“How can you, in good faith, say that you’re embracing sustainability, and that it’s not being pushed by the wayside, if you are not educating students who want to make [environmental studies or sustainability] their full-time job,” said Chloe March ‘24 in an interview with The Equinox following the recent announcement of the Environmental Studies major being placed on hold.
March was featured on the winter/spring 2025 edition of the college alumni magazine, Keene State Today, for “championing sustainability.”
This comes on the heels of a guarantee of a “presence of Environmental Studies” at Keene State, according to Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Kirsti Sandy. This presence will be maintaining the availability of Environmental Studies courses and giving students the ability to add the program as a minor.
However, March feels this may not be sufficient for those who would like to focus on Environmental Studies. “Of course you can minor in it,” said March. “But most people don’t even put their minor on their resumé. Most employers don’t ask you about your minor or really care about your minor unless it’s something you really specialized in your major.”
Sandy spoke about broad concern for the upkeep of the program and the concern of competition between the institutions in the University System of New Hampshire. “We have two tenure-track faculty members, our enrollments are dropping. This is one area that I feel; let’s leave it to Plymouth [PSU] and UNH, [they] should do the major,” said Sandy. “In Fall ‘21 we had 89 [Environmental Studies students], and now we are down to 42 and it’s been a steady decline.”
This came as a surprise to the Environmental Studies department, said senior Laurel Feindel. “There was no communication beforehand,” said Feindel. “It felt really out of the blue and like a slap in the face after [all] that we [had been] put through, with sustainability [as a major] gone. We really wanted to show how important the program is, and it felt really unfair.”
March and Feindel both expressed an understanding of the loss of Sustainability as a major program. While it was viewed as unfortunate, the loss of Environmental Studies is viewed more significantly. “[Sustainability is] a more niche part of the program. [But] Environmental Studies is really the heart of everything. [It] is such a groundwork of this college,” said Feindel.
“Environmental Studies is important because we live on [Earth] – and everyone benefits from nature,” said March. Adding she viewed it as a disservice to not educate folks on environmental topics; “We all have to breathe clean air and drink fresh water.”
Competition amongst the sister institutions, Plymouth State University and University of New Hampshire, seems to be a deciding factor in this process as well. “It will not be going away as something we offer; we will have courses in it. But can we sustain and support a major given our competition, given our enrollments and given the very big course footprint that program had despite its low numbers,” said Sandy.
Further describing this focus on competition, Sandy added, “We have seen drops in some other majors as well, but in some [programs] that I feel there’s no competition. So we can really build them up and do something that’s really distinctive in the system.”
While March understands the tightness of institutional finances writ large, she did say it was unfortunate that it came down to this perception of competitiveness. Feindel is more concerned with this view and the impacts it would have on new students to Keene State.
“Environmental Studies had this intrinsic value beyond just the finances,” said Feindel. That value seemed important to Feindel and first-year students she has interacted with; “I’ve already met with multiple [first-years] who came in very interested in Environmental Studies, and now it’s a brick wall, and they can’t do it.”
She went on, saying it was “really frustrating to watch people who came in so passionate, being sent away.” Feindel has echoed that frustration in her own studies as a sustainability intern.
“I often don’t feel the backing from the college to actually want to push forward on any sustainability goals. [It feels like] they just want to check a box to have marketing, it can feel fake,” said Feindel.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
