One of the many unique things about Keene State College is its location relative to the center of the city. One thing that KSC and the downtown area share is the same Main Street address. With the two being so close together it’s hard for the college to ignore the city and the city to ignore the college. Recently the college and the city have teamed up to create more communication and a seamless transition from students to citizens.
President of the College Anne Huot said that since her first year on campus it has always been part of her plan to get the college more involved with the community. There is now a College-City Commission to fulfill that plan.
“In my first year I talked to Mayor Kendall Lane about setting up a structure that could be a standing framework for how the college and city collaborate on issues of mutual concern,” Huot said.
Huot said it took around nine months to populate the commission and that she appointmented members from the college and Mayor Kendall Lane appointed members from the city.
One of the members from the college is Political Science Professor and Outgoing Co-Chair of the College-City Commission Michael Welsh. Welsh said he has been involved in local government before and was happy to be involved with the commission.
During the start-up period of the commission, Welsh said the college contracted an organization called New Hampshire Listens, a non-profit group up at the University of New Hampshire that consults with communities and institutions to help structure and work through issues which are important to that community/organization as an unbiased outside source.
“They held an experts opinion and organized roundtable discussions to develop questions, then they held a facilitated forum to see how those questions resonated among people and volunteers from the city of Keene as well as students that came too. Once they gathered all the information they drafted the report which was their assessment of the array of issues around citizenship behavior and housing that the college and city are looking at,” Welsh said.
What they found was that there were six categories of concerns which people talk about the most. Those six categories, which can be found in the report on the president’s website, are:
– Communication between residents and students.
– Building relationships with students and neighbors
– Inviting residents to participate in traditions and celebrations
– Recognizing the abuse of alcohol and other drugs in the community
– Holding higher expectations for behaviors both on and off campus
– Working with landlords to create consistent and enforceable expectations for tenant behavior.
These six categories were named “The good neighbors” report, which Welsh said was “ Really instrumental in helping us [the commission] organize our thinking.”
The first step to understanding these issues came from an open forum held last April at the college where community members, faculty and about ten students participated.
“One of the really interesting things was that students were sort of the center of attention
George Amaru // Art Director
and there were eight break out groups so each group got a student and that’s how they wanted to divide it up and in each of those groups the student ended up talking a lot and being listened to a lot. Which I think made them feel pressured, but at the same time they left a real impression. The voice of the students was really appreciated and really valued and regardless of your perspective before coming into the meeting,” Welsh said.
KSC alumni Skyler Frazer was one of those students.
“Much of the members of the group I was a part of agreed that only a small percentage of the college population was troublesome and that most of the students were great. Most of the community members concerns revolved around what happened on pumpkinfest and some suggested students became too immersed in college life, unaware of the community around them,” Frazer stated.
KSC senior and Student Representative and Commission Board Member Maggie Rice agreed.
“This is time in life where you’re [the students] trying to figure out what the boundaries are and sometimes people can get carried away when you move off campus and you don’t have any rules so it’s kind of like, ‘this is my house I can do what I want’ without thinking about the people that live around you. So it’s about the growth experience and if we can make that as positive as possible that would be ideal, so that everyone has room to spread out and experiment but not in a way that’s detrimental to other people’s lives,” Rice said.
Rice’s position on the commission board is unique because she is not only a KSC student but has been a Keene resident since eighth grade.
“I feel very strongly about the community and see both sides,” Rice said.
She continued that one of the recommendations she likes the most is the adopt-a-street program that encourages students and their neighbors to form relationships. Rice said that she thinks students don’t feel welcome when entering neighborhoods but at the same time neighborhoods think that students don’t respect them.
“If they can join up and make a partnership and say ‘welcome to the neighborhood this is who I am’ and the college student makes that connection and can show them [the neighbors] that they are a good person and care then I think that’s going to be a really positive impact on both the neighborhoods and then also for college students. When you move off campus you do have a responsibility to be an adult and should take advantage of a neighborhood where you know people and that’s a positive feeling for everybody,” Rice said.
City Councilor at Large and Co-Chair of College-City Commission Emily Hauge agreed and said that a lot of the communities concerns revolved around behavior in neighborhoods.
“We heard loud and clear that people felt like there wasn’t enough prevention or enforcement that was happening and I think that there’s a lot underway that is already making a difference and we’re gonna keep retooling and refining what we’re doing so it’s more effective,” Hauge said.
In reference to enforcement, Hauge said that the college and city is looking to hire a second liaison officer, which should be filled in about a month or two according to Huot, and overall increasing police presence in the neighborhoods and on campus.
In terms of prevention, President Huot said the college has hired an additional alcohol and drug counselor as well as the mandatory off-campus housing orientation that was held for the first time last spring.
Welsh said that the spring orientation got immediate and positive feedback from the community.
“Off-campus housing orientation was a real eye-opener, I think people from the city and elsewhere were really impressed that that was going on and so one of the recommendations in the report is keep it up! “ Welsh said.
Since off-campus housing is a driving force of how students integrate into the surrounding neighborhoods of the college, the report also suggests working with local landlords to establish an organized presence to share information and implement policies.
Manager of New Development at the Mills (a new housing building located across from the college on Ralston Street) Ethan Ash said he would be very interested in working with the college and the city of Keene.
Although the building can’t officially call themselves off-campus student housing, Ash said he “Runs a tight ship and that students are aware of what’s acceptable and the consequences of things that aren’t.”
Ash also works in Durham, New Hampshire, at UNH and said he’s seen these types of community and campus issues before.
“Homecoming is the big event at UNH and homecoming goes really smoothly now because it’s clear that the community has certain responsibilities and the university has certain responsibilities and it’s made very clear to the students and all the people coming in from other campuses and that’s why it’s working really well. When I went there it wasn’t that clear and there were times where there were problems, so clearly defining what’s expected and who’s responsible and who’s in charge of what is the most important in making sure everyone is happy,” Ash said.
KSC Social Professor of Architecture and Incoming Co-Chair of College-City Commission Bart Sapeta said that part of creating a place where everyone is happy is not just about where the person is living but how the culture of where they’re living impacts them.
“Building environment has a huge impact on people’s behavior. So if we can model a certain type of good behavior here on campus that will then translate later to incoming students and they [the students] will want those environments and I think that is the right move for the college to be taking…not just building more rooms but building something that is impacting human lives and the city on multiple levels,” Sapeta said.
As for future plans for the campus, Huot said that within the next two to five years there will be more attractive and intimate on-campus housing for juniors and seniors with flexible pricing.
As for how the city feels, councilor Hauge said that she is hopeful that the community is reassured and that students know the community truly cares about them.
“I think there’s been a lot of healing in this process and the lines of communication are more open but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Hauge said.
Kendall can be contacted at kpope@kscequinox.com
