The student assembly held a meeting on Tuesday, April 21, where junior Speaker Amanda Rotigliano said that she and Jen Ferrell, associate vice president of student affairs, had counted the recent student government election votes. Rotigliano said they had sent out emails to those who had been re-elected as an order of congratulations.
Current re-elected assembly members include first-year treasurer Karen Cisneros and representatives junior Liam Slattery and first-year Collin Linderman.
Rotigliano said that a second round of elections would be held in the upcoming fall semester to fill remaining student assembly seats as well as additional open class representative seats. She also said that she would be contacting Cisneros, Slattery and Linderman regarding the fall elections, and getting “more people on board” for assembly.
Ferrell shared some updates regarding Keene State’s current financial standing and said that departments across campus were still in “phase one of working through budgets with finance.”
Ferrel said that while the department’s first budgets were drafted, they would be further adjusted “multiple times,” in addition to Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration Nathalie Houder stepping out for a bit.
In regard to tuition increases, Ferrell said that mandatory fees faced a 2.5% increase. Some housing prices have received an increase of 2.5% to 2.6% and dining decreased by 5%. According to Ferrell, this increase was “historically fairly unusual.”
Some of the areas on campus that receive the mandatory fees are the L.P Young Student Center, Athletics, Technology, the Wellness Center and student activity fees. Student activity fees are the pool of money that was distributed to various organizations and clubs at the April 14 student assembly meeting.
In regard to that meeting, Cisneros said that she would be sending out emails to all of those organizations and clubs with information about their budgets for the next academic year.
Ferrell also said that a job opening would be posted for the Living and Learning Commons community director position, previously held by Morgan Prittie, who would be taking over a different role in either late May or early June.
During committee reports, Representative Nathan Hope said that the Collegewide Academic Program Committee (CAP) was planning on making several motions related to the updated general education program requirements.
“It mainly has to do with things like, can experimental courses meet requirements for gen ed? Can independent studies be used to fulfill the requirements? Questions we’ve been talking about for a while, that we’re reaching a consensus on, and now we’re moving them to the senate,” said Hope.
CAP had spoken about the possibility of adjusting the gen ed program’s requirements during the March 11 KSC Senate meeting, according to a previous Equinox article.
At the meeting, KSC Senator and professor of mathematics Mike Cullinane had said that some experimental courses offered in the last two years counted toward ISP requirements, but there wasn’t an opportunity for the courses to be reviewed as part of the regular curriculum due to an ongoing curriculum pause.
Hope said that both the new and old KSC senate met at a transitional meeting on April 22, with the old senate meeting first and the new one right after. According to Hope, the motions proposed by CAP were part of the old Senate’s meeting.
During the courtesy period, Speaker Rotigliano announced that Keene State’s annual Spring Carnival would be taking place on May 1 on Appian Way from 4 to 7 p.m. Rotigliano also shared that Solar Fest would take place the following day from 12 to 6 p.m. on the amphitheater outside the Commons.
Solar Fest will feature performances by local folk, country and indie bands as well as tabling from different organizations.
At the end of the meeting, Representative Hope said that he would encourage students to continue to get involved on campus, as a member of assembly and student government or just being part of other organizations and holding leadership roles.
He said, “I hope that the next group of first-years that come in take advantage of these opportunities, and returning students branch out into things they weren’t involved in before. It’s been a privilege to serve with you all [on assembly].”
Both Rotigliano and Ferrell thanked the senior assembly members for their time spent on assembly during their final year at Keene State, in addition to congratulating them on commencement.
Samantha Menard can be contacted at
Hope is the managing executive editor of The Equinox and he had no part in the editing of this article.
