For their work towards advocating for equality and against discrimination, four women are to be honored with the President’s Annual Outstanding Women of NH Award.
The award ceremony will take place on March 28, 2024, according to the Keene State College Website.
The four categories that will be honored are “Keene State Student, Keene State Faculty or Staff, Greater Monadnock Region, and State of New Hampshire,” according to the KSC website. Nominations are available for any to submit. In order to choose the theme and the recipients of the awards, a selection committee is charged by the college, said Keene State College President Melinda Treadwell. The nominees are set to come to Treadwell in around two weeks.
“That selection committee reviews nominations … then that selection committee makes a recommendation to me,” Treadwell said. “Then I approve the slate of awardees based on the recommendations and review of the materials submitted, and then we confer the awards.”
The importance of women in DEI being a theme for the awards is in developing a safe campus with a diverse group of people and ideas, Treadwell said.
“Those initiatives are all about creating a space of beyond welcoming of including multiple perspectives in the work of a college campus. So we’ve been making investments with the support of our board into student supports for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives,” she said.
Darrien Waugh, Coordinator of Student Diversity, Equity and Belonging, said a focus of the ceremony should be to recognize the various paths to success for women and “how much harder that path is to do anything, you know? Recognizing that we’re still putting value behind that no matter what the barriers that we are facing.”
Treadwell said she believes presenting the college is a “perfect” place to present this award, especially considering how well the theme aligns with the college’s values. “The theme for this year when it came out of the committee made total sense to me because it’s aligned with what we’ve been doing as a part of our strategic work of creating a more welcoming campus,” she said.
Treadwell said she is proud of how the college is using the award as opportunity to help “depolarize” the misinformation surrounding DEI issues
The award is to help show that pushing through societal barriers matters, Waugh said.
“There’s value behind the fight to get through those barriers because it takes a lot of strength, courageousness, understanding and composure,” he said.
Separate from the OWNH award ceremony, Waugh said the DEI Office has plans to advocate for women’s equality on campus. “I know what we’re planning to do out of the office is specifically for International Women’s Day on the 8th,” Waugh said. . “We want to create wa panelist of some sort to give more value to all women on campus, to have the ability to network with women who are prominent in their fields.”
Harvie Marcotti can be contacted
at hmarcotti@kscequinox.com
