Vincent Moore
News Editor
A major collaboration is in the works between Keene State College and two other Monadnock Educational Institutions. According to a press release that occurred on July 10th, KSC plans on future collaboration with the River Valley Community College (RVCC) and Nashua Community College (NCC) by sharing classrooms, labs and administrative spaces; nursing and manufacturing being named as the two fields that would benefit from the arrangement.
“The collaboration would position the community colleges to broaden associate degree and certificate offerings in Keene in a variety of fields, and provide seamless movement for students seeking four year or advanced degrees at Keene State,” the release said.
KSC Interim President Dr. Melinda Treadwell said what drove her to take the initiative on the collaboration was her relationships with other college presidents and the desire to make a positive impact.
“I had a relationship with some of the community college presidents through the New Hampshire College University Council that I had been a part of for years. We started talking about why aren’t we doing more together. Why aren’t we thinking of ways to work together, and River Valley specifically had exceeded the capacity and infrastructure on Washington Street, and we had capacity, so it made sense from a let’s work together to create opportunities for their students and our students in ways that we couldn’t do separately,” Treadwell said.
Other changes the collaboration would bring, according to the release, would be the community college academic center relocating from Washington Street to somewhere on campus.
Treadwell said that the collaboration will benefit KSC by giving its students more opportunities for internships and co-ops and by enticing community college students into enrolling at Keene.
“For us and our students we broaden exposure by leveraging the network of community college system and working together to do that I think we also have the opportunity to get community college students on our campus, in our classrooms, so that they can see that Keene State is a really exciting place that they can be a part of beyond their associates to stay with us for their baccalaureate.”
Nashua Community College President Lucille Jordan said in the release that the goal is to have all transitions completed by fall semester of 2019 and the beginning of the new academic year.
Vincent Moore can be contacted at
vmoore@kscequinox.com
