Keene State College was named to the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service. We were selected to the Honor Roll by the highest levels of the federal government in recognition of our commitment to service and civic engagement. This year, 1,094 KSC students took part in academic service learning and community service, for a total of 62,882 hours of community service.
May 2–18, at the Carroll House Art Gallery
(on Main St. next to the Alumni Center)
Wed thru Sat 12–5 p.m.
Opening reception, Thursday, May 2, 4–5 p.m.
Exhibit reopens for Reunion weekend,
June 7 & 8.
The KSC Art Department welcomes back five alumni: Randall Merchant ’77 (from Gilsum, NH), Eileen Longe ’12 (from Swanzey, NH); Nic Petrow ’11 (from Branford CT), Katie Houle ’13 (from Newtown, NH), and Jaz Graf ’00 (from Jersey City, NJ). Their work ranges from paintings, drawings, and wall installations to ceramics and printmaking that investigates abstraction, process, color, and representation.
Keene State recently received two major gifts that will benefit students and the TDS Center. The estate of Mary Hamilton ’44 has added to the principal of the Mary C E Hamilton ’44 and Erik Harry Hamilton Scholarship Endowment, which Mary established in 2000 to memorialize her brother Erik and to support students enrolled in teacher education. The additional principal will now enable a higher level of financial aid.
The Main Street America Group (locally known as National Grange Mutual Insurance) has given a major gift towards the TDS Center building project. The company’s name will be added to the large donor board in the Hub. It has also named the Safety Lab Prep Room that sits between classrooms 209 and 211 in the TDS Center.
The College’s Office of Institutional Research recently conducted a survey of last year’s grads (May 2012) that showed that 94% of the respondents are either employed or engaged in further education. And that’s just part of the impressive news:
Of the graduates surveyed, 46 percent still reside in New Hampshire.
“This survey demonstrates that Keene State College is a major contributor to the success of graduates entering the workforce or gaining post-graduate education. An investment in public higher education is also an investment in our state’s workforce and economic development,” said Jay Kahn, Keene State College Interim President.
Did you graduate Keene State College in the 1970s? If so, we want you to come back for Reunion 2013! June 7–9 is a weekend full of KSC fun. Did you know that the Class of 1973 is celebrating its 40th reunion year, and the Class of 1978 is celebrating its 35th? The weekend kicks off Friday night with a welcome-back social. Throughout the weekend you can see old friends, meet new ones, and have fun sitting out on the Quad reminiscing about your College years.
Don’t miss out on the fun! Check out the Reunion webpage to see the full schedule and to register. See you in June!
Questions? Email us at alumni@keene.edu or call is at 603-358-2369.
New Hampshire State Teacher of the Year Heidi Welch ’96 was at the White House on April 22 as one of four finalists for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) National Teacher of the Year award ceremony. Though the award went to Jeff Charbonneau, a 9–12 grade chemistry, physics, and engineering teacher from Washington state, being one of four finalists from the entire country sure is impressive, and we’re as proud as we can be of Heidi. She teaches 9–12 grade music at Hillsboro-Deering High School in Hillsboro, NH, and is a member of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), which sent some of their officials to the ceremony to celebrate with her and take some photos.
Keene State College has been included in “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2013 Edition” by the The Princeton Review in collaboration with the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Keene State has been on the list of 320 green colleges in the US list every year, since 2010 when the selections began.
“Keene State College continues to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability through actions all year long. From dining services to academics, sustainability is a value that is lived in every facet of the College,” said Mary Jensen, Keene State College Campus Sustainability Officer. “Students, faculty, and staff are truly united in this value, and I look forward to expanding our sustainability efforts by building on collaborations across campus and throughout our community to make even greater positive impacts.”
Check out the larger story for a partial list of KSC’s sustainability accomplishments from 2012.
Reunion 2013 is almost here! Come back to campus June 7–9 and see old friends, meet new ones, and reminisce about what made KSC great when you were a student (and how wonderful it is now!) Did you know the Class of 1963 is celebrating its 50th reunion year? They will be joining other classes in the Golden Circle Society, a special group of Keene State College alumni whom have graduated 50 or more years ago.
There will be different events throughout the weekend to attend—ice cream socials, dueling pianos, luncheons, and more! And what better way to relive your college experience than to spend the weekend in Fiske Hall!
To learn more information, please visit Reunion 2013. There you can see the full schedule of events and register! Questions? Email us at alumni@keene.edu or call us at 603-358-2369.
Does anyone not know what this scene is? I bet you can even name the day and the hour of this big event.
The KSC Athletics Department, in partnership with Nissan of Keene, invites alumni to participate in the annual KSC Golf Classic at the Brentwood Golf Course on Friday, June 7. This 18-hole championship is based on a scramble format. Proceeds benefit KSC athletic programs. Here’s the schedule:
9:30–10:45 a.m. – Registration
Practice range open
Tee assignments and instructions
11 a.m. – Shotgun start
Lunch on course
4 p.m. – Dinner
(steak or chicken dinner and awards presentation)
The entry fee is $160 per person or $640 per foursome. If you don’t have enough for a foursome, we’ll put a group together for you. We also invite you or your company or organization to sponsor a hole ($125 contribution). We’ll put a sign indicating your sponsorship at that hole.
One of the downsides of the digital age is that we spend a lot more time staring at the screen on one electronic device or another. In many cases, too much time. Some of us remember life before the LCD screen, but our children don’t. It’s the only world they’ve ever known. What effects might that be having on them?
In order to find out, a team of students in Assistant Professor of Health Science Marj Droppa’s Behavior Change class conducted a study involving second graders at Keene’s Wheelock Elementary School. Their goal was not only to discover what effects screen time over exposure was having on the elementary students, but also to devise a program that would help the kids reduce their screen time. Screen-time activities included television, computers, video games, and any other electronic device with a video screen.
As part of the project, the Health Science students conducted a research-based focus group with the elementary students to determine the issues around screen time. The student’s research found that over exposure to screen time resulted in the second graders exhibiting shorter attention spans in the classroom, a decrease in family time, and nightmares. “Our focus group revealed that the second graders had short attention spans due to screen time over exposure,” explained Mia Hulslander, one of the student researchers. “We realized this through the students’ complaints of boredom when they were watching TV and playing video games. They reported never being satisfied with the screen time they were currently watching.”
Continue reading Too Much Screen Time = Shorter Attention Span
Professor of Chemistry Jerry P. Jasinski has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Mysore (Mysore, India) during the 2013–2014 academic year. Dr. Jasinski’s goal through this exchange is to teach students and faculty at the University of Mysore, and affiliated institutions about the use of single crystal X-ray crystallography as a modern state-of-the-art tool in the determination of molecular structure.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.
Two independent-study photography students, Anastasia Dubrovina and Anne Johnson, will have their work featured in the 2013 Magenta Festival in Boston this May.
“It’s been amazing working with these two and seeing them develop as young artists,” said Assistant Professor of Art Jonathan Gitelson. “They are two of the most self-motivated students I’ve encountered in my three years at Keene, and I’m so proud of their recent accomplishment. This is a big deal!”
Continue reading Two Students Exhibit Photos in Magenta Festival
In keeping with its commitment to sustainability and renewable energy, KSC is installing a solar-panel array that will cover 40% of the roof atop the TDS Center. The array will be comprised of 532 solar panels capable of producing approximately 127 kW at peak performance, or 15% of the building’s estimated electrical consumption. The installation of this system began during the spring break (March 9–17) and is expected to last until early June. You can watch the progress on the TDS webcam.
When music student Jordan Chase was awarded one of the three available SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) grants for summer 2013, it was the first time the fellowship has gone to a KSC student in the Arts and Humanities. He will receive $4000 to work on his project, titled “Instrumentation, Orchestration, and Large-scale Composition.”
For this eight-week project, Jordan will create a new composition for chamber orchestra, focusing on several areas of research and composition. He’ll address instrumentation and orchestration, large-scale compositional form, the compositional process itself, and marketing and promoting the piece. His study of instrumentation will require him to learn to play several of the orchestral instruments to make him better able to develop idiomatic compositional ideas. To better understand orchestration, he’ll study works by various composers to enhance his understanding of formal structure. Once Jordan has completed his piece, he’ll send the final score to at least one national competition and contact several local and national conductors in an effort to promote and market it.
Continue reading Jordan Chase: First A&H Student to Win SURF Grant
When a member of the Kayser Family visited the Children’s Literature Festival Gallery Collection in Rhodes Hall recently, she was so impressed by this delightful collection of work by the best children’s book illustrators that she directed NH Charitable Foundation to make a $2,000 grant from the Kayser Family Fund to help support it. Professor David White, director of the Children’s Literature Festival, intends to use the award to purchase an illustration from Morris the Artist, written by Lore Segal and illustrated by Boris Kulikov, who spoke at the 2012 Festival. That illustration will be used for the October 26, 2013, Festival flyer and poster.
The Festival Gallery Collection, which began in November 1990, is a permanent collection of original illustrations, working drawings, and pieces related to children’s book illustration. It currently contains hundreds of pieces by 159 artists.