Keene State College has been working with Keeling Associates to improve academic and co-curricular experiences of students and to improve their skills as they graduate college and enter the professional world.
Keeling Associates, a consulting company that works with colleges and universities around the country and in Canada, is assisting the academic and co-curricular planning council on campus by interviewing students and student organizations about their personal experiences incorporating skills they have learned in the classroom to the outside world.
Principal and Senior Executive Consultant Richard Keeling stated, “It’s linking courses or things of academic matter in the classroom to things that happen out of the classroom. The idea behind the model is students learning and become more engaged. We are interested in how that happens and if it seems like a good idea, should it happen more.”
Keeling Associates has been working with KSC for over a year now to work on the college’s five-year strategic plan.
Consultant of Keeling Associates Matthew Trainum said, “The reason we are here [is] to explore for all of you what that would look like to have an integrated academic and co-curricular experience and how that would resonate when you think of your time here at Keene. Do you feel there are aspects of the co-curricular and academic experience that are integrated? We are pursuing that topic in general, we will probably ask questions related to that.”
Consultants of Keeling Associates have been talking to a number of students about their experiences connecting academic learning to the real world.
“The group we are working with here is the integrated academic and co-curricular planning council. We’ve been to KSC Pride earlier, we spoke to a group of sophomores, RAs, Resident directors, common ground, an interfaith group, global culture club, student assembly, the class of 2018 and the Equinox. Part of the idea is to see what students’ experiences here have been,” Keeling said.
Keeling associates are also working with three institutions in British Columbia, two in California and a number of universities in the Northeast such as the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and Mount Holyoke.
“About a year ago at this time, we began a conversation with Keene State about their strategic learning plan and where Keene State wants to go. As part of that conversation after the strategic plan, there were aspects about that strategic plan that flowed out of that, such as the idea of integrating the academic and the co-curricular experience,” Trainum said.
Keeling Associates and the academic and co-curricular planning council on campus have also hosted events and open-meetings to talk about other topics such as how faculty will be chosen in the future, Living and Learning communities, advising for other students and others.
Co-Chair of the academic and co-curricular planning council Ockle Johnson said, “Overall, the goal would be to look at how we as a college might work together in academic and student affairs to improve student learning and to improve the student experience. In particular, highlight ways that our collaboration as faculty and staff might improve in the student experience.”
KSC senior Tori Bodenski commented on how academics have helped her outside of the classroom.
“I would say Public Speaking freshman year gave me a lot of confidence in communicating with people face-to-face and in the classroom presenting. The Senior Project class I’m in now gives me practice on researching and talking in front of people and with my internship in the spring, I will be able to talk in front of people and over the phone confidently.”
Bodenski continued on how her communication courses will help with her spring internship,
“The internship will connect to my communication classes because I can take the skills that I’m learning and physically use them in a professional environment.”
Johnson said he is confident in his work with Keeling Associates.
“If I didn’t expect a positive response to this planning, I would do something else. I wouldn’t do the work. My expectations are optimistic. Will everything work out the way we anticipate? No, of course not, but we expect that there will be a positive result.”
Keeling associates plan to come back to Keene State after Thanksgiving and in January, staying a total of three days for each visit to gather information.
Keeling says that, once they are finished in January, KSC will then begin the implementation phase of their updated strategic plan.
Jacob can be contacted at jknehr@kscequinox.com
