This week’s student assembly covered a spring weekend wrap-up, and a new campus organization.

Amanda Guthorn, director of Campus Safety, came to speak about how spring weekend went.

“Improvement comes in little steps,” Guthorn said.

Jessica French, student government member, said she thought the weekend ran smoothly and the parties were contained.

French said that the Keene Police Department was friendly, nice, and polite which lead to students cooperating with them.

“I saw the presence of campus safety and police but they weren’t aggressive,” said Kenneth Hadley, student government member.

Ryan Mahan, senior, spoke on behalf of a new campus organization in the works.

The organization will be a chapter of Wine to Water, a non-profit that educates about the water crisis and lack of sanitary water.

A constitution has been drafted and the move to approve the organization was passed.

The women’s rugby team requested a transfer of $1500 from their travel fund to their supply fund in order to buy warm up jackets and other supplies. The transfer was approved.

Keene Cannabis Coalition was in attendance for the second week. President Scott Dyer spoke on behalf of the organization, requesting $400 for transportation to Boston for an upcoming legalization march.

Due to a formality, student government instructed a representative of KCC to attend a finance meeting before they can be allotted any money.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

Nathan L. DeMond was a beloved member of the community from his time as a student in 2009 to groundskeeper for the following 14 years. On April 19, 2014, a downed power line near the athletic complex on campus electrocuted him, ending his life. To commemorate DeMond’s life and impact on the campus, the carillon tolled for one minute at noon this past Monday, April 20. Family, friends and former colleagues of DeMond’s joined for a moment of silence in front of the Media Arts Center. Tim Garland, supervisor of the electrical shop, coordinated the ringing of the carillon. “It was an honor to be able to do something to commemorate Nate,” Garland said. Kathleen DeMond and Jason Michaels, DeMond’s mother and brother, were in attendance during the moment of silence.

“We want to say thank you for everything Keene State’s done for my brother. We’re very proud to be here,” Michaels said. “We all miss Nate terribly. We never stop missing him,” K. DeMond said. College President, Anne Huot, was also in attendance. “Nate’s memory here is strong  … He is deeply missed and it’s just great that our community came out today to remember him,” Huot said.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

Students and faculty gathered in the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery on April 14, for a panel discussion with volunteers from Freedom Summer 1964.

Freedom Summer was a project in Mississippi that attempted to register as many African-Americans to vote as possible.

Members of the panel were Jim Kates, John Suter, Carl Pomerance and Nancy Schieffelin.

Them and approximately 1,000 other students from the north did day-to-day work to encourage African-Americans to register to vote.

These volunteers trained in Ohio and then traveled to Mississippi.

“Mississippi was the most difficult state in terms of political rights and segregation in the early 1960s,” Kates said. “Attempts to get people to register to vote had been met with not only legal obstructions but also with murder and all kinds of intimidation.”

The event was held in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, as well as John Daniel’s death.

Daniels was a local civil rights activist who was born in Keene and murdered in 1965 in Alabama.

Schieffelin said that the conditions in Mississippi for African-Americans were incredibly poor, and Freedom Summer worked to put these conditions in the public’s eye and force the government to change.

However, while the Voting Rights Act was years ago, the fight for equality is ongoing to this day.

Members of the panel mentioned that progress has been made, but there is still a ways to go.

“You could argue, where has there been progress?” Schieffelin said.

According to her, only 6.7 percent of the African-American community in Mississippi was registered to vote prior to the project. After two years, about 60 percent of the community had registered.

“It was a huge jump because of the Voting Rights Act,” Schieffelin said.

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

Kates responded with an anecdote about a student who asked him if things had really been as bad as they were described.

“No matter what racism you experience in your life, your question means that we’ve won,” Kates said to him. “If you can’t even imagine how bad it was, we can talk about economic inequality and we can talk about ongoing racism, but it is immeasurably different from how it was.”

While there has been quite a bit of visible progress, the panel agreed that there is still a far ways to go.

“If I were black and I walked into a grocery store, someone would follow me around to see if I were shoplifting,” Suter said.

Suter continued, “There are all these little insults, as well as big insults, that people deal with everyday.”

“The Civil Rights Movement had a very obvious issue that everybody understood: the ability to vote or not. And now we’ve been through this period where racism was happening but there wasn’t a clear, focused thing that we can agree on and have a movement on until Ferguson happened.”

“You yourselves by just sitting here are being a part of this activism,” Kates said.

Samantha Pineau, KSC student, spoke out about how these issues are ignored by so many people.

“I feel like it’s a very not-in-my-backyard type of viewing, thinking ‘I’m not the one being prejudiced against, even though I agree with this party I’m just going to pretend that I don’t,” Pineau said.

Savannah Hobbs, sophomore, was in attendance at the panel.

“It was very compelling what they talked about. The issues today, the issues past, and how they tied those together. I think we just need more education, we need to get it out there, because a lot of people have misconceptions,” Hobbs said. As far as moving forward, there is still a lot of progress to be made in the fight for equality.

“Racism is everywhere . . . We all have these prejudices that we have to sort of be aware of,” Schieffelin said. Becoming aware of these prejudices is the first step to overcoming them.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

Reading and writing are essential tools that help us express our creativity and share it with others.

Keene is Reading, a campus-wide program run by English Professors William Stroup and Emily Robins Sharpe, hosted a panel of Nigerian writers in the student center on April 8.

The writers, E.C. Osondu and Helon Habila, read excerpts from some of their works out loud to students and faculty in attendance.

Osondu is author of the novel “This House is Not for Sale,” as well as a number of other works, and is a professor of creative writing at Providence College.

Habila is author to a number of novels, his most recent being “Oil on Water.” He is also a professor of creative writing at George Mason University in Virginia.

Osondu read a chapter from “This House is Not for Sale,” and Habila read his short story “The Second Death of Martin Lango.”

In addition to reading from their works, Osondu and Habila spoke about the writing process and their inspiration to become writers.

“Even before I learned to read, I was also listening to stories. I grew up around my grandmother and

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

for her every occasion was an occasion to tell a story,” Osondu said.

Habila said, “In books people could do what they liked, so I began to read more and even the adults in the books misbehaved and I thought that was interesting.”

The authors also shared advice for prospective writers.

“Work hard, hope for the best, expect the worst,” Habila said. “It’s passion. It’s if you want it just like any other thing. It’s who wants it most.”

Osondu said, “For a writer, you can always get better.”

The event was a part of Keene is Reading, a program that chooses a book that is read across the campus and community and hosts book discussions and events based around the book.

Sharpe, co-coordinator of Keene is Reading, said she was happy with how the event went.

“It’s a really wonderful experience to get to go and sit in a room with a bunch of other people and have a writer read his or her work to you. I think that it can be very different from the experience of reading a book to yourself,” Sharpe said. “They both read some works that expanded and challenged some of the ideas we’ve been talking about all year long in the Keene is Reading discussion groups.”

The overall response to the event was  positive.

“I thought that the students who asked questions asked fantastic questions and got some interesting responses about how the two writers came to be writers and the writing processes,” Sharpe said.

The panel was the final event for Keene is Reading until next semester, when the program will choose a new novel to work with.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

Student assembly this week discussed plans for the new residence hall, funding requests, and an amendment to the constitution.

Dr. Jay V. Kahn, Vice President for Finance and Planning, updated information regarding the new residence hall, which will be called Pondside IV.

Architecture firm Perkins and Will is the company behind the planning and construction of the building, completion being expected by August 2016.

Pondside IV will be 85 thousand square feet, five levels, and three classrooms. It will be able to house 358 students.

Keene Cannabis Coalition requested $399 for an upcoming legalization march in Boston on May 2.

The request was made by incoming president Miles Duhamel for transportation to and from the march.

Duhamel said that this was a student activism group that has had a slow time getting started and the march could be the first of many opportunities for them.

The motion to give the club $250 was carried.

The next request was for 500 dollars towards a generator for the carnival to be held on April 30. The request passed unanimously.

Keene State Debate Club requested a transfer of funds. Incoming treasurer Robert Koolis represented the club in asking for $600 to be transferred to supplies and 100 dollars to professional services from $700 in travel funds. The requested passed with none opposed.

A change to the dress code in the constitution was approved as well, requesting business casual attire with two infractions counting as an absence.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

Genocide can be incredibly destructive and devastating to those targeted, but all that can be done is learn from it and attempt to move forward.

This idea was recently discussed at Keene State College on April 6.

Beata Umugwangwali, survivor of the Rwandan genocide, spoke to students about her experience with the genocide and how repairing her old school has helped her move on.

Umugwangwali, mother of three, lost her husband during the war.

“So many people died because there was no protection at all,” she said. “I felt like it was a movie, thinking maybe things will go back to normal. It took me five years to be able to tell other people what I went through.”

After her husband’s death, she and her family came to New Hampshire in 1995 to start a new life.

It was after the move when the idea to repair her old primary school came about.

“Our children were really surprised to see how bad the school was,” Umugwangwali said. She said that she was embarrassed by the state of it.

The school had no windows or doors, and supplies and conditions were lacking.

Umugwangwali and her sister, Immaculee, started the non-profit Friends of Butare with their friend and Habitat for Humanity leader, Brian Anderson, and set to work on repairs.

They began with replacing the roof, and continued to clean out then renovate the inside of the building.

Umugwangwali was very pleased with the outcome. “It’s like an American school in my hometown,” she said. Friends of Butare have made several trips to Rwanda to make additional improvements to the school. Kelly Christianson, KSC graduate, volunteered on one of these trips.

She helped students gain access to textbooks and helped them learn how to use computers.

“Most of the students, before the library, had not had any access to textbooks. Now with the library that they built, where I got to oversee a lot of the construction while I was teaching, the students are able to go into the library,” Christianson said. “From what I hear they use the library very frequently, the students love it.” She also mentioned the lack of access to the Internet in the computer lab. “I started working with a group of business owners who funded most of our trip . . . They have been purchasing Internet so the next year is paid for,” she said. Christianson has since decided to become a Peace Corps volunteer after her trip to Rwanda.

“My time with Friends of Butare in Rwanda, it was one of the best experiences of my life and it definitely led me to join the Peace Corps,” Christianson said.  Kristen Rohde, sophomore, studied the genocide in class, which she said sparked her interested of the event. “I thought it would be interesting to listen to another person’s point of view on it, who had been there,” Rohde said.

Brittany Allard, first-year, also learned about the event in class.

“I learned an individual’s story, which was interesting to me,” Allard said. “It’s really important for us to know what other people have gone through and how we can fix countries like Rwanda and make things better for the future.”

A better future is possible with organizations such as Friends of Butare.

“To overcome the past, we all have to look forward. You cannot be stuck with the past,” Umugwangwali said.“People are recovering. They are starting to forgive each other,” Christianson added.

The next Friends of Butare trip will take place this coming summer, when volunteers will be working on renovating a kitchen for a school cafeteria. Anyone interested in volunteering can learn more at friendsofbutare.com.

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com

The best way to learn about infectious disease outbreaks and how to control them is to learn from someone who has dealt with the disease first hand.

Elizabeth Talbot, New Hampshire Deputy State Epidemiologist, spoke about her experience working with Ebola on March 21.

Students, faculty and community members gathered in Centennial Hall in the Alumni Center to hear of her work and learn about disease outbreak and control.

Talbot recently returned from Sierra Leone, where she assisted health care workers with their training in working with the Ebola virus.

“I had an unusual primary educational objective that I’ve never had in my teaching before, which is safe work,” Talbot said.

This type of training included protocols to ensure the safety of the health workers when coming into contact with Ebola patients.

“We did this through three days of lectures and simulation with mannequins, and then four to seven days of mentor training within the Ebola treatment center,” she said.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 240 healthcare workers in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone have contracted the disease.

“It became clear that the way we were going to break the chains of transmission and keep health care workers safe was to establish these Ebola treatment centers,” Talbot said.

These treatment centers were the solution to getting patients out of their communities and into a place where there would be minimal transmission of the disease to others, Talbot said

“The first goal was to create isolation, not to save lives,” Talbot said.

The presentation was this year’s annual Mason library lecture, organized by Celia Rabinowitz, dean of Mason Library.

“When I was trying to think of a speaker in the later part of the summer, a lot of the Ebola epidemic was making the news, and I was looking for a speaker who would draw a broad audience,” Rabinowitz said.

Students attended for a number of reasons, and many had a positive response to the lecture.

Kaley Carr, senior, went to the lecture for her Epidemiology class.

“I think she was very knowledgeable, and personable,” Carr said regarding Talbot.

Carr said that after hearing the lecture, she would no longer make assumptions about diseases and how people get them.

Karlie Marrs, sophomore, attended the lecture as a part of her Microbiology class.

“I’ve definitely wanted to travel to a third world country, and hearing her experience has kind of made me feel better about it and less scared,” Marrs said.

Jessica Dude, sophomore, heard about the lecture from her advisor and attended out of her own personal interest.

“It was really great to see how passionate she was, and how her experience touched her life,” Dude said, “I feel very grateful that I was allowed to come and could hear her, it was very informative.”

As the new Dean of Mason Library, Rabinowitz was very pleased with the response to the first Mason Library Lecture she organized.

“I’m especially happy to see the conversation after the talk, which really tells me that there’s a lot of interest,” she said.

Talbot commented on the importance of learning to control outbreaks of diseases, and the impact that they can have on the human population as a whole.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how this disease epidemic in West Africa would end or would stop being an impact to all of Africa if we did not have national response,” Talbot said.

She continued, “Knowledge is what takes away the fear and allows one to respond.”

Regarding the future of Ebola, Talbot said she believes in one solution.

“The place where I put my hope in the long term for Ebola is a vaccine,” she said, “If these vaccines fail for any reason Ebola will be endemic in society.”

Devon Roberts can be contacted at droberts@kscequinox.com