Our History and Awards
The Eye’s special 2020, 2021, and 2022 editions, A Century of Change and Female Empowerment (1920-2020) , Indigenous Issues and Education, and Letters to a Young Publication each won 1st place in the HUGEmanities Change the World category of the Big Contest, sponsored by UNH and the New Hampshire Humanities Collaborative. Congratulations to the many writers, artists, and editors who worked on those special editions! (click links to read)
““I like you; your eyes are full of language.” — Anne Sexton”
Lydia Stacy, Former President of The Eye and Editor-in-Chief of the 25th Anniversary Edition, featuring works from all twenty-five years
Our History
After starting in the 1980s as a student newspaper, the EYE became a full-fledged journal in 1991 under the direction of English Professor Lynn Kilchenstein. Kilchenstein, who went on to become NHTI’s President, encountered a composition course full of disparate students writing about experiences that were "literally all over the map." Erik Robb wrote about a trip to the Soviet Union in "My First Look Behind the Iron Curtain," while others had tackled a climbing crisis involving a crevasse, a deer hunt, construction-site mayhem, and more. Then a faculty member in the English Department, Kilchenstein later became the college president. However, the student-run publication took on a life of its own.
We have now surpassed 30 years of publication. In 2015, the journal celebrated its 25th anniversary. Student Lydia Stacy (pictured at left), became editor-in-chief with the goal of publishing the best works from all twenty-five years. Assisted by countless student editors, Stacy scanned in old pieces and described the process of creating this anthology, often used as a supplemental text in English Composition courses.
"We laughed at (and ‘googled,’ a word coined in 1998, seven years after the start of The Eye) pop culture references through the years," Stacy wrote. "We traveled to Houston, Russia, London, rural Africa, and Iraq. We sat stunned and silent after being brought back to how we felt that beautiful September morning, over a decade ago, when we watched the sky fall in New York City. And we fell in love. We fell in love with the descriptions, the feelings, the thoughts, and the ideas of students like us, through the years."
NHTI's then-president Susan B. Dunton praised the journal, saying, "Through your work, you have not only contributed to making the connections among us that are so important to success, but have partaken in weaving the very fabric of the college's rich history. Your writing, your art, your editing, and your page layout are all threads that help bind together our history — and our community."
The Eye continues to publish student writing in its annual print edition, and in 2017 published its first online journal with the idea of giving voice to a greater number of individuals.