Monthly Archives: February 2011

A Love that Survived Hitler’s Wrath

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendar

On March 10, the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies partners with the Lantos Foundation to present the Keene premier of Surviving Hitler: A Love Story.

The documentary presents a remarkable story of love, bravery, and determination, documented with rare historical footage. Jutta, a teenager in Nazi Germany, is shocked to learn she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets Helmuth, an injured soldier, and the two become romantically entwined. They also become entangled in the Valykrie plot to assassinate Hitler. When the plot fails, the two are hunted, and theirs is a harrowing tale of war, resistance, and survival. Jutta herself narrates the story, and the movie includes rare 8mm footage that Helmuth took during the war years.

Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for non-students and can be purchased on-line at the Cohen Center website. The film starts at 7 p.m. in KSC’s Putnam Theater, and a ticket gets you admission to the 6 p.m. pre-film reception in the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, where you can meet Jutta Cords, the subject of the documentary.

Summer is SMART!

February 22, 2011Uncategorized

There’s something smart at KSC this summer. For the first time, students can take classes during the summer, save a little on tuition, and maybe graduate a little earlier. Online registration for summer classes opened on February 20 and runs until March 25. Summer students can live in One Butler Court and eat at the DC. More information and links to registration are available on the Summer is SMART! web page.

Two Chemistry Students Have the Right Elements

February 22, 2011UncategorizedStudent Standouts

Jacob Meier (top) and Andrew Abeleira, two of the Chemistry Department's shining stars. — Dr. James Kraly (top) and Andrew Abeleira.

Two KSC chemistry students, Andrew Abeleira and Jacob Meier, have just the right elements for success. Their intelligence, dedication, curiosity, and commitment to their discipline are opening the doors to wonderful opportunities. Back in the fall of ’09, Andrew and Jacob were in Assistant Professor James Kraly’s Quantitative Analysis course. “Both students learned the fundamentals of analytical chemistry quickly and were engaged with the hands-on laboratory work,” Dr. Kraly explained. “As a result, they both began an independent study under my supervision during the spring 2010 semester. The project introduced Andy and Jacob to instrumentation for chemical separations, and they quickly applied their skills from their chemistry coursework to calibrate the instruments and implement analytical methods.”

During the spring and summer of 2010, Andrew and Jacob worked with Dr. Kraly performing analytical chemistry research. The pair developed a student proposal titled “Lichen as a biomonitor for air pollution: quantitative analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using capillary electrophoresis separation” and earned a $1500 research grant from KSC’s Undergraduate Creative Research and Creative Grants committee. The students used these funds to conduct summer research as part of the Chemistry Department’s inaugural Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program (SURF). As a result of their summer research, Andrew and Jacob gave poster presentations at the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) regional conference in October of 2010. Andrew and Jacob will also co-present a poster with Dr. Kraly titled “Environmental Monitoring of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Lichen Using Capillary Electrophoresis and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry” in March at the 2011 Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy (PITTCON) in Atlanta, GA.

Andrew and Jacob currently hold student assistantships under Dr. Kraly on an IDeA Network of Biological Research Excellence (INBRE) pilot program, which funds student research hours, travel to conferences, and chemical supplies. And (of course!) they will each present a poster of their work at KSCs Academic Excellence Conference on April 2, 2011.

Two H&GS Majors Present on the Holocaust

February 22, 2011UncategorizedStudent Standouts

: Meagan Blais, Prof. Paul Vincent, and Taylor Mitchell at the Rotary Club of Keene, February 7, 2011. (Anna Tilton photo)

Meagan Blais and Taylor Mitchell, two Keene State College seniors majoring in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, spoke on “Studying the Holocaust: What is at Stake?” at a February meeting of the Rotary Club of Keene. It was the same presentation they gave at the first-ever Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges’ (COPLAC) Undergraduate Research Conference last October at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Their talk, with supporting PowerPoint presentation, focused on the lessons and insights they gained from a Holocaust Studies Travel Seminar they took in June 2010 to Holocaust-related sites in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

“The presentation, a finely tuned balance of knowledge and passion,” noted Holocaust and Genocide Studies Professor Paul Vincent, “had a powerful impact on the Rotarians.” After their talk, a representative of the Dublin School (Dublin, NH) who was among the Rotarians, approached Meagan and Taylor to ask if they would offer their presentation at a Dublin School assembly. The students created the public presentation as part of their requirements for an independent study in Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Nominate Your Most Impressive Teacher

February 22, 2011Uncategorized

2010 Alumni Distinguished Teacher Dr. Beverly Ferrucci

Professors Beverly Ferrucci, Anne-Marie Mallon, Paul Vincent, and Therese Seibert all have something very special in common: Each has been recognized by alumni, students, and their peers for their achievements as an outstanding faculty member at KSC.

Presented annually since 1971, the KSC Alumni Association Distinguished Teacher Award recognizes excellence in teaching at Keene State College, based upon the following criteria: excellence in classroom teaching, encouragement of independent thinking, rapport with students in and out of the classroom, and effective student advising. Candidates must be full-time, tenure-track faculty who have taught a minimum of three years at Keene State College.

So if you know a KSC professor who fits that criteria, please nominate him or her for the award. They deserve it!

We’ve pushed the deadline ahead this year, so please submit your documentation and letters of support to the Alumni & Parent Relations office, Barry Alumni House (in the Alumni Center) by 4 p.m., March 11, 2011. And let us know if you could use a little help reaching out to alumni to help build the submission portfolio.

You can download the nomination form on the Distinguished Teacher Award page. You’ll find a list of previous recipients there as well.

In recognition of their achievement, each honoree receives a plaque and an honorarium, and their portrait is hung in the Mason Library among those of previous recipients. You’ll be proud you helped put it there!

Dance Conference Comes to KSC

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendar

The American College Dance Festival Association New England Conference is coming to the Redfern Arts Center from Wednesday to Saturday, March 9–12. The four-day event will open with a performance by the acclaimed New York choreographer Monica Bill Barnes. The conference, presented by KSC’s Theatre and Dance Department, will also include four adjudicated dance concerts highlighting the work of faculty, guest artists, and student choreographers, culminating with a special gala performance by guest artists.

More information. …

Women’s Rugby Team Goes for the Guinness

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendar

Come on down to Williams College and cheer these hardy women on to a record for the longest rugby game.

Rugby is a grueling, demanding game. Like most tough sports, if you’re a player, you gotta love it. Meghan Frechette, a Keene State senior, has gotta love it more than most, because she came up with the idea to play continuously for 24 hours to raise money to fight breast cancer and get her team’s name in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Owls will meet the women from the Williams College rugby team at 8 a.m., Sunday, April 24, at Cole Field on the Williams College campus.

So come on down to Williamstown, Mass., any time between 8 a.m. that Sunday and 8 a.m. on Monday (April 25) to cheer on these hardy souls, support Tackle for a Cure, and be part of a record-setting event. Can’t make the game? Use “comments” to drop them a line of encouragement. It will sure come in handy!

More information. …

Another Winter Wonderful Weekend is History

February 22, 2011Uncategorized

The 1966 Carnival Queen and her court. Can anyone name the women behind those charming smiles? — The 1966 Carnival Queen and her court. Can anyone name the women behind those dazzling smiles?

This year’s Winterfest built upon the Winter Carnival tradition, which goes back in KSC history farther than most of us can remember. Although much has changed with the winter celebration over the years, the school spirit and excitement over building a snow sculpture is still strong. Beginning in the 1920s as a “Mid-Year Dance,” this social activity has evolved into an even more meaningful event.

In the 1940s, the Winter Carnival Dance became something many students looked forward to. Part of the anticipation revolved around female students that their classmates nominated for Carnival Queen. Those women would doll up in their elegant gowns and head over to Meet Your Candidate Night, where they would have tea with the judges, who evaluated them on their personality, beauty, and answers to two questions—one humorous, one serious. The following night, the campus gathered in Spaulding Gym, now transformed into a winter wonderland with bright streamers and snowflake ornaments, for dancing, revelry, and the announcement of the year’s Carnival Queen.

The beautiful Carnival Queen is now a part of KSC history, but the tradition of winter celebration stays strong. Over 200 students, alumni, faculty, and staff turned out this year for snow tubing at Granite Gorge. Four teams competed in a snow creation contest. Instead of the Glee Club concert of old, 70–80 people filled the Night Owl Café to hear the Jeff Conley Band. Forty competitors came out for the Rail Jam and drew plenty of spectators, despite the rain and sleet.

Winterfest offered many former students an opportunity to come back and relive the fun on campus. The Alumni Association worked hard to keep the school spirit and memories alive. Many students, faculty members, and alumni left the weekend with rosy cheeks and warm memories. As the 1961 Kronicle reported, “another wonderful weekend is history!”

Big thanks go out to the volunteers and KSC Parents Association who pitched in to make the weekend such a success. We also thank Granite Gorge, Liberty Mutual, and the Night Owl for hosting the events.

Get on Board for the TKE Reunion

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendar

Rummage through your drawers and pull out that vintage cherry and gray tee with the imprinted letters you once wore so proudly: TKE!

The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity will be hosting its reunion this Saturday, March 5, for all of their alumni. Come and walk down Memory Lane, sharing your TKE togetherness and pride. The reunion will take place at the Marriot Courtyard, and all alumni are encouraged to book a room and stay for the night. Be there for the 3 p.m. meeting in the hotel’s Conference Room. Wear your proud colors once again and catch up with all your brothers.

Come and remember the fraternity that challenged you to become the gentlemen you are today. This is an event no TKE alum should miss!

The Marriot Courtyard is located at 50 Railroad Street, Keene, NH. For more information, visit the TKE website or contact Sean Powers or Kevin Dwyer.

Class of 1961—It’s Your Year!

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendar, Uncategorized

This year’s Reunion will be a special one for the Class of 1961: It’s their 50th! So, ’61 grads, save that first weekend in June (3–5) to be here on campus and chalk up another milestone. As honored guests, make sure you’re standing behind bagpiper Robert Dinwoodie ’61 to lead the Parade of Classes down Appian Way. It will be all about you (well, mostly) at the Alumni Association Annual Awards luncheon, where you’ll receive your Golden Circle Society Medallions—and all along, you’ll be meeting old classmates and friends. “The friendships people made are the number one thing. It was such a small school that still at our 50th reunion we treasure those friendships,” said Reunion committee member Dottie Simpson ’61.

The reminiscing continues with a casual meeting and chat session after the luncheon, followed by a cocktail hour that evening and a celebratory dinner at Centennial Hall in the Alumni Center. “I look forward to everyone coming back; it is going to be fun to see where they have gone since the last time we have been together,” Simpson said. In addition to Reunion activities, the Class of ’61 has also been working for the past several years to establish a $50,000 scholarship fund to benefit KSC students who demonstrate a financial need, with a preference for students entering the education field. They’ve raised more than $33,000 so far.

You’ll find a lot has changed on campus since 1961, but the memories of Winter Carnival, tanning on the Fiske roof, and Dr. Barnard remain undimmed.

Recognize anyone at the 1961 Winter Carnival?

Calling all Alumni!
Reunion 2011 isn’t just for the Class of ’61. There will be plenty of fun and reminiscing for every alum, so come on back to relive the wonderful time you spent here, the laughs you enjoyed, and the people that became your family.

Friends and Family at Carroll House

February 22, 2011Mark Your Calendarart

The brand-new Carroll House Art Gallery opens its second exhibition, Friends and Family, on Thursday, February 24. The exhibit showcases the work of 10 regional artists with affiliations past and present to the KSC Art Department. The campus community and the public are invited to share in the opening reception from 4–6:30 p.m. that Thursday.

Detail of Pacific Waves by Carmella Azzaro.

The works represent the colorful range of contemporary abstraction and thoughtful visual intentions being executed in the Keene area today. KSC Art Department alumni Molly Fletcher ’07, Brian Jenkins ’90, Jim Murphy ’80, and Mike Reilly ’90 will show their work alongside current and past adjunct Art faculty Craig Stockwell, Stephanie Nichols, and Bruce Blanchette. Artists Carmela Azzaro, Deborah Lloyd Kauffman, and Robert Askey, who have exhibited their works at the College or have taken art courses as non-traditional students, will also have pieces in the show.

Molly Fletcher’s work comments on regional landscape painting, and Craig Stockwell will display his recent Cairo paintings. For the last four years, artist Brian Jenkins has been diligently producing a painting a week in his studio—he will be presenting a year’s worth of those canvases, chronicling his interests and obsessions. The works of Bruce Blanchette and Stephanie Nichols investigate the potential of color and the weight of 3-D materials in relief painting and sculpture.

Part of the Gallery’s mission is to partner students with professionals and to provide a forum for contemporary art, artists, students, and the community. The Gallery offers art students the opportunity to work alongside the 10 artists as they curate, hang, and professionally light their works.

The exhibit continues through Saturday, March 19. Gallery hours are Wednesday–Saturday, noon–5 p.m.

KSC Alumna Wins CT Assistant Principal of the Year

February 22, 2011UncategorizedAlumni achievers

Michelle Trigila Marion ’98, 2011 Connecticut Assistant Principal of the Year (photo by Life Touch)

KSC alumna Michelle Trigila Marion ’98 has been chosen as the 2011 Connecticut Assistant Principal of the Year. The Connecticut Association of Schools chose Marion, who is assistant principal at East Hartford High School, to represent the state and travel to an awards banquet in March to Washington, D.C., along with her counterparts from other states. The honorees will also be offered professional development programs and networking opportunities at the banquet.

Read all about it in the Hartford Courant.

Collie Fulford Wins James Berlin Award

February 22, 2011Uncategorizedwriting

Sorry, we’ve learned that we can’t publish this info just yet. Look for it soon!

Where’d I See That?

February 21, 2011Uncategorized

Even if you’ve never noticed it, it’s pretty easy to guess where this item is. But what nation does it represent? Ten points for location, 90 points for identification!

This, and other images as we add them, are on display in our Where’d I See That? gallery. If you can shed any light on this month’s mystery photo, please put your answer inside the bell of a Vintage King 2B SilverSonic Trombone and mail it to Newsline, Alumni Center, Keene State College, Keene, NH, 03435-1502, or use the “Comments” link below.

Clip from KSC Film Archives Makes Cameo at SAG Awards

February 1, 2011For Parents

Ernest Borgnine as Bill Sweet in The Whistle at Eaton Falls

Ernest Borgnine has been a screen and TV star longer than most of us have been watching movies. The 94-year-old actor’s great contribution to his craft was recognized at this year’s Screen Actors’ Guild Awards on Sunday, January 30, when he was given the Life Achievement Award. And the film retrospective that SAG did on Borgnine’s life would not have been complete without a clip from NH film producer Louis de Rochemont’s 1951 movie, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, in which Borgnine made his first major film appearance.

And guess where that film clip came from? Due to their friendship with Professor Emeritus of Film Studies Larry Benaquist, the de Rochemont family donated the maverick filmmaker’s entire collection to the Keene State College Film Archives, where the only known print of The Whistle at Eaton Falls now resides.

Responding to a request from the SAG for a clip from the film just a few days before the awards ceremony, Dr. Benaquist scrambled to make that happen. He sent the 16mm print to Gary Anderson at the NH Film Archive in Deerfield. Anderson transferred the black and white clip of Borgnine via telecine and shipped it to LA as a digital file. And that was the excerpt that appeared in the retrospective of Borgnine’s career.

Louis de Rochemont’s films often dealt with social issues, and The Whistle at Eaton Falls focuses on an explosive wildcat strike in a small NH town when automation threatens to cut the workforce in the local plastics factory in half. Borgnine plays Bill Street, a union member and coworker of union leader Brad Adams, played by Lloyd Bridges. Adams is appointed president of the company just as the new automation machinery arrives, sparking labor unrest and straining longstanding relationships.

Julie Arie, who managed the rights clearance for the SAG event, thanked Dr. Benaquist for his help and made it clear that, were it not for archives such as Keene State’s, her work would be impossible. Preserving such films as this one “is very important for future generations, for people in the Internet Age who are always looking for historically significant footage to back up facts. It’s a wonderful gift and a wonderful way for Keene State to be connected to Hollywood and the industry,” said Roger C. Memos ’79, a Hollywood freelancer who researches rights and clearances for music, photos, and clips from TV and film for documentaries, talk shows, and film-tribute awards. Memos is currently directing a feature documentary on his friend, blacklisted actress/social-activist Marsha Hunt.

If you’d like to see The Whistle at Eaton Falls and other gems from our collection, stay tuned: The KSC Film Department has big plans for the great treasures it holds in its archives. To be continued. …

Pope Pius XII in World War II

February 1, 2011Mark Your Calendar

Historian Gerhardt Weinberg — Historian Gerhard Weinberg

Come and witness history at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, 23 February, in Centennial Hall in the Alumni Center. Gerhard L. Weinberg, the William Rand Kenen, Jr., Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, will speak on “Pope Pius XII in World War II,” the First Annual Lecture of the Zeta Chi Rho Holocaust and Genocide Studies Honor Society.

Since escaping Germany as a young boy with his family just before World War II and joining the US Army at age 18, Dr. Weinberg has become a life-long student of Nazi Germany, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. He is the author of 10 books, including The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933-1936; The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939; World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II; A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II; Germany, Hitler, and World War II; and Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders.

At age 83, Dr. Weinberg continues to be a man of great passion about his work, traveling, writing, and lecturing. According to Professor Paul Vincent, who has known the scholar for years, “Dr. Weinberg is a powerhouse historian, who gave the opening keynote at our 2001 symposium on the Second World War at Keene … and was our Kristallnacht Remembrance speaker immediately after the symposium. No one has so impacted my understanding of Nazi Germany as has Dr. Weinberg, and I am hardly alone.”

*****

Zeta Chi Rho (ZXP)—a name derived from the Hebrew term “Zakhor,” meaning “to remember”—is the undergraduate honors society in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Its principal goal is to recognize superior academic work in the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Dr. Weinberg’s lecture, the first of an annual series, is sponsored by Keene State College’s Alpha Chapter of Zeta Chi Rho to help promote both academic excellence and a better understanding of the Holocaust.