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What’s Next for Retiring Professor David White?

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David White plans to keep his connection to the Children's Literature Festival and the Festival Gallery going.
David White plans to keep his connection to the Children's Literature Festival and the Festival Gallery going.

The thousands of alumni and friends out there who have attended the Children’s Literature Festival over the past nearly 40 years may be wondering what will happen to the popular event since its founder, Professor of Education David White, retired this year.

And not only has Dr. White been the driving force behind the Festival that each year brings Caldecot- and Newbery-award-winning illustrators and authors to Keene State to share their craft with educators and aficionados, his close relationships with these artists has enabled him to establish one of the College’s greatest treasures—the Festival Gallery Collection. This impressive exhibit of original illustrations, working drawings, and pieces related to children’s book illustration by more than 200 artists lines hallways in Rhodes Hall and the Alumni Center.

So now that Dr. White has retired, what will happen to these treasures he’s spent so many years establishing at Keene State? “After 42 years, I have retired from teaching,” he reported. “I am pleased that the College accepted my proposal for a part-time, non-teaching position for me to continue running the Children’s Literature Festival I started in 1978 and the Festival Gallery Collection that I started in 1990. My office, phone number, and email will remain the same if people want to contact me. I will be in a couple of times each week to do things and to check email and phone messages.”

He’s also doing lots of gardening (with fantastic results) and raising miniature schnauzers, so his creativity and love of the artful definitely continues on.

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