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Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Denise Burchsted may be new on campus, but she’s already got her students involved in a research project that will provide important information to the City of Keene. Not long ago, the NH Department of Environmental Services inspected the Faulkner and Colony Dam on the Ashuelot River near West St. and determined that the city must either repair the dam or take it out. Either choice will cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many environmentalists want the dam removed, to return the river to what they consider its natural, free-flowing state. Many local historic preservationists want the dam restored as an important part of our cultural heritage. Obviously, the city has a difficult and expensive decision to make; one that it cannot ignore. Doing nothing is not an option.
But, there’s hope! The city could hardly have found a professional with more expertise and experience than Dr. Burchsted to look at the dam and offer advice on the decision Keene has to make. She is a licensed professional engineer specializing in water resources, she’s the New Hampshire director for the New England Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration, and her research of rivers is funded by agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As an engineer and aquatic scientist, she’s conducted several dam-removal and other river-restoration projects.
“There is a movement nationally and internationally to remove these old dams that no longer serve an economic purpose,” Dr. Burchsted explained. “They prevent fish from swimming up and down the river. They break the life cycle of anadromous fish—fish from the ocean that swim upriver to spawn—which kills them completely. Historically, that would include salmon, shad, eel (which travel from freshwater to salt to spawn), but also freshwater fish that travel as part of their life cycle. So a free-flowing river is critical to the health of the fish.” According to the NH Department of Environmental Services, the Ashuelot is currently included in the Connecticut River Anadromous Fish Restoration Program for smelt rearing. “A lot of dams that aren’t serving a function are being taken down to help create this important connection between upstream and downstream,” Dr. Burchsted said. “The Homestead Woolen Mills Dam downstream in W. Swanzey was removed in 2010. There are hydropower dams at the mouth of the Ashuelot, but those will have fish passages on them.”
However, Dr. Burchsted is not so ready to say that it’s a good idea to remove the dam. “‘Good’ is relative. I always tell my students that there’s no such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ The answer is ‘It depends.’ It always depends on your perspective, and this is the crux of what we’re studying. There are some people who would indeed say removing the dam is a good thing. If you’re a fish, it’s probably a good thing, but, again, that depends. If you’re someone who cares about preserving historical landmarks, it’s a really bad thing. This story is playing out all over the country and in other parts of the world.” Built sometime around 1777 to power nearby mills, the Faulkner and Colony Dam is part of our cultural heritage, and destroying it upsets people who value this heritage. And now that the dam has been here for so many years, it’s created its own ecosystem. The dam supports a lot of upstream wetlands, and those would be disturbed if the dam were removed.
“One of the things I’m pushing my class to think about—and this is a very difficult concept for people to grasp—is that prior to the dam being constructed, it’s highly probable that the river was full of natural dams, such as beaver dams and log jams,” Dr. Burchsted said. “Historically, the river probably was not free flowing. Before people constructed the dams, other things would have dammed the river, either things that fell in on their own, during spring floods for example, or that beaver placed there. And the fish evolved in this type of ecosystem. Those are the conditions that they expect. The fish require still water as well as fast water. They need the flowing water to reproduce, but their young also need a safe place to grow and they all need places to hide during floods when the river is too fast and dangerous. Ecologically speaking, the dam is a complete barrier and is problematic. Ecologically speaking, it ‘should’ be modified. But how that can best be done in order to protect some of these other habitats that are also important is a big question, and that’s what I’m pushing my students to think about. It’s a complex ecosystem that requires complex considerations.”
Dr. Burchsted studied naturally occurring dams as she worked towards her PhD, and she believes that the Ashuelot likely had plenty of natural obstructions before the first human settlers showed up. “We talk so much about what’s ‘natural,'” she noted. “The river is ‘naturally free flowing,’ and the dam is ‘not natural,’ as though humans aren’t part of nature, but if you want to set up this dualism where humans are unnatural and places without humans are natural, and you go away from where the people are, the rivers are clogged with dams—far more than we have in the cities. There are many more dams on those sections of river that are not controlled by people. Where you find the beaver dams, especially in New England and here in New Hampshire were the systems are acidic and somewhat poor, is where you find the fish. That’s where they eat, and that’s where they find shelter during floods, and that’s where the young grow and hide from predators. Natural dams are essential for thriving fisheries.
“I would bet that, before settlement, Keene was an area of open riparian forest with lots of marshes all across what is now the city, and the rivers would move a lot from year to year as beaver dams and other natural impoundments changed the course of the water flow. Then a big flood would come through and blow some of the obstructions out. That kind of environment is extremely fertile, which would attract settlers. It’s perfect for growing crops and pasturing cattle. But you can’t maintain a permanent homestead if the river keeps moving around on you, so you start controlling the river. They would fill in the marsh and control the channel, dropping the river level to drain more land. So removing the Faulkner and Colony Dam will in no way return the river to a pristine, natural state. If anything, it is continuing this progression of dropping the water table, which is unnatural.”
Dr Burchsted’s point is that the problem is complex, and both the environmentalists and the historic preservationists have valid arguments that need to be considered. By having her students delve into the issues and offer research data on which to base a decision, they can provide critical information to the City of Keene so that it can pursue the best course regarding the dam. “I’m hoping that we can clarify the issues that the city needs to think about if they pursue dam removal, so they’ll be clearer about what impact it will have on the wetlands, for example,” Dr. Burchsted explained. “Ultimately, it’s a social decision, and we want to provide a list of the concerns. My ideal is to suggest one or two alternatives, a little more of a middle-road option that might be more ‘natural,’ so it doesn’t have to be a ‘yes-dam/no-dam’ choice between two opposites. There are things you can do to a dam besides just take the whole thing out. I’m hoping that, as a class, we can come up with other possibilities.” And something that, hopefully, will have most people in Keene feeling like they made the right choice.
For historical perspective on the dam, and to see a map showing how it looked in 1877, see the Historical Society of Cheshire County’s article on the Faulkner and Colony Mill.
Since the days of the proverbial story of Issac Newton “discovering” gravity when a falling apple hit him on the head, it’s long been known that important scientific discoveries often happen quite unexpectedly. A finding in Assistant Professor Jason Pellettieri’s Stem Cells and Regeneration course may well be one such event. The course explores basic scientific concepts and ethical issues in the fields of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, so Dr. Pellettieri has the students investigate the effects of environmental variables on regeneration in planarians (Schmidtea mediterranea), aquatic flatworms with a remarkable ability to regrow lost body parts.
“You can chop an adult planarian into hundreds of pieces and almost every piece will regenerate a complete new individual in just over a week, so these animals make ideal experimental subjects for non-science majors,” Dr. Pellettieri explained. “A few years ago, one group of students in the course found that prolonged sunlight exposure led to complete depigmentation of regenerating animals. Planarians are normally dark brown in color, but the sunlight-exposed animals turned completely white. Brad Stubenhaus, a student researcher in my lab, conducted a series of follow-up experiments that showed depigmentation can be triggered by intense visible light.” Therefore, Dr. Pellettieri applied for, and received, a $64,456 NH-INBRE grant to continue this important research.
A normal number of pigment cells is critical for human health. Skin melanocytes, for example, normally provide protection from the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, but stimulate the growth of too many melanocytes, and you’re a candidate for melanoma. You also need the right amount of retinal pigment epithelium cells to have normal eyesight. Losing these cells causes age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. These conditions are increasing and effective treatments remain limited, so research that adds to the scientific knowledge of factors impacting pigment cell survival is vital.
Dr. Pellettieri and his students have succeeded in reproducing the depigmentation phenomenon under controlled conditions in the lab, and he will use the INBRE grant to determine how visible light exposure causes depigmentation at a cellular and molecular level. “Our preliminary data suggest that planarian pigment cells die when exposed to bright visible light for extended periods of time,” he said. “We think this is due to the generation of harmful molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can damage many different parts of the cell, including DNA.”
Other researchers have demonstrated that melanin, the pigment in human skin, generates ROS when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and this effect has been linked to melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. “That very important work adds to a large body of literature documenting the adverse effects of UV exposure, but we know relatively little about the effects of intense visible light on pigment cells,” Dr. Pellettieri said. “Our INBRE-funded research is addressing that gap in our knowledge. It’s always important to be cautious when trying to establish possible connections between research in lab animals and human biology, but if our results indicate that visible light can cause damage to pigment cells through the generation of ROS, this might raise some interesting questions about possible harmful effects of prolonged exposure to bright visible light (of course that wouldn’t be a problem for all of us living in New Hampshire most of the time!).”
Two other students, Emily Neverett and Jeanne LaFortune, are now working on this project with Stubenhaus. “They’ve already generated some very interesting data and, although we have a ways to go with this research, we think we’re on the right track in terms of our hypotheses about how depigmentation occurs,” said Dr. Pellettieri. “Brad and Emily both received funding from INBRE to support their research on this project over the summer, along with J.P. Dustin, who is doing research on a new project in my lab. INBRE has been tremendously helpful in allowing me to set up an undergraduate research program here at Keene State. Mentoring research students is an extremely rewarding part of my job and it’s really gratifying to receive support for that work.”
Talk about upward trajectory! After Christina Bourbeau ’10 earned a degree in Athletic Training from KSC, she headed to the University of Hawaii to pursue a master’s degree in the discipline. Then she worked for a year in southern California as an athletic trainer and was selected for a prestigious and competitive Sports Medicine Athletic Training Fellowship at the Steadman Clinic in Colorado, where she’ll be working with Olympic athletes.
“I am very fortunate to be an athletic training fellow at the Steadman Clinic!” Bourbeau exclaimed. “This is a huge opportunity, as it is a very competitive fellowship program for certified athletic trainers. Each year, the Steadman Clinic offers five to seven positions for certified athletic trainers to work in the orthopedic hospital and train to become physician extender athletic trainers. This is a year-long fellowship, and we go through rotations with each surgeon in the Steadman Clinic, giving us the opportunity to work with some of the best orthopedic surgeons in the nation. While we are here, we become certified orthopedic technologists (after we pass our national exam) and we obtain ‘scrub’ privileges so we can assist in the operating room. Additionally, we have a lot of outreach opportunities to work as traditional athletic trainers at local high schools; we also provide sports medicine coverage at events that come to Vail, including the GoPro Games, Dew Tour, and USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and we travel with the US Ski and Snowboard teams whether it’s to Europe, Canada, or locally at Copper Mountain. Professionally, this is one of the best opportunities I could have ever accepted at this point in my life.”
“While I am here, I hope to learn as much as I can from all of the sports medicine professionals I work with. I hope to publish some research and to give back to the athletic training profession by sharing my research at national meetings. Also, I want to enjoy the active lifestyle of Vail, Colo., and explore as much as I can.”
And where does her training at Keene State fit into all of this? “KSC played a huge role in preparing me for a position like this one,” she said. “My foundation of athletic training skills and knowledge all began there. The clinical opportunities offered during my time as an undergrad introduced me to the various routes I could take after becoming a certified athletic trainer. My education at KSC allowed me to obtain a graduate assistant position at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which in turn provided me with the education I needed to be a competitive applicant for the Steadman Clinic fellowship position.”
You can get a great education at Keene State—in the classroom and in places outside the classroom. Like in basements. At least, that was Dan Hunt ’00’s experience. He came to KSC in ’96, planning to study music performance. But then he took a computer mapping class and decided to switch to a degree in Geography, figuring that map making might be a more lucrative career than music.
But his love for music never wavered, and he fell in with a band called Brown Factory, playing drums and “spending several weekend nights sweating in the basement of 80 Roxbury (among other places),” he recalled. “Those guys were incredible and really helped form the player I am today. We would play marathon shows that would end up being heralded as the greatest party ever thrown or the biggest disaster you ever saw. Either way, I learned so much about groove, dynamics, and stamina on the drums. Things I wouldn’t have necessarily learned with a Music degree.”
When he graduated in 2000 with a BA in geography, he headed to Portland, Maine, and found work as a Geographic Information Systems Specialist for an environmental engineering firm there. And he continued to play drums nearly every night.
He moved around the country some, working for engineering firms and city planners making maps, eventually settling in Portland, Oregon. “I loved the work and it kept me from starving,” Dan explained. “But I always saw music as my number one career. I played nearly every chance I got and never turned down a gig, no matter what it was.” Everywhere he lived, he played and toured with various bands, including Arthur and Yu, Broken Social Scene, Iron and Wine, and Album Leaf. He found out through his local drum shop that Neko Case needed a drummer. “I threw my name in a hat, auditioned, and got the gig!”
“Since then, I’ve been playing full time with Neko, so no more maps. My first show was in Barcelona in front of 5,000 people, and its been a whirlwind ever since. We’re currently touring on her new album The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. I’ll be out over the next year and a half touring all of the States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.”
Does he ever look back? You bet: “Chris Cusack, Jo Beth Mullens, and Elaine Hartwick were among my most inspirational professors at KSC,” Dan remembered. “In the Music Department, I still have fond memories of Don Baldini and Ted Mann. I miss all those folks!”
Here’s Dan and the Neko Case gang playing a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR at Halloween (in costume, of course):
And here’s Dan, soloing at the Portland Drum Fair:
The American Chemical Society recently approved KSC’s Chemistry Department for full accreditation. The Committee on Professional Training (CPT) governs the approval process, getting input from academic and industrial representatives to determine what should comprise a proper chemical education. The standards are very comprehensive.
“What this means to the department and students is that we have validation of the quality of the facilities, staff, major program, and other resources (library, instrumentation),” explained Associate Professor of Chemistry Richard Blatchly. “The students will get a certificate attesting to this, and presumably will have it marked on their transcripts. That should be appealing to employers and graduate schools.”
Dr. Blatchly also said that prospective students frequently ask if our programs are ACS approved. The answer now is “Yes.” The approval could be very important, Dr. Blatchly noted, “as it marks us as an institution which cares a lot about academic quality, and is willing to provide the resources and energy to achieve and maintain it.”
Theatre & Dance alum Shawn Ahern ’10 was back on campus on Oct. 15 with the awe-inspiring Pilobolus Dance Theatre, which performed to a sold-out house at the Redfern. He joined the professional company right after he graduated, and, though Pilobolus delights audiences everywhere it goes, being back at the Redfern was extra-special for Shawn. “It was a homecoming, in many ways,” he said. “Like when your team wins a home game, it was just that much better.”
Pilobolus, with its amazing, beautiful, and brilliant choreography, thrilled the audience and got a standing ovation for its breathtaking performance. As Edge observed, “These works are shrines to the power of the human body and the creativity of the human mind.” Obviously, the Pilobolus troupe maintains a rigorous training schedule to achieve such professional and artistic perfection, but we managed to catch Shawn during a well-deserved break after the show.
Continue reading After the Pilobolus Show with Shawn Ahern ’10
by KSC choral music education student and ACDA member Amanda Williams
On Saturday, October 5, the Epilepsy Foundation of New England hosted the annual New Hampshire Walk for Epilepsy in Concord to raise awareness and funds for research into this medical condition. The Epilepsy Foundation was established in 1967 and is funded primarily through donations as well as sponsored events.
Student and Vice President of the Keene State chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Kaitie Hart has been involved with this event for a few years; she is very close to the family that runs the New Hampshire walk. Hart has watched participation for the New Hampshire walk grow over the years, so she decided to keep the momentum going and raise even more awareness for this cause. KSC’s ACDA chapter realized this would be an effective way to make a difference in their community, so six of their members decided to join the walk, supported by Hart’s mother and Associate Professor of Music Jim Chesebrough.
As the team walked along Concord’s Main Street, they held a sign that read “American Choral Directors Association supports finding a cure for epilepsy.” They got lots of encouragement as people honked their car horns in support. After the walk, everyone gathered at the Kimball Jenkins Estate for raffles, games, and a great lunch provided by Olive Garden. To end the day, ACDA also helped clean up after the event. As a whole, the walk was a wonderful event that brought community together and a great form of community service for KSC.
“It was great to see students from KSC involved in a community service at the state level,” Dr. Chesebrough commented. “It’s also just plain fun to be able to interact with our students in a non-academic context.”
“I really want to thank the group for coming and helping out,” Mary Crowell, NH Field Service Coordinator for the Epilepsy Foundation of New England, wrote to Dr. Chesebrough after the event. “Kaitie is like our third daughter, but she still went above and beyond by getting the group to come and help. Circumstances what they turned out to be, I couldn’t have been happier or more pleased with the group. They are a dynamic group to say the least.”
The Keene State ACDA chapter raised $480 towards the event total of $7,421. Keene State’s ACDA chapter is planning to make this walk one of its annual events; it’s hoping that more members participate next year. Mark your calendars: next year’s walk will happen on October 4, 2014.
Keene State College’s Technology, Design and Safety Center (TDS Center) has earned LEED Platinum Certification from the US Green Building Council/Green Building Certification Institute due to the building’s energy efficiency and building materials. Much of the TDS Center’s energy efficiency comes from the large solar array on its roof, which makes the Center NH’s third largest solar-power producer.
Keene State roots can run pretty deep, and here’s the photo to prove it: Bea Moss Vickers ’32 recently visited the Alumni Center with her great-grandaughter, Alaina Vickers-Dodge, who’s on campus for her first semster as a freshman. So we had a chance to meet one of the oldest Keene students (note her Golden Circle medallion!) and one of the youngest!
Award-winning journalist Bill Seamans, who headed the Middle East desk of ABC News from 1967 to 1991, has donated his papers to the Mason Library’s Archives & Special Collections. He appeared many times with with Peter Jennings on ABC Nightly News and with Ted Koppel on Nightline and spoke earlier this month in the library’s Marion Wood Reading Area. The papers that he has donated to the archives include original typescript reports, books, and memorabilia covering his reporting on the events unfolding in Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over a period spanning more than two decades. He also donated his poser collection, which which includes many rare and unique examples documenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and posters from Russia’s Soviet era.
Four KSC Health Science students attended the NH Public Health Association Fall Forum in October. They are part of a new initiative called Rising Stars which is intended to recruit and engage students in the state affiliate of the American Public Health Association. Each of the four received a scholarship to attend the meeting. “This provides professional development for students through helping them to see and hear the scope of what ‘public health’ is and does in New Hampshire and gives them a sense of professional identity,” explained Associate Professor of Health Science Becky Brown.
“The conference provided me with insights and knowledge about current healthcare and the future of healthcare,” said Kim L’Heruex. “After all the hard work I have put into my studies, I understand now that there are jobs and careers out there that I can go into. The best thing I learned was about all the opportunities that I have as someone looking to get into the health field.”
Members of the KSC community and of the “sandwich generation”—those struggling to care for their elderly loved ones while raising their own children—will find help in The Sandwich Generation’s Guide to Eldercare: Concrete Advice to Simultaneously Care for Your Kids and Your Parents, co-authored by Phillip D. Rumrill ’89 PhD, CRC.
Dr. Rumrill, recipient of the 2012 Alumni Achievement Award, received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Keene State and is currently a professor and coordinator of the Rehabilitation Counseling Program at Kent State University (Ohio) as well as the director of the Center for Disability Studies at Kent State. His latest book is a co-authored project with two other rehabilitation specialists and shares insight and advice for the sandwich generation. This invaluable resource offers tips for every aspect of eldercare, including how to navigate the legal and financial considerations while ensuring the best care for loved ones and avoiding caregiver burnout.
Towards the end of WWII Hitler ordered his killing machine into overdrive to exterminate the Jews. Joanna Saidel ’85 has written a fascinating article, “Deal with the Devil,” for The Times of Israel that delves deeply into clandestine efforts to thwart Hitler’s orders—a little known story that saved perhaps tens of thousands of European Jews.
Saidel received a master’s degree from Keene State before going on to get a Ph.D. in History from UNH Durham (her dissertation topic was “Revisionist Zionism in America: The Campaign to Win American Public Support, 1939-1948”). “My work at Keene definitely helped pave the way for the current article,” Saidel explained. “At that time I studied with Charles Hildebrandt. If I remember correctly, he was in the process of establishing a Holocaust Studies program then (probably around 1984?). He was my mentor for my master’s thesis, Jewish Life in Latin America. I enjoyed working with him very much; I could sense his genuine dedication—his emotion and spirit—as he undertook his mission to develop a Holocaust center at Keene.”
Saidel currently live in New Hampshire with her family, writing for The Times of Israel and occasionally for the Jerusalem Post.
As reported in Newsline, Interim Provost Melinda Treadwell will be assuming her new post as vice president for Academic Affairs at Antioch University New England in January. While the College searches for a new provost, President Ann Huot has appointed Dean for School of Sciences and Social Sciences Gordon Leversee to serve as our interim provost.
“Dr. Leversee brings significant experience and insight to this important post having served in the role several years ago.” Dr. Huot explained. “He will serve from January 3rd until the new provost is hired and on board (July 1st is the anticipated start date). Please join me in thanking Gordon for stepping up to serve in this very important role.”
Somersworth Middle School Principal Dana Hilliard ’95 had been bitten by the political bug back when he was active in student government while he was on campus. His success, and his willingness to serve, reached a new high on November 5 when he was voted in as mayor of Somersworth, NH. Mayor Hilliard is a former KSC Alumni Board member, and he is still active in Seacoast alumni events and promotes the College whenever he gets an opportunity.
Read the announcement of his mayoral win in Foster’s Daily Democrat.