10 New England colleges and universities. They rehearsed, and performed an exciting program of music with guest conductor Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr.

Professor Rowell recently retired as Director of Bands and Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In recognition of his professional work, Professor Rowell has received the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence and the A. Frank Martin Award, presented by Kappa Kappa Psi for his contributions to college bands.

The band’s program included “Galop” from Moscow Cheremushky by Dimitri Shostakovich, Rhosymedre by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, three movements of the Symphony No. 6 for Band by Vincent Persichetti, and “Country Band” March by New England composer Charles Ives.

The Keene players were selected by the NECBA auditions chair, after recommendations were sent by KSC music faculty member Jim Chesebrough, in early December, and they received word that they had been chosen for the ensemble early in the spring semester. They prepared the challenging program on their own while maintaining active performing schedules in the KSC Music Department. Each of these players has performed in the KSC Orchestra, Concert Band, and Chamber Ensembles, and Mark Perry, Rob Skrocki, and Jake Potelle all perform in the KSC Jazz Ensemble.

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From Peggy Walsh, Honors:

The Keene State College Honors Program is pleased to welcome 20 outstanding students into the program for Fall 2011: Allison Bedell, Chris Bohjalian, Brittany Boscarino, Breanna Butler, Kaitlin Conlon, Kaitlyn Conor, Johanna DeBari, Filip Duz, Raven Gill, Marissa Grady, Kristen Hunyadi, Megan Lowell, Julia Oberst, Anna O’Brien, Laura Parzych, William Pearson, Rebecca Rieger, Eliza Smiley, Justin Yamet, and Velvet Young. Congratulations to all of these remarkable first-year students!

The benefits of participating in honors include academic enrichment, a travel/study course, the option of a living/learning community, and scholarship support. Students joining the honors program as sophomores will participate as full members, completing five honors courses in the next three years.  Fall electives include courses in literature, art, and global politics.

Thank you to all of the faculty and staff who submitted nominations, encouraged students to apply, and wrote letters of recommendation.

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From Susan Whittemore, biology:

Fifteen Keene State Biology majors traveled to the third annual Northeast Undergraduate Research Symposium (NURDS) in Biddeford, Maine in March to present their research. Students from several other colleges and universities, including Wellesley College, Smith College, Amherst College, and Northeastern University, were also in attendance. KSC students Jade Halsey, Christin Gaudette, and Anna McLean (pictured above from right to left) received a “top ten” award for their poster “The Role of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor in PAH Toxicity in the Planarian Schmidtea mediterranea” based on NH-INBRE-supported research supervised by Drs. Jason Pellettieri and Susan Whittemore.  Other KSC students presenting their work included those supervised by Dr. Loren Launen (Ian Casey, Zach Martin, Jenn Gordon, and Amanda Izzo), by Dr. Todd Jarry (Matt Gargas), by Drs. Ken Bergman and Susan Whittemore (James Crone and Sarah Zinn), and by Dr. Susan Whittemore (Krist Hausken, Vanessa Ward, Deena Snoke, Liz Richardson, and Sam Guimaraes). Travel to the conference was supported by NH-INBRE grants awarded to Drs. Launen and Whittemore.

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Amanda Izzo, a Biology major, has had her poster “Transcriptional Activation and Repression by LuxR in Vibrio harveyi” published in the Fall 2010 issue of the online undergraduate research journal Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is a production of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), of which Keene State is a member.

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From Skye Stephenson, GEO:

The Global Education Office (GEO) and GEO Advisory Committee are pleased to announce the following full tuition scholarships for Spring 2011. Hannah Bujnevicie has been awarded the Semester at Sea scholarship. Hannah is currently a nutrition major at KSC. Christopher Batchelder and Michelle Kubas each receive a scholarship for attending the Lorenzo de’ Medici program, while Alison Reynolds will receive the Ivana Giovannelli scholarship to attend the Lorenzo de’ Medici program. This scholarship honors a former host mother in Florence, Italy and is given to a student with interest in the Arts and Humanities.

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Keene State College Students from a variety of disciplines presented their original research and creative projects at the first ever Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges’ Undergraduate Research Conference. The conference was held October 1-2, 2010 at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts.

Congratulations to all student presenters on their accomplishments!

• Miles Warner, Art: Selections from Chad Bentley installation
• Laura Mann, Art: Selections from Tangled Stillness
• Amanda Izzo, Biology: Transcriptional Activation and Repression by LuxR in Vibria harveyi
• Curtis Guild, Chemistry: Crystallographic Studies of a Variety of Pharmaceutically Active Compounds
• Andrew Abeleira and Jacob Meier, Chemistry: Separation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using cyclodextrin modified capillary electrophoresis
• Jacob Meier and Andrew Abeleira, Chemistry: Environmental monitoring of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in lichen using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry
• Amy Curran, Geography: Secrets of the Fleet: Using interviews and sketch mapping to identify the timing and location of lobster fishing on the Maine Coast
• Meagan Blais and Taylor Mitchell, Holocaust and Genocide Studies: What is at Stake?

Faculty and administrators accompanying our scholars included:

• Mel Netzhammer, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
• Gordon Leversee, Dean of Sciences and Social Sciences
• Peter Roos, Associate Professor of Art
• Paul Vincent, Professor, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• Becca Hickam, Coordinator of Experiential Education, CELT

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From Colin Abernethy, Chemistry:

I am pleased to inform you that the work of Anna P. McLean (Biology ’11), Elizabeth A. Neuhardt (Chemistry ’10), and Joel P. St. John (Chemistry ’11) has been published in the international scientific journal Transition Metal Chemistry. The link to the online version of our paper, “Benchtop synthesis and crystal structure determination of a monomeric N-heterocyclic carbene complex of copper(I) chloride” is http://tinyurl.com/yc8vzk3.

Carbene complexes of copper(I) chloride are used as catalysts in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. Previous methods of preparation of these compounds required very expensive equipment and time-consuming procedures. We have developed a new method of making these important catalysts from inexpensive materials with standard laboratory equipment. Using our new technique, the students were able to prepare and study a carbene copper(I) chloride that had never been made before. Structural studies of this compound were then conducted in collaboration with Dr M. Findlater of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Our method of preparing carbene complexes of copper(I) chloride is now being developed as a teaching experiment to be performed in undergraduate inorganic chemistry laboratory courses.

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