In this series, Tess Anderson looks back on news events impacting the NEC community and provides an update.
Report on NEC Women
“Of all 20 members of the Board of Directors, only one is a woman… the secretary.”
The New Hampshire Commission on the Status of Women published a pamphlet in 1973 of possible discrimination at NEC. The commission was concerned that there was discrimination against female staff members, specifically regarding their sick leave, salary, seniority and rank, and the assignments they were given.
Just ten years before the NewEnglander reported on the issue of discrimination against women, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were passed, both of which assert women being treated equally at their workplaces.
The Equal Pay Act was an amendment that was added to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that “prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility under similar working conditions.”
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited “employment discriminations based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.”
The purpose of both laws was to protect workers, in this case particularly women. According to this commission, NEC was suspected of discriminating against their female staff.
Some NEC staff members reportedly expressed their concerns about the treatment of women on campus and how they were not being treated equally compared to male staff. Male staff noted that they believed women did not get paid as much as their male counterparts and that women’s ranks and positions were not equal in prestige.
The NewEnglander also emphasized an instance of discrimination and unfair treatment that occurred against female employees at NEC. It was reported that a certain woman in administration left her job for a year and was replaced by a man who had three years less of experience yet was paid $1,000 more than she was. With inflation, the new male hire made around $7,000 more than the women who previously held the job.
According to the NEC student who wrote the article, the administration was interested in the issue of possible discrimination; they indicated that discrimination would not be tolerated at NEC and were prepared to fix issues of discrimination on campus.
As of January, 2026, the New England College website has a list of leadership at NEC where it states that there are currently 5 female trustees out of the total 24 and 4 out of the 9 Senior Administrators are women.
Unemployment Rate
In November 2008, the NewEnglander reported on a worsening economic situation in the U.S. and the escalating unemployment rate. When the story was written, the unemployment was only at 6.5%, and just a year later the unemployment rate reached 10.0%. The story examined how the newly elected president, Barack Obama, was proposing to fix the economic situation upon his inauguration in January 2009. The unemployment rate would remain high until 2014, when the unemployment rate went down to the rate it was in November 2008.
At the time, the U.S. had not seen an unemployment rate that high since 1982, when unemployment reached 10.8% at its peak. Just twelve years after the story was written, the U.S. experienced the highest rate of unemployment since the Great Depression. In April 2020, the unemployment rate reached 14.8%.
Following the massive unemployment rate in 2020, there had been a steady decline in the rate of unemployment, at which it reached the lowest at 3.4% in 2023. Since 2023, however, the unemployment rate has gradually increased, where it stands at 4.4% as of December 2025. To put this rate into perspective, this means that 7.5 million Americans are without jobs.
In recent news, the unemployment rate reached 4.6% in November 2025, the highest it had been since September 2021. President Donald Trump had issued a statement at a rally in North Carolina on the current unemployment rate.
In his rally, Trump stated that he could add 300,000 jobs by forcing government agencies to add jobs, which he claimed would lower the 4.6% unemployment rate to 2.5%. Trump also said that he could “get [unemployment] down to zero. Hire a couple million workers. But that’s the destruction of a country.”
According to an analysis by the executive editor of CNN Business, Trump falsely that hiring 300,000 would result in the unemployment rate going down to 2.5%; however, this is factually incorrect, as the unemployment rate would actually only go down to 4.4%. Trump also claimed that he would only need to hire a couple million workers for the unemployment rate to get to zero, but that is also incorrect. Trump would have to hire 7.5 million Americans as of December 2025 for the unemployment rate to get down to 0%.
President Trump has attributed the rising unemployment rate to the mass layoff of government employees, but he has asserted that these workers are moving to the private sector.
Surviving Businesses in New Hampshire
When reading older NewEnglander newspapers, you’ll quickly notice the many ads printed across the pages. Throughout the years, many businesses have come and gone, but occasionally you’ll see a familiar name. Looking at winter editions of the NewEnglander from the 1970s, there are a few ads for businesses that are still thriving today; some of these businesses have experienced many changes, while others have stayed relatively the same.
Pitchfork Records is one of these businesses that existed in the 1970s and previously bought several ads in The NewEnglander. Located in Concord, Pitchfork Records and Stereo, as the store is now called, has been open for over fifty years. It appears that at some point they changed locations in Concord, but they are now based on 2 South Main Street. Since the 1970s, Pitchfork Records and Stereo expanded to selling CDs and DVDs.
The New England College Shoppe ads were also very prevalent in older editions on the NewEnglander and featured new products sold at the shop. The New England College Shoppe has since been replaced by the Pilgrim Shop, which is also owned by NEC. The Pilgrim Shop exclusively sells college-branded apparel and other branded items, but the previous college shop sold various name-branded clothes. Ads for new apparel from brands including Levi’s, Woolrich, and Career Club were sold at this college shop.
The New England College Shoppe was located just a building over from where the Pilgrim Shop is situated today at the Towle Block, where Davis & Towle Insurance Group and Dr. David W. Lewis Chiropractor are now standing.
According to the Henniker Historical Society & Museum, the Henniker Pharmacy has been a locally owned pharmacy since 1889. Although the Henniker pharmacy has had different ownership over the years, the Henniker Pharmacy has excited for over 100 years. The current owners of the pharmacy bought the building in 2008, but the owners of the pharmacy in the 1970s repeatedly bought ads in the NewEnglander. The pharmacy advertised their prescription services and the various other products they sold including cosmetics, school supplies, and film.
Changes at the Simon Center
Last winter the NEC-TV Studio opened on the fourth floor of the Simon Center, but in December 2010, the space had been opened as a 24-hour study area.
The Pathways Center was established for students who had been requesting a 24-hour study space. The original plan was to extend the Danforth Library hours so that it would be open for students all day. However, after some budgeting and staffing issues, the school was unable to make the library a 24-hour building and shifted to making this space in the Simon Center into that all-day study area.
Desks and computers were placed in the Center and stayed in that space until last year when the room was converted to NEC-TV. NEC-TV is a student-run TV station that was created to provide students with broadcasting experience. There are currently three remaining computers that are available to students outside NEC-TV and various seating areas that placed throughout the Simon Center which students can use 24/7.
