The Advancement Division (Alumni and Parent Relations, Development, Advancement Services, and Marketing and Communications) will be moving into new digs at 232 Main St. next Tuesday and Wednesday, March 16 and 17. Please bear with us; we’ll do our best to keep things running smoothly through the move, but there is likely to be a little transition time.

And please, come by for a visit when you can!

From Misha Charles, President’s Office:

The New Hampshire Forum on the Future Breakfast Series focuses on the forces that face the state’s future - economically, socially and culturally with respect to our education system, environment and historic traditions.

Forum Breakfast Series

Driving Economic Development in the Monadnock Region: From Issues to Action
New Solutions for the New Economy
Monday, March 15, 2010
Zorn Dining Commons, Keene State College
Breakfast served

Speakers:
Helen F. Giles-Gee, President, Keene State College
Molly Kelly, Senator, New Hampshire
Thomas Dowling, President, Greater Keene Chamber of Commerce
Fred Kocher, President, New Hampshire High Technology Council
Stephen A. Norton, Executive Director, New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies
Dennis Delay, Research Consultant, New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies
Thomas Horgan, President and CEO, New Hampshire College and University Council
Register to participate in one of seven focus group discussions on education, health, housing, manufacturing, small business development, technology and transportation.

To register, visit The New Hampshire Forum on the Future’s site.

Please join us on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 7:30 for our Genocide Awareness lecture being held in the Mabel Brown Room of the Young Student Center. Our guest speaker for the evening is Dr. Gregory Stanton. Dr. Stanton is Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. He is the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project (1981) and the founder (1999) and President of Genocide Watch.

We invite you to join the Cohen Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies in welcoming Dr. Gregory Stanton to Keene State College.  Admission is free and the event is open to the public.  For more information, please visit the Cohen Center website.

A campus wide electrical shutdown will be conducted on Sunday, March 14th, from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. so that final testing can be accomplished at the Central Heating and Cogeneration plant.

Please contact Frank at 358-2243 with any questions.

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company will perform dances rooted in the African-American experience during a concert on Tuesday, March 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond.

Founded in 1968, DCDC is the oldest modern dance company in Ohio and one of the largest companies of its kind between Chicago and New York City. The company has won national and international acclaim and is renowned for powerful, artistic performances, a diverse repertoire of works by world-class choreographers, and excellence in educational programming.

From Connie Lester:

The Keene State College Music Department presents a faculty and guest artist recital of fine music on Friday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the Alumni Recital Hall of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond.

The program will feature pianists Maura Glennon and Heather Gilligan in works for two pianos, including Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and Gilligan’s Speculation for two pianos. Boston-based guest harpist Franziska Huhn will join faculty guitarist José Lezcano for a set of innovative works by Manuel Ponce, Alan Hovhaness, and Jorge Morel. The program will also feature the United States premiere of Christopher Swist’s Two Movements for Violin and Piano, played by Marcia Lehninger and Maura Glennon, and a performance of Elaine Broad Ginsberg’s Cat Songs, with Diane Cushing and Maura Glennon. In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, Maura Glennon will also perform the famed composer’s Tarantelle in A-flat Major, Op. 43, and the Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52.

For information or more information (including video of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company), visit the Redfern’s website. To request accommodations for a disability, please call the box office at 603-358-2168.

Economics students Evthoxia Kyrousis and Casey McBrien presented their senior projects at the Eastern Economic Association on Feb. 27 and 28 in Philadelphia. Xia presented “Illuminating Social Capital,” how the business community supports and benefits from the Pumpkin Festival. Casey’s paper “Peak Oil: Will Economies Collapse or Adapt?” found that price signals are not adequate to stimulate alternative energy technologies.

Economics professor Marie Duggan also presented two papers, one about Keynes’s proposal for a world financial architecture at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, and the other a model of economic growth under the Spanish missions in 18th century California. Conference attendance was supported by grants from the Faculty Development Fund and the Student Conference Fund.

A paper based on the work of Carl E. Johnson (Biology ’08), Everett A. Kysor (Chemistry-Physics ’07), Andrew S. Metell (Chemistry ’08) and Jonathan W. Queen (Chemistry ’08) has been selected as a “Hot Article” by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Hot Articles are those papers rated most highly in terms of both their quality and scientific impact by teams of expert reviewers. The students’ paper, “The Synthesis and Characterization of [IMesH]⁺[(η³-C₅H₅)V(N)Cl₂]^-: An Anionic Vanadium(V) Complex with a Terminal Nitrido Ligand” has recently been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Dalton Transactions and will be freely available for the next four weeks at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/DT/article.asp?doi=b922744j.
This paper is the result of a four-year research project at Keene State College funded by Research Corporation and the American Chemical Society. It describes the syntheses and properties of four new chemical compounds, two of which contain extremely rare vanadium-nitrogen triple bonds.

Philippe Falradeau, the Quebec film director of C’est Pas Moi, Je le Jure! has had to cancel his appearance (scheduled for March 5 at the Redfern) due to a medical emergency.

I am pleased to inform you that the work of Anna P. McLean (Biology ‘11), Elizabeth A. Neuhardt (Chemistry ‘10), and Joel P. St. John (Chemistry ‘11) has been published in the international scientific journal Transition Metal Chemistry. The link to the online version of our paper, “Benchtop synthesis and crystal structure determination of a monomeric N-heterocyclic carbene complex of copper(I) chloride” is http://tinyurl.com/yc8vzk3.

Carbene complexes of copper(I) chloride are used as catalysts in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. Previous methods of preparation of these compounds required very expensive equipment and time-consuming procedures. We have developed a new method of making these important catalysts from inexpensive materials with standard laboratory equipment. Using our new technique, the students were able to prepare and study a carbene copper(I) chloride that had never been made before. Structural studies of this compound were then conducted in collaboration with Dr M. Findlater of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Our method of preparing carbene complexes of copper(I) chloride is now being developed as a teaching experiment to be performed in undergraduate inorganic chemistry laboratory courses.

Keene State College alumni, faculty, staff, and community partner the Friends of the Thorne are invited to share their art, crafts, collectibles, and what they are passionate about in a summer exhibition at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery. This exhibit is called Passionate Pursuits: Keene State College Alumni, Faculty, Staff, and Our Community Partner the Friends of the Thorne Share Their Creations and Collectibles. This exhibit will run Friday, June 4 through Sunday, July 25, and will reopen Friday, September 3 through Thursday, Sept. 30. The Friends of the Thorne will host a public reception on Friday, June 4, from 4:30 to 7 p.m.

The show will give participants the opportunity to share their talents and interests with the larger Monadnock community and each other.

Interested participants are asked to fill out a form online by Monday, April 19, to give the gallery staff an idea of what participants want to exhibit and its size. The form also can be downloaded from the website and returned to the gallery by e-mail or regular mail.

The exhibit will be free and open to the public. For further information about participating in Passionate Pursuits, call Maureen Ahern, 603-358-2721, or Paul Knowlton, 603-358-2240, or visit www.keene.edu/tsag/exhibits.cfm.

Keene State College will host the semifinal and championship rounds of ECAC Division III New England Women’s Basketball Tournament this weekend at Spaulding Gym.
Looking for its first-ever ECAC Division III title, Keene State (18-9) will face fourth seed WPI (20-9) in Saturday’s first semifinal game at 1 p.m. Second seed Regis College (20-9) takes on sixth seed Plymouth State (16-10) in the second semifinal game at 3 p.m. The two semifinal winners will play for the championship on Sunday (1 p.m.).
The Owls are familiar with several teams remaining in the field. Earlier this season, KSC defeated Regis (73-64). They split their two games against rival Plymouth State, losing on the road (62-59) and winning at home (66-48). Keene State played in the WPI tournament back in 2007, defeating the Engineers (52-41) in the finals
Keene State is making its fifth trip to the ECAC tournament. Last year, the Owls lost to top-seed Nichols College in the semifinals 58-53. In 2006, KSC dropped a first-round game to Emmanuel (73-64). They advanced to the semifinals round of the 2002 tournament before losing to Plymouth State (73-57). The following year, they dropped a quarterfinal game to Colby-Sawyer (52-48).
The Owls won the ECAC Championship as a Division II member in 1988 and 1989, and also reached the championship game in 1993.

For more on this year’s team — and to follow the tournament — visit the KSC Athletics site.