Prior to the Oct. 17 announcement of Plymouth State University (PSU) President Donald Birx being appointed interim president of KSC, Cathy Provencher, chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire (USNH), impressed upon faculty the short time-frame USNH had to appoint new leadership following KSC President Melinda Treadwell’s resignation announcement in a Sept. 30 meeting at Norma Walker Hall of the Alumni Center.
“We in higher education, especially in the Northeast, are in a constant state of change,” said Provencher. “Sometimes, I feel like we are at a crossroads.”
She spoke about these feelings coming from the overall declining numbers of high school age students in the Northeast attending college while institutions “compete for a shrinking pool of students,” adding, “the future will have look different than the past.”
Faculty were given the opportunity to ask the Chancellor questions regarding the future of KSC leadership going forward, considering the recent budget cuts to USNH in the New Hampshire state budget as previously reported by The Equinox.
Professor of Business Management, Marie Duggan, expressed her concerns over shared services and how they have become inefficient while making wait times longer for students needing printing services. She also spoke to her view of what previous budget cuts and retrenchment measures have already done to KSC while Business Management has been seeing increasing numbers of students.
“We don’t have enough tenure-track staff. So, we’ve really done our bit, right? We’re all emptying our own waste baskets and taking on extra and coming in on Saturdays to recruit people. But we need more resources,” said Duggan.
Provencher responded saying, “That’s terrific. We’re a college, not a major. So that’s awesome that there is growth there [Business Management],” adding “I don’t mean to be flip.”
Provencher talked about the decreasing enrollment on campus overall, citing that Keene State’s 2025-2026 first-year class is 7% lower than the previous year. She followed her enrollment response by addressing Duggan’s concerns over shared services saying, “Without many of the shared services that we have, it would cost a lot more money.”
However, faculty clamored about the question of what models the USNH Board of Trustees (BOT) was looking at for leadership in the absence of Treadwell, with Chair of Communications Amber Davisson initially asking the question.
The USNH Board of Trustees, as of one year ago, had been planning on how to restructure USNH into a system “we could sustain and thrive,” said Provencher. “The trajectory we are on right now is not that.”
Provencher informed the audience of faculty members of the menu of options the BOT was considering at its “September Retreat.” According to Provencher, the options were to: combine with the Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) into one system, reduce administrative costs at PSU, KSC and USNH or to consolidate into one university with three campuses.
“This is where the board landed; number two,” said Provencher. “We’re going to start taking administrative costs out of wherever we can.” Part of these financial cuts include faculty retrenchment measures in the form of early retirement offers for senior faculty, with the goal of having 10-15 faculty members accept the offer, according to Provencher. She also assured concerned faculty members that, as the chancellor of USNH, she would not be involved with decisions on faculty cuts at KSC in the event of uncertain leadership.
Professor of Journalism Chad Nye brought up concerns about the retrenchment measures and what that would mean with interim leadership.
“As it stands right now, the deadline for [faculty retrenchment measures] extends beyond Melinda Treadwell’s tenure,” said Nye, concerned about the prospect of retrenchment measures being decided by an interim president.
“If there’s not 10-15 people who take that, then what?” asked Nye. “The elephant in the room is, as we here in faculty, we wonder [if] say three people take it. Is someone who does not know us and what we do here really well at all then going to have a 30-day window to come in and decide ‘retrenchment’ [and] tap people on the shoulder?”
Provencher reiterated her deference to interim leadership and the proposed on-campus leadership
The Equinox will continue to report on upcoming developments regarding faculty retrenchment measures, and will be following up on an Oct. 17 email statement where the KSC administrative cabinet stated there have been 17 staff positions identified for potential elimination. According to the email statement, affected staff members will be notified on Nov. 18.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
