Rachel Vitello
News Editor
Keene State College former President Anne Huot is a finalist for the position of president at State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburg in upstate New York. Huot served as KSC president from July 2013 to July 2017.
Huot resigned as president at KSC for what she described as personal and professional reasons in a press release from the University System of New Hampshire in June 2017. Huot’s presidency at KSC included multiple altercations with a number of departments and faculty members during her years here.
Huot was criticized consistently for her student media policy on campus. Student media organizations like The Equinox and WKNH experienced difficulty scheduling and conducting interviews and putting together news stories.
Huot pushed for prior notice to be sent to the communications office when giving interviews, hindering the first amendment right of student journalists on campus. Administration members also often sat in on interviews, affecting the way in which they were conducted. The Equinox at the time responded with a strongly worded editorial (which can be found on kscequinox.com) about the lack of access to adequate news reporting without the support of those at the college.
Huot was also involved in what were considered severe budget cuts to multiple student organizations and clubs on campus in 2017. According to an article published by The Equinox at the time, some clubs were cut by more than half, or almost half, of the budget they requested.
“The organizations and clubs suffering the biggest cut to their budget compared to FY17 were The Equinox, which was cut by $48,400 (45 percent), Social Activities Council (SAC), which was cut by $41,600 (19 percent), WKNH, which was cut by $17,685 (63 percent), and The Kronicle Yearbook, which was cut by $16,700 (24 percent). The amount for these four organizations exceeds the $100,000 cut to the available funding for all student clubs and organizations,” the article states.
Huot was set to return to KSC in the fall of 2018 as a biology professor. Instead, Huot accepted $44,000 as a voluntary separation payment through a college-wide buyout program. Huot also received $327,225 in severance pay after her resignation, according to the Sentinel.
Local newspaper in Plattsburgh, the Press-Republican, reported that Huot claimed she left Keene because she felt she had taken the college as far as she could.
“There was a change in emphasis on the part of the board about where they thought the future of the college ought to be, and I didn’t think I was the right person to help move in that direction,” Huot said to the Press-Republican.
Huot is one of three candidates left for the SUNY Plattsburgh presidency.
Current KSC President Melinda Treadwell had a simple statement regarding Huot’s potential at another college presidency.
“My focus is on the future for Keene State, not the past,” Treadwell said.
Rachel Vitello can be contacted at
rvitello@kscequinox.com.
