The KSC Student Assembly meeting on October 7 was short, but Speaker Amanda Rotigliano shared important information regarding the next meeting, featuring two guest speakers.
Rotigliano said, “On October 21, we have two guests coming in. The first will be Keri Lewis [coordinator of student organizations and leadership], and she’s going to come in and talk a little bit about her transition into that role, what she’s been doing on campus and what she’s excited to do. The next will be President [Melinda] Treadwell, who will be coming in to talk to students.”
Treadwell’s appearance will be focused on her decision to leave Keene State, as well as an opportunity for students to ask their questions face to face. Rotigliano encouraged assembly members to invite fellow students to the meeting whether they’re interested in speaking directly with Treadwell or would prefer sitting in to listen to the conversations.
For the October 21 meeting, it is expected that assembly members attending wear business casual, and prepare questions in advance if they have any.
Rotigliano explained that she’s been aiming to have more speakers at future meetings. “I’ve worked with getting our next meetings up and running, getting some guests lined up. November, December, it’s going to be more University System people.” She continued, “The board of Trustees meeting is coming up, so we’ll have more conversations around that.”
The student assembly still has two open positions: Member at-large and student senator, the latter of which will take a seat on the college senate alongside Rotigliano and Representative Nathan Hope. Elections for these positions were held at the following meeting. Joshua O’Neill was elected member at-large.
Representative and Treasurer Karen Cisneros shared that she has been busy the past couple weeks. The total allocated funds for the student government is $49,125 [prior to Pumpkin Palooza] with an estimated surplus of $3,000 from the previous year that may be distributed to new clubs.
Cisneros said she had started paperwork for Pumpkin Palooza, and planned on completing it by the end of the week that this meeting took place.
The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) requested two paid guest lecturers, but bylaws state that KSC faculty and staff who are going to speak about their expertise are not permitted to receive payment.
“From what I understand, they didn’t ask ‘Oh am I getting paid?’, they had requested the money for it to pay them. I wasn’t told they [the guest lecturers] requested to get paid.” Cisneros said. She continued, “Apparently they [NAfME] want them to get paid because they are speaking about their area of expertise.”
According to Rotigliano, student gov. advisor Jen Ferrel had previously expressed concern about a ‘domino effect’ of other people trying to go against their club’s bylaws and constitutions.
Cisneros said, “I don’t see any educator saying, ‘I’m not coming in to speak unless I get paid.’ I just don’t see that happening.”
She planned for a conversation to be held with the NAfME to question if the faculty would still speak without pay, and it was agreed upon by other assembly members as the best next step.
The Senate meeting held on October 8 was also mentioned, with a focus on academic policy revision. The biggest one was the proposed schedule adjustment policy, which will allow for an additional week for the add period, and two weeks of a drop period, as well as the ability to add a course during that second week with a professor’s signature.
“The whole reason we were trying to make this is with the transition to Workday that’s coming, they’re trying to line up a lot of our policies here [at Keene State], Plymouth, and UNH to be the same. UNH has a two week add, two week drop period. But within the committee, we discussed that that wouldn’t work for our school. If you allow a student to add a course after two weeks, they’ve missed four classes of material. We had to adjust the policy as requested but still keep it relevant to Keene State.” Rotigliano explained.
In addition, the declaration of majors and minors, leave of absence, academic standing, and attendance policies were adjusted through the changing of a few words for better clarification.
As for courtesies, Eco-Reps hosted their annual off campus trash clean up from 2-3pm on October 17, in Winchester Lot. Representative Josh O’Neill promoted his radio show The Mix which is held Friday’s, 10pm-1am on WKNH.
Also in attendance at this meeting were Deputy Speaker Hussey, Representative Linderman, and Representative Barrett.
The meeting adjourned at 6:45 p.m.
Samantha Menard can be contacted at
Hope is the managing executive editor of The Equinox and was not involved in the process of writing or editing this Equinox article.
