Tag Archives: award

2nd Time Around: KSC Wins LEC Presidents Cup

KSC Interim President Jay Kahn and Director of Athletics John Ratliff with the coveted 2011–2012 Presidents Cup.

Keene State College has won the Little East Conference Presidents Cup for the second year in a row. The Owls recorded a cumulative grade point average of 3.06 to become the first institution to earn the Conference’s academic award in consecutive years. The Presidents Cup trophy measures the highest cumulative grade-point average of all institutions in the LEC. Each athletic department calculates its student-athletes’ cumulative grade-point average in the conference’s 19 championship sponsored sports. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Plymouth State University, and Western Connecticut State University completed the top-half of the 2011–12 Little East Presidents Cup standings in a three-way tie for second place with a 2.96 cumulative grade-point average.

Twelve of Keene State’s 16 conference-sponsored sports teams produced a cumulative grade point average that was greater than a 3.0. In addition to Keene State’s academic success, the Owls have raised the past 12 Little East Commissioners Cups, which is awarded to the top athletic performing institution in the conference.

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‘Tis the Season for Alumni Awards Nominations

Former education faculty member Raymond Jobin ’63 (second from left) receiving the 2011 Outstanding Service Award.

The Alumni Association is accepting nominations for four of its prestigious awards:

  • The Alumni Achievement Award — given to one whose professional achievement in his/her chosen field brings honor to him or herself and Keene State College. Recipients must be bona fide alumni of Keene State College.
  • The Sprague Drenan Award — given to one whose participation in and support of alumni activities and events is worthy of recognition.
  • The Alumni Inspiration Award — recognizes the exceptional accomplishments of an alumnus/na who graduated from Keene State College not more than 15 years prior to the year of the award.
  • The Outstanding Service Award — given to an individual or organization that has provided outstanding service to Keene State College through leadership, commitment, and influence in programs and activities of the College. Recipients may be alumni, staff, faculty, friends, or associates of Keene State College.

If you know of an alum who deserves one of these awards, please let us know; we’re currently accepting nominations for this year’s recipients. Visit the Alumni Awards page to see a list of past honorees, to review the criteria, and to download the nomination form. The deadline is February 8th.

KSC Wins STARS Sustainability Silver

 

KSC’s Pondside III residence hall, winner of American School & University Magazine’s Outstanding Design Award and the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED® Silver Certificate.

AASHE, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education has awarded KSC its Silver rating in its STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, & Rating System) program.

“STARS is an assessment of the sustainability work of the whole campus: education and research, operations, planning, administration, and engagement,” explained Mary Jensen, KSCs sustainability officer. ­­ “The rating comes from the many sustainable activities on campus, from all of those areas. From the number of faculty teaching classes related to sustainability, to the standards in IT for purchasing computers, to the fostering of diversity, to the financial aid we offer, to the gender-neutral housing, to the food composting and reduced-water shower heads.”
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Biology Professor Susan Whittemore Named 2012’s Distinguished Teacher

KSC’s Distinguished Teacher of 2012, Dr. Susan Whittemore

The KSC Alumni Association awarded Dr. Susan Whittemore, professor of biology, its 2012 Distinguished Teacher Award, which recognizes excellence in teaching, encouragement of independent thinking, rapport with students, and effective student advising.  Dr. Whittemore is the 42nd recipient of this distinctive honor.

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Dr. Benaquist Receives Grant to Restore Long-Lost Guy-Blaché Film

 

Announcement in the Jan. 13, 1912 edition of Moving Picture World.

Larry Benaquist, KSC film professor emeritus, has been awarded a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) to restore another of the films from the “Nelson Collection,” which are now in the possession of Keene State College. The film, Parson Sue, is the only known copy of a one-reel 1912 comedy by Alice Guy Blaché, who is the world’s first professional woman filmmaker and one of the key figures in the development of narrative film. The discovery of this long-lost film has already excited several film scholars and preservationists, so the film history spotlight will be on KSC when the film is ready to premier.
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Two Education Profs Earn Fulbrights

Two of KSC’s Education Department faculty members, associate professors Shirley McLoughlin and Deborah Merchant, have been awarded Fulbright Scholar Grants for 2012 and 2013.

Having two Fulbright scholars in the same year gives KSC serious bragging rights, according to Sally Southwick, associate director of Sponsored Projects and Research. “These are highly competitive national awards,” she explained. “Only about 800 are awarded each year, and they’re very prestigious to receive. Having two Fulbright scholars in one year will get KSC in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual list of ‘top producers.’ For our size and Carnegie classification, two awards is considered a great achievement and one that generally only top-tier private institutions can claim. We now have close to 10 faculty members who have received Fulbright awards.”
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Four New Alumni Award Winners

Dr. Phil Rumrill ’89 M’91, Dr. Helen Giles-Gee, and Scott McPherson ’92. Dr. Christopher Cameron ’06 was unable to attend.

One of the best parts of the annual Alumni Association Luncheon on Reunion Saturday (June 2) is the presentation of the Alumni awards. This year, the Alumni Inspiration Award went to Dr. Christopher Cameron ’06, the Sprague Drenan Award went to Scott McPherson ’92, the Alumni Achievement Award was given to Dr. Phillip Rumrill ’89 M’91, and outgoing KSC President Dr. Helen Giles-Gee received the Outstanding Service Award.
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Nathan Gray Wins Fred Fosher Excellence in Writing Award

Nathan Gray, recipient of the 2012 Fred Fosher Excellence in Writing Award

The craft of writing well eludes many students—and adults—but newly minted KSC  alumnus Nathan Gray found the key to excellence when he approached writing as music. “I began to think of writing a page of prose as writing a page of sheet music,” said Nathan, also a musician and songwriter. “Each word can be a note, or each sentence can be a note. I kind of made it an art game, playing with the shorts and the longs. As in music, you choose a note and then you decide upon the most effective instrument to play that note. In the same way, you choose a concept and then you choose the best word or phrase to express that idea. As soon as I did that, my writing improved. Just as it’s not very interesting to have a bunch of quarter notes in a row, you don’t want a bunch of five-word sentences in your writing. You’ve got to come up with ways to add variety and present your ideas in interesting ways.”
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Five Inducted into Athletic Hall of Fame

The newest KSC Hall of Famers: (L-R) Meghan McLoughlin, Wilson Perez, Raymond “Lippy” De Rocher, and Michelle Mason (Debbie Higgins was unable to attend)

Though winter wasn’t particularly cooperative for the Campus’ recent Winterfest weekend, spirits were high in the Alumni Center’s Centennial Hall for the Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame ceremonies on Feb. 4th. The new Class of 2012 includes Raymond “Lippy” De Rocher ’64 (baseball), Debbie Higgins ’76 (basketball), Wilson Perez ’03 (cross country/track), Michelle Mason ’05 (soccer and lacrosse) and Meghan McLoughlin ’05 (softball).

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Remember that Prof Who Changed Your Life?

Help them get the recognition they deserve: Nominate them for the 2012 Distinguished Teacher Award.

Each year the KSC Alumni Association recognizes an outstanding faculty member, 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. If you know a faculty member here who fits that bill, send in a nomination. For more information, and a nomination form, visit the Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teacher page.

Hurry, the deadline is  4 p.m., March 9, 2012!

Hardly Perfect Writer Pretty Amazing

Christina Anderson, an elementary education and mathematics major and first-year student in the honors program, obviously has a head for math. She’s also an accomplished novelist. Her first novel, Hardly Perfect, recently entered the quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award Contest’s young adult/romance category.

Anderson says she wrote the novel five years ago. “However,” she claimed, “I wasn’t pleased with the way it turned out the first time around, so I scrapped it and didn’t look at it again for another two years.” For the past four years, she’s been participating in National Novel Writing Month, a competition to write a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days. In 2008, she decided to revisit and rework Hardly Perfect as part of the competition.
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Andy Soucy ’72 Receives Distinguished Music Alumni Award

Andy Soucy ’72 (right) receives the 2011 KSC Outstanding Music Alumni Award from Dr. Jim Chesebrough.

Londonderry Music Director Andy Soucy ’72 received the Music Department’s Distinguished Alumni Award for 2010–2011 at the KSC Jazz Band concert in April. This award is presented each year to an alumnus who, in the opinion of the music faculty, has distinguished themselves as a musician, music educator, or as a representative of Keene State College.

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Keene Keeps Commissioner’s Cup



Here for the 11th-straight year!

KSC has captured the Little East Commissioner’s Cup for the 11th year in a row. “Keene State continues to set the pace for athletic excellence in the Little East Conference,” said Commissioner Jonathan C. Harper. “By winning the award every year the Commissioner’s Cup has been offered, the Owls solidify themselves as a regional and national power in Division III.”

The Commissioner’s Cup measures an institution’s overall performance in the 19 sports sponsored by the LEC. For sports in which the conference conducts in-season play (baseball, basketball, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, and volleyball), point totals are determined by the order of finish in the final regular season standings with bonus points awarded to the champion of the ensuing post-season conference championship tournament. For sports that do not conduct in-season play (cross country, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, and swimming and diving) points are awarded based on the order of finish in the conference championship meet.

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