Campus Compact chose KSC Honors Program senior Becca Lazinsk as one of 162 students from 32 states to be Newman Civic Fellows for 2012. The award honors inspiring college student leaders who have invested their time and energy in finding solutions for significant economic and social challenges that face communities throughout the country.

As Frank Newman, for whom the award was named, stated: “The most important thing an institution does is not to prepare a student for a career, but for a life as a citizen.”

Becca also received the President’s Leadership Award from KSC this year. She’s obviously aquiring the wisdom to make a big difference in her piece of the world!

Heather Luhrs and William McAlister, both Keene State juniors and Safety and Occupational Health Applied Sciences majors, each received $2,500 scholarships from CNA Insurance. Basia Caya, Risk Control Director with CNA Insurance, and Dr. Larry McDonald, Keene State College Professor of Technology, Design and Safety, presented the awards. The students were selected for their outstanding academic achievement, grade point average, leadership, and future career interest in a Safety related field.

“Both Heather and William are outstanding students—these scholarship awards are well-deserved and will no doubt contribute to their future success,” said Dr. McDonald. “I look forward to continuing my work with these two, and watching their progress in the classroom and the workplace for years to come.”

Three KSC Safety Studies students have received scholarships from the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), a national organization that represents more than 34,000 safety, health, and environmental professionals. Travis Brenner, a Keene State senior, was awarded the Flatiron Construction Christopher Gonzalez Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $4,700. Keene State senior, Timothy Brinkerhoff, received the Greater Boston Chapter Leadership Award of $1,000, and Joshua Besnoff, Keene State graduate student, was awarded the New England Area Future Leadership Award in the amount of $1,000.

The money will be a big help in moving these students ahead in their career paths. “
This scholarship will be great support towards graduate school,” Brenner said.

Nine KSC students have been chosen to play in the New England Intercollegiate Band at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., on March 30 and 31. Organized by the New England College Band Association, the Festival brings the top college musicians from across New England together for a weekend of music making with an internationally known guest conductor. This year, that is Ray Cramer, long-time former director of bands at Indiana University, President of the Midwest Clinic, and current guest conductor for the Musashino Academia of Music in Tokyo, Japan.

Chloe Edmonds, a double major in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and American Studies, has been offered a paid research fellowship at Brown University for the summer. She’ll be working with Dr. Maud Mandel, associate professor of Judaic Studies and History at Brown. Chloe was also accepted to the Mellon Initiative, a program for undergraduates interested in pursuing doctoral study in the humanities and social sciences. She’s also being considered for similar fellowships at Harvard and NYU.

The Leadership Alliance Summer Research-Early Identification Program at Brown University provides nine-week summer research opportunities for outstanding undergraduates interested in exploring the nature of advanced graduate school study. The program was created to develop underrepresented students into outstanding leaders and role models in academia, business, and the public sector.

That’s quite an accomplishment! If you know Chloe, drop her a note of congratulations.

For those who welcome a challenge, the world’s their oyster. Communication and Marketing major Marie-Helene Caron wanted to step beyond her comfort zone, so the French-speaking Quebec native hooked up with the National Student Exchange (NSE) and decided to come to Keene State College from the Université de Sherbrooke. Her primary goal was to improve her fluency in English, but she also wanted to expand her horizons and face challenges beyond the support of her family and friends, to improve herself personally and professionally.

That desire for a challenge got ratcheted up about a week before she was to head for Keene, when she was involved in an auto accident. Though she wasn’t hurt, the doctor who examined her found abnormal lymph nodes in her neck, which turned out to be thyroid cancer. “At this time, my life changed, …” she recalled.
Continue reading Marie-Helene Caron: Making the Most of Every Moment →

Like many students at KSC, junior Jaime Del Pizzo is a film major. But she’s a film major with significant hearing loss. You’d think that would be a serious impediment to film study, but not in Jaime’s case. She uses assistive technology, hearing aids, and an FM system, and sometimes relies on note takers to help her in her classes. The Office of Disability Services also sends an email to each of her professors every semester requesting that films and video materials be captioned, so that Jaime will have access those educational materials.

“Her biggest strength is cinematography,” noted Jeremy Kingwill, a film production teaching assistant interviewed in a video about Jaime. “Being such a visual person, she instinctively knows where to get the best shot … her color pattern is off the chart.”

She’s also an avid snowboarder and has just returned from a semester of study in New Zealand. To learn more about Jamie and how she does it all, check out the article she wrote for About.com’s Assistive Technology page on “Technology for Deaf & HoH College Students.”

New Hampshire has a serious problem with prescription drug abuse, though few people realize it. It causes more deaths than traffic accidents in the state, and our rate of pain-medication abuse among 18- to 25-year olds is the second-highest in the country. It’s a big factor in the rise in such crimes as illicit sales and theft.

Keene State students, in partnership with Monadnock Voices for Prevention, conducted a semester-long research project to study the problem in this part of the state and come up with some solutions. The information the students gathered, and their recommendations, not only informed strategies for the Monadnock region, but they also impacted Governor Lynch’s statewide plan to address prescription drug abuse, which was released in January (Call to Action: Responding to New Hampshire’s Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic).
Continue reading Students Gather Critical Data on Prescription Drug Abuse →