A change of pace

Each year, senior faculty leave and fresh faces enter the gates of Keene State College. This year brought new direction for departments and professors from diverse backgrounds to continue the college’s mission of educating students for the professional world.

According to the office of Academic Affairs, 14 new faculty have been hired for the fall of 2010 semester with another four being brought in as Long Standing Contract Lecturers.
Also in the report was that 16 professors have decided to take sabbaticals; most will have a semester off while two will have the entire year. Also, several professors are entering retirement; professor Thomas Antrim of the English department and film professor Larry Benaquist. Three professors have resigned or otherwise chosen to leave KSC.

Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Emile Netzhammer said he is excited for the new faculty to arrive at KSC.

According to Netzhammer, the goal is to have two-thirds of the faculty roster be full-time within seven years.

Netzhammer revealed a new position at KSC as James Waller will become the college’s first “endowed chairman.” Waller will be the endowed chair of Holocaust Studies academic program. The term endowed, while having several literary translations, means his salary will come from the interest of a donation made to the school by the Cohen family.
Philosophy Professor and Chair of the Communications, Journalism, and Philosophy department Sander Lee said the department was looking for professors to continue the department’s broad liberal arts approach to examining all forms of communication.
One of the two professors who was accepted to the department was Professor Jamie Landau.

Landau has her master’s and doctorate in rhetorical studies from the University of Georgia. Professor Lee said Landau has studied communication through visual mediums like sculpture and he is excited to have her examination into visual rhetoric available to students this fall.

English department chair and professor William Stroup said Antrim will be retiring at the end of this year and will be missed greatly because of the contributions he has made to the department.

He said he was impressed by the caliber of candidates jockeying for Atrim’s position, but the decision was easy once he saw students’ reviews of professor Carol Bailey’s classroom demonstration.

 “The students wrote things like ‘Hire her now,’ or ‘What classes is she teaching next semester?’ so her classroom presence was well received,” Stroup said.

Bailey has taught at institutions like Harvard, Amherst College, and the University of Massachusetts. She graduated from UMASS and specializes in Post-Colonial Literatures and Anglophone Caribbean Literature. She will be teaching several classes including an integrative studies course titled “Beyond our Borders” this fall, along with Literary Analysis and an advanced course on “Postcolonial Literatures.”

“I hope students look for her this coming year,” Stroup said.
According to the report from Academic Affairs, the Health Science department is bringing on two professors to meet the growing student base.

Professor Margaret Henning and professor Marjorie Droppa will teach classes this fall within the Health Promotion of Wellness option within the Health Science major. Professor Henning specializes in international health and professor Droppa specializes in preventive medicine.

Professor and Health Science Chair Becky Brown said this is a move towards a new global health curriculum. The classes will instruct students about the health of a population contrasting instructing individual health.

“A good example would be fast food. What healthy options do students have when they need a meal in a hurry? These courses would examine these kinds of lifestyle issues,” Brown said. “We’re trying to get students interested in public health and techniques to prevent health issues.”

According to Interim Human Resources Director Kim Harkness, paying for faculty can cost anywhere from $750 per credit for an adjunct professor to paying approximately $90,000 a year for a full time tenured professor.

Regarding the goal of making two-thirds of the college faculty full time, Harkness said there are multiple ways of balancing cost to accommodate the financial burden.

“We have saved money in a variety of ways from changing the way we advertise new positions to cutting energy cost,” Harkness said. The money saved goes back into the operating budget where professors receive their pay from. “We would never diminish opportunity or the experience of students to make room in the budget,” Harkness said.

Tony Yates can be contacted at tyates@keeneequinox.com