This past Friday morning, Keene State College was host to parents and prospective students from around the country. During a campus open house event, which gathered in the Mabel Brown auditorium, current KSC students organized a protest directly in front of the venue’s doors inside of the student center.
Organized actions are rare for Keene’s campus, and no one present was able to recall the last sit-in style protest. According to a 1990 Nashua Telegraph article, over 250 students camped out in front of an administrative building for multiple days following the questionable firing of an administrator at the time.
Students were, and continue to be discontent with the unfunding of the Multicultural Affairs Department, which is reported to receive less of a budget them some of the student clubs. A correspondent for the school’s newspaper, The Equinox, was present to collect perspective from the students, accompanied by a photographer and videographer. I was asked by participating students to provide documentation of the event. As I arrived that morning prior to the protest, I was informed that security as well as Keene police would be standing by, in the case that there were any incidents. During the hour or so that the hallway was occupied by the sitting, mostly silent students, security and police did little more than drift about the wings while signs were held and fliers distributed. Several minutes after the auditorium was filled and the program was underway, the students began to disperse, regrouping in an office to plan the next course of action.
