SUMMER 2008
What's new along Appian Way
Dayton Duncan, a documentary filmmaker from Walpole, received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree at Keene State College's Commencement Ceremony on Sun., May 11.
The Granite State Award, given annually by the College and the University System of New Hampshire to honor outstanding achievements by community members, was presented to Jean and John Hoffman of Sullivan.
Academic Excellence on Display
Keene State College students and their faculty sponsors presented some of the most ambitious academic work of the 2007-08 year at the College's Eighth Annual Academic Excellence Conference on Saturday, March 29. Students offered 82 oral and poster presentations, exhibits, panel discussions, and workshops. Hundreds of community members attended the event to learn about topics that ranged over the entire curriculum of the College. Complete list of topics.
Kate Phillips
Kate Phillips, who acted in more than 50 films during the 1930s and '40s and co-wrote the 1958 cult movie The Blob, died on April 18 in Keene at age 94. She began teaching acting, film, and screenwriting classes at Keene State in the early 1980s and retired in 2006. Film department chair Larry Benaquist said Phillips represented an irreplaceable link to a glamorous past, and recalled that her students were entranced by her stories of such stars as Rita Hayworth, Clark Gable, and Tyrone Power.
Under the name Kay Linaker, Phillips had small parts in a number of popular films, such as Drums Along the Mohawk, Blood and Sand, Laura, and a number of the Charlie Chan detective movies. One of her more notable roles was a rich society matron who marries Ginger Rogers' ex-husband in the 1940 film Kitty Foyle.
She retired from Hollywood during World War II, later turning to screenwriting for film and television. She married television executive Howard Phillips. They moved to Dublin, N.H., in 1964, and she later moved to Keene.
Pondside III Residence Hall Awarded Silver LEED
KSC's Pondside III residential hall has received a prestigious LEED Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED is the USGBC's leading rating system for designing and constructing the world's greenest, most energy-efficient, and high-performing buildings.
"Each new project presents an opportunity for applying energy-saving designs," said Jay Kahn, vice president for Finance and Planning. "With Rhodes Hall, the Library, the Science Center, the Dining Commons, and most recently Fiske Hall, the College and its consultants have challenged each other to consider the most cost-effective measures we can bring to a project. Pondside III was the first project we chose to document for external review and certification."
Pondside III, a $13.8-million residence hall overlooking Brickyard Pond, spans 51,300 square feet and has 154 beds. The suite-style building incorporates super-insulated walls, motion-sensor lights, dual-flush toilets, and recycling rooms on each floor.
Students Bring Dance into Elementary Schools
Dance students brought their art into the Walpole, N.H., elementary schools in April, leading body-movement exercises and performing Walklyndon, a piece choreographed in 1971 by Pilobolus, the revolutionary modern dance troupe.
After explaining that pilobolus is also the name of a tiny mushroom that throws its spore more than 8 feet, the students demonstrated how everyday athletic movements like jumping, running, leaping, and weight shifting are incorporated into dance pieces.
KSC dance faculty members Marcia Murdock and William Seigh directed the piece, which was performed as part of An Evening of Dance, now in its 33rd year, in April. The reconstruction of the Pilobolus dance was supported by an American Masterpieces grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.
Photos of KSC students in action.
Keene Students Compete in EPA Competition
The KSC team, which included students from the Technology, Design and Safety and Architecture departments, collaborated on a presentation about the Monadnock Biodiesel Collaborative, a research and educational model for waste grease recycling and emissions research. They earned honorable mention in the competition.
Helen Frink (Modern Languages) and Al Rydant (Geography) are the 2008 co-recipients of the KSC Faculty Distinction in Research and Scholarship Award. This award recognizes contributions to research and scholarship at Keene State College.
Dr. Frink first came to Keene State on a one-year appointment as a lecturer in French with the Foreign Language Department in 1974. Her scholarly endeavors since that time have been numerous, including a Whiting Foundation grant to complete research for her book, Women After Communism: The East German Experience. She was instrumental in the formation of our interdisciplinary Holocaust studies minor.
Faculty Receive Whiting Foundation Grants for Research and Travel
Equinox Wins 15 Prestigious Awards
The national SCJ judges described The Equinox as having "newsy front pages with a good mix of campus and community news, even with a national touch."
Along with the overall excellence award, The Equinox staff collected 14 additional awards in 11 categories of news coverage, opinion writing, photography, and graphic and page design.
New Warning Siren Installed on Campus
On March 18 the College added an important component to the emergency notification system. Wright Communications, Inc., from Pembroke, N.H., installed an outdoor warning system, the Whelen WPS 2903 Omni-Directional Siren System, which uses a two-step approach to alert and inform the community of an emergency. The siren will be used only when a situation presents an imminent danger to the campus, such as a tornado or an armed and actively violent person. The siren was successfully tested on April 23.
The College is also using the CityWatch Emergency Notification System, which sends messages via SMS (text), cellular telephone, and/or e-mail.
More information on CityWatch.
Download a Keene State emergency response guide.
Corinne Kowpak Off to Maine
KSC Welcomes Latin American Historian
Mireya Salgado Gómez, professor of history at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador (PUCE) in Quito, will be coming to Keene State as a visiting Latin American historian for the 2008-09 academic year.
Ms. Salgado Gómez, a Ph.D. candidate at Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, specializes in Latin American religious history, cultural history of the colonial period, and postcolonial and subaltern studies. In the fall of 2008, Ms. Salgado Gómez will offer two sections of History 290, Colonial Latin American History. She will also teach History 399, Popular Uprisings in the Andes. During her year in Keene, Ms. Salgado Gómez will also present public lectures to the community in her field of scholarly interest.
National Recognition for Community Service
Keene State College has received presidential recognition for extraordinary contributions to community service in the second annual 2007 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The College is one of 127 colleges and universities listed on the Honor Roll with Distinction and was the only institution in New Hampshire to receive this award.
Full Community Service Honor Roll.
"Community service is a long-held value at Keene State College," said President Helen Giles-Gee. "I am extremely proud of the national recognition that faculty and staff have earned, and even more appreciative of what they do in service for our New Hampshire neighbors and for communities around the United States and the world."
Keene State students engaged in 450,675 hours of community service in 2006-07, through Communicorps, community work study, service clubs, hurricane relief, and Greek service. In addition, the College supports many special programs, including Monadnock Center for Successful Transitions (MCST), Project SEED, Early Sprouts, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Monadnock Region, and College for Every Student (CFES).
$20K Grant for Science Enrichment Program
The Bank of America Charitable Foundation has awarded the College a $20,000 grant to develop Science Out of the Box, an enrichment program that will engage elementary school students with the essential principles of science through direct experience and experimentation.
A sampling of Science Out of the Box inquiry science units will be field tested for three weeks this summer as part of the Kids on Campus program, with the goal of developing new science curriculum for next fall in Winchester and Keene elementary schools.
Cohen Center Receives NEBHE State Merit Award
Keene State College's Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies received the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) New Hampshire state merit award at NEBHE's 2008 New England Higher Education Excellence Awards dinner on March 14 at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel. Dr. Henry F. Knight, director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies, accepted the award. "The Cohen Center performs an important service to all New England by fostering Holocaust and genocide awareness through its collection of historical materials and model outreach programs," said NEBHE Interim President and CEO Michael K. Thomas.
Hildebrandt Award Winners
Young filmmakers from the Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School were among those recognized at the eleventh annual KSC Hildebrandt Holocaust Awards program on Mon., Apr. 19. Three seventh- and eighth-grade students were each presented with a $100 Charles Hildebrandt Award for their documentary film, The Lone Ranger: The Story of Thomas Weisshaus. The middle school students found Weisshaus, a Holocaust survivor now living in Exeter, N.H., through the Cohen Center.
Three KSC students split the first prize award of $1,000: Megan Blais for her memoir, "So Here Am I," Elinor Albin for her essay, "The Genocide of Homosexuals in the Holocaust," and Heather Bowman for her poster, "Kaddish: Music of Remembrance and Hope."
The Hildebrandt Awards are named for Charles Hildebrandt, professor emeritus of sociology at KSC, who founded the Center for Holocaust Studies in 1983 and served as its first director.
Businesses, College Communicate and Collaborate
The College hosted its first Small Business and Regional Economic Development Summit, "Partnering with Business: The Role of Keene State College in Promoting Regional Economic Development," in March. Panelists included Mary Ann Kristiansen (Hannah Grimes), John Lucey (Corning NetOptix), Neil Giarratana (Lucidus Corporation), and Michael Jablonski (Whitney Bros).
Nearly 100 faculty, staff, and business leaders from the Monadnock region gathered on campus to discuss the needs of the business community, how College programs aimed at addressing these needs are working, and how they can be improved. The event is one of a series being planned to help strengthen existing College business partnerships, develop new ones, and work together to create a healthy climate for business growth and prosperity in the region.
A Change in the Campus Skyline
In preparation for upgrading the central heating plant, contractors began removing the chimney on Mon., Apr. 14. It took workers from the American Chimney Corp. seven working days to raze the 86-foot stack. The old bricks (all 197,740 pounds of them) will be crushed and recycled into road base. The heat plant, which is nearly 100 years old, will be replaced by a new co-generation steam plant that is expected to save more than $120,000 a year in energy costs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 500 metric tons. The new boilers and steam turbine will be installed in the spring of 2009.
Recognition Program Includes Fond Farewells
- Dr. Klaus J. Bayr, Geography (joined Keene State in 1969)
- Dr. Charles W. Beach, Physical Education (1978; will continue as head softball coach)
- Dr. Sherry Bovinet, Physical Education (1970)
- Dr. Joan M. Donnelly, Communication (1987)
- Dr. J. Russell Harkay, Physics (1980)
- Dr. I. Gladys Johnsen, Music and Education (1993).