Grace Brown
Equinox Staff
Recently the School of Arts, Education, and Culture at Keene State College changed its name to the “School of Arts, Education, and Humanities.
Dean of the School of Arts, Education, and Humanities Kirsti Sandy said, “Two years ago, humanity was not in the name. Both the Arts and Education was named but Humanities was just called Culture. Some of my faculty members from the humanities department, including the departments of history, English[and] philosophy, came to me and asked, ‘Why are we not named here? Can we change it to Arts, Education, and Humanities to reflect us?’ Provost Johnson looked into it and it was an easy change, so we decided to do it.”
Sandy said this is a good change for the school. “This will highlight our identity better as a school and well aligns with our mission as a public liberal arts college. Our humanities department has really good numbers,” Sandy said.
KSC philosophy professor Sander Lee had his own opinion about the change. “I personally believe this is a good name change. Keene State prides itself on being a liberal arts school,” Lee said. “We do teach and value the humanities. This name will properly label and correctly advertise what we do.”
KSC first-year Lilly Hetzel is taking a Holocaust and Genocide Studies class, which is part of the Humanities school. “I think Humanities is an appropriate category for Holocaust and Genocide Studies because [genocide] is historically inhumane. We learn about some of the most horrific genocides in history and about how many lives these events have [taken]; and how it is still affecting humanity today and how we are destroying it. We deserve to learn what these genocides have done to people of different cultures, and how we are now affected by it, and how it could affect us in the near future,” Hetzel said.
Now the question is, will culture go away? “Humanities studies human culture and the human experience…we are not getting rid of anything, we are just more accurately naming what we are,” Sandy said.
Grace Brown can be contacted at
gbrown@kscequinox.com.
