Academic Affairs

Last week, we were finally able to go public with our big announcement: Rick and Jan Cohen have endowed our first chair, The Cohen Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. We’ve been itching to shout about this for some time now, and the day was a marvelous one.

President Helen Giles-Gee did a great job of explaining the four reasons why this is so important to Keene State College:

First, the gift is the largest single gift in the history of the College. It speaks to the continuous and strong commitment the Cohen family has had for the education and particularly for this public college. Theirs is a long standing recognition that supports the need for high quality higher education for all of this State’s citizens

Secondly, their gift supports the development of academic curriculum in Holocaust studies extending its study to include genocide to address not only the past but unfortunately the atrocities of today. This is a gift that truly will serve the world. 

Ihird, this gift creates a perpetual academic position of leadership. An endowed chair is an academic distinction awarded to a scholar in recognition of past and potential original contributions to the individual’s discipline. The scholar serves as faculty providing oversight for curricular development, teaching and research with colleagues and students.

Fourth, the Cohen’s gift signals the importance of a contribution to enhance quality of the academic program for not only the good of students at this institution but for the good of us all.

Keene State College is honored and privileged to receive this endowment from the Cohens. As the president suggests, a gift of this nature is both a recognition of the high quality of the academic program and a partnership that will allow us to be even better in the future.

This is a big deal. This is a very big deal.

Periodically, I’ll be blogging about some of the other big deals on campus. There are so many ways we demonstrate academic excellence in exciting an innovative ways. This blog is a great opportunity to feature them.

 For now, thanks to the Cohens and to the faculty and staff of the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies who have done great work–the kind of work that merits such an incredible gift.

Tags: academic excellence, endowed chair //