On Monday, Oct. 20 an all-campus forum was held for students, faculty and staff to understand the events of Pumpkin Fest, share experiences and feelings and to regain the sense of community for Keene State College.
President Anne Huot opened with a statement thanking everyone who attended the forum and explained why the forum was being held. “A really terrible thing happened starting late Friday night, going right through until early Sunday morning,” Huot said. She explained that the forum was held to start thinking about how KSC would continue forward and what lessons the school as a whole could learn about these events. Huot explained that KSC has some accountability in what happened. “We also have to deal with the shame that comes with it, the blame that comes with it, whether it’s ours to own or not,” Huot said. She assured the audience that she does not approve of what happened in this city and the change that needed to be made “will only work if you want it to work.” Huot confirmed that the forum was held to “start a healing process and continue going forward.”
Student Body President Bobby Graham stated the incidents that occurred on Saturday in the community “can easily be summed up as shameful, embarrassing and destructive to our college community and our self-image as a whole,” Graham said, “These events did happen and we cannot erase or mask reality.” He also brought up the worry of many students’ futures at KSC. “Although we do not know what is going to happen, we do have the ability to come together as a student body.” Graham assured the students that he believes they have the wisdom to make a difference.
Many students at the forum had related questions to Graham’s statement about their future. One student questioned his degree after graduation and how this weekend’s events would affect his career after college. Huot claimed, that “In light of everything that’s happened, I am making sure you are getting the education you came here for.”
Graham also reassured students that the future is in their hands. “Administration is doing everything that it can do, but a large part of the rebuilding can be done by students,” he stated.
Samuel Post, a senior at KSC, questioned the forum about ways the student body could help the community. “How can we help? How can we ask forgiveness?,” Post asked. He suggested creating a forum to talk to the community of Keene, asking their opinion of the events and how students of KSC can better the situation.
Another student shared disappointment in the way people perceive KSC after this weekend’s events. “There are a lot of people that are throwing words and opinions at us, but our actions can speak much louder than anybody can talk,” he said. The same student said they believe that if the KSC community does more good than bad going forward, “There’s nothing they can say that we can’t prove wrong.”
Many students began their comments by thanking the law enforcement officers for their protection and services used this weekend. Other students turned to the police for the blame of this weekend’s chaotic events. A KSC student explained that the only physical harm he endured over the weekend was being tear-gassed after walking back from doing community service on Saturday, rather than participating in the riots themselves. “Had not a single rubber bullet been fired, had not a single gas canister been thrown,” he said, he believes these destructive events would not have occurred. “This was the first year that we encountered such an overwhelming police force and this also happened to be the first year that these types of riots happened,” the student added. He concluded by suggesting a major change in the way police handle Pumpkin Fest in the years to come. The administration at the forum, though, assured the audience that KSC is working closely with the law enforcement to find the students responsible for this weekend’s turmoil.
Although the administration was present at the forum, they were unable to answer a question presented by many audience members: what can be done to prevent something like this from happening again? Huot claimed, “We need to find a path forward, but we’re not going to solve it all this evening.” Some members of the audience were disappointed that the KSC staff and administration has not put in enough thought about the future. Shannon Mayers, director of the Redfern Arts Center at KSC, questioned how the administration handled the preparation for Pumpkin Fest with the students. “I admire everybody who is here and who is continuing the dialogue, but where was this dialogue a week ago?” Mayers asked. She said she is concerned with the student engagement on campus and how the administration could have prevented these types of events by encouraging students to get involved with learning such consequences ahead of time.
Before the conclusion of the forum, an angered audience member had no trouble putting the blame on the administration for this weekend’s horrific events. Mentioning the 2013 Pumpkin Fest, the World Series celebration, as well as this year’s Pumpkin Fest, he expressed his disappointment at the administration for allowing three chaotic events to occur within one year.
“To be fair, the administration of this college had a year to find out how to not make this happen again.” As a citizen of Keene, the audience member said he felt as if his trust was breached too many times to forgive the administration. “Each person in this room and every member of this college community has failed by creating a culture on this campus by which we say ‘we will welcome visitors onto our campus that will do damage to our reputation and our property,’” he said.
Graham concluded the forum with a quote from the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley stating, “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments from the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” Graham portrayed again his idea that the future is in the students’ hands and that they must make the change for KSC.
Maggie Mason, a sophomore at KSC, attended the forum in hopes that she could find some security surrounding this weekend’s events. “I wish that all of the negativity stayed out; obviously we don’t need that right now,” she stated. She said she believes that more people need to get involved with fixing the problems that have occurred at KSC. Seanna Flynn, another student at KSC said this weekend was very scary for her, but she appreciates how fast the community has come together. “How quick the sense of togetherness flipped around was really magnificent,” she stated.
MacKenzie Clark can be contacted at mclarke@keene-equinox.com