With faculty separations having been finalized and Keene State approaching the one-month anniversary of former President Treadwell’s departure, The Equinox feels it is critical to advocate for KSC’s long-standing reputation as the public liberal arts institution in New Hampshire.
Within the University System of New Hampshire (USNH), Keene State is the only school dedicated to the liberal arts. Each institution brings something different to the table that is vital to the system.
As a smaller, regional liberal arts college, KSC offers smaller class sizes, more discussion-based learning, and allows for closer faculty-student relationships; all of which help create a blossoming learning environment.
However, Keene State’s long-standing reputation may be endangered with the advent of the N.H. state legislature’s budget cuts, though the state has had a storied history of not supporting higher education in the past too.
A 2025 analysis from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute found that New Hampshire continues to rank last in the nation for public higher education funding.
Unfortunately, that is a real statistic, putting us lower in public education funding than even the U.S. territories. New Hampshire continues to put funding anywhere else but the USNH system, seemingly overlooking the hard work of students and faculty alike, those hoping to further their education.
New England states around us have trade high schools and liberal arts high schools, and these schools carry into higher ed with more diverse learning opportunities. Gov. Kelly Ayotte ran her campaign slogan, “Don’t Mass Up NH”, but maybe we could learn a thing or two from good ol’ Massachusetts.
The Equinox finds value in all educational systems, including trade schools and community colleges. In order to have a functioning society, we need people from all career paths: doctors, plumbers, artists, teachers and more.
State legislators have forced KSC and the other USNH schools into a box of what they believe is important enough to fund, confining us to their needs, wants and ideas. Instead, we should be uplifting all students, allowing them to forge their own path. Not every student dreams of working in a manual labor profession.
Treadwell’s advocacy played a key role in Keene State’s ability to stay standing, as she was an avid defender of the liberal arts. Without her as a driving force, the KSC community needs to be more vocal than ever in supporting our institution’s programmatic diversity.
The strength of our college community lies in our shared commitment and collective effort towards preserving Keene State’s liberal arts identity.
Having different opportunities and options in higher education is why we need the liberal arts. When you dismiss those choices, you are limiting students’ creativity and potentially forcing them into a field they won’t excel in. While certain career paths may not seem practical to some, they are valuable to society in countless ways. Imagine how bleak a walk downtown would be without the art to brighten up the area or the architecture that shapes each individual town.
With each budget cut, each faculty member that departs, every corner cut and band-aid solution, N.H. legislators are closing the walls in on us and forcing us to get smaller and smaller until our rainy day fund is nothing but dust.
Keene State should not and can not sacrifice its identity in service of bending the knee to a legislature that fundamentally disagrees with the college’s mission. Goalposts will be continuously moved until the state bullies administrators into crafting a factory of bricks in the wall, as Pink Floyd once said. That song was not an aspirational ballad of what we should be; it was a condemnation and warning of what an education system can turn into if not stewarded and nurtured properly. Let’s heed that advice and not back down from the fight for liberal arts.
