The KSC Human Resources (HR) team at Fiske Annex has seen some changes as positions have been reduced. Going into fall, Heather McGreer, who currently serves as the associate director of human resources, will be the main point of contact for HR services on campus.
As a result of budget restraints and staff cuts, both Karen Crawford, director of human resources, and Karen Kaminski, senior human resources assistant, left during the spring semester.
Nathalie Houder, executive vice president of finance and administration, said the college is working through the departures.
“What we’ve done is work with the system office to leverage some of our shared service resources,” Houder said. “To say that at the campus level, benefits—Karen Kaminski’s responsibility—will go to the system office which has been providing benefit services to the rest of the campuses. We’ll have a resource at the system that will be able to provide us with those services.”
Questions regarding benefits, retirement and health services will be handled by the shared services HR function.
On Crawford’s departure specifically, Houder said McGreer would be taking over a majority of what Crawford’s role entailed.
“We have Heather McGreer at her assistant director position really being the point person on campus,” Houder said. “She is the HR leader on campus. To support her, we have an open position which is an HR business partner. With those two positions we feel like we’ll be able to support campus.”
Houder added that another of Crawford’s responsibilities, handling bargaining agreements and questions on the unions, would be supported by the system office.
Another large point was an increase in training. Houder praised the implementation of Workday HR at Keene State.
“All of this has been enhanced through technology at Workday,” Houder said. “So where we don’t have somebody, we didn’t have it before from a training perspective, we’re able to leverage a training associate at the system level that’s working on a plan that will also leverage what we can access online on Workday. An enhancement of what we had before.”
Houder emphasized that the main goal was ensuring that all the responsibilities were covered.
“It is a big deal for us to have that transition,” Houder said. “So we really worked hard with our partners and the system to make sure we went through everything that was a responsibility to make sure it was being supported by the system, managed by someone here or reorganized to more effectively manage the needs of the campus.”
Kim Schmidl-Gagne, the college’s assessment officer and a union representative, shared her feelings about the changes.
“I think the loss of Karen Crawford and the reduction of staff altogether leaves us with one person right now. Not just to manage unions, but everything,” Schmidl-Gagne said. “Losing Karen meant we lost institutional memory. We tried to do what we could to problem-solve and limit conflict on campus.”
Schmidl-Gagne also spoke on the meetings that were canceled in the 2025 fall semester and 2026 spring semester due to Crawford’s departure, and how she has been trying to reschedule them going forward.
“No one has specifically said that all functions go to the system office, that would have to be negotiated,” Schmidl-Gagne said. “Karen and I talked almost daily about things going on on campus. She had the shared history piece. I feel bad Heather [McGreer] is alone right now.”
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