MANCHESTER — The New Hampshire Institute of Art (NHIA) is about 15 miles from the former Chester College, but for students who once called that rural campus home, it might as well be on the other side of the world.

“It was peaceful and quiet — there weren't fire alarms going off all the time,” said Amber Lucas, an NHIA senior from Newton, who transferred from Chester College over the summer. “But it's also nice to be near so many things to do. Things you wouldn't really see living in the country — where we've got moose.”

Lucas is one of 86 former Chester College students now enrolled at NHIA, after the 45-year-old liberal arts school announced last spring it was closing due to a downturn in finances and enrollment. For her and others, adjusting to college life in the heart of the Queen City has been hard at times, but a few weeks into the new semester she and her classmates are making their way.

“It's different moving into the city,” said Lucas. “I'm someone who prefers a more natural environment. It just depends on you adjusting. The first week I didn't like it, but now, it's getting easier as time goes by. The people who work here are really friendly. The students have generally been friendly. But it's been an adjustment.”

Like others who were enrolled in the creative writing program at Chester College, Lucas followed her professors to NHIA. Shortly after it became apparent Chester would close its doors, NHIA announced the hiring of four instructors from the school — Monica Bilson, Tim Horvath and Jenn Monroe of the creative writing program, and Darrell Matsumoto, a photography instructor.

“I initiated the whole thing,” said Bilson, who now heads NHIA's new creative writing program. “I said Chester College is closing, we have a fantastic creative writing program, and we've made such a great community of writers. We created this magical thing, and it needs to live on. I knew that this was an arts school without a writing major, but I also knew that they were interested in developing a creative writing major. It was very serendipitous that it all fit together.”

“The personal relationships you cultivated at Chester, especially with the teachers, that's why it was so special there,” said Jacob Dale, now a senior at NHIA. “I'm not sure that I would have come here, and I live in Manchester, but I didn't think twice about it once I found out the teachers that were coming here.”

“I think (NHIA President) Roger Williams is a very smart man,” said Bilson. “He knew if we could, we would all come over and stay a cohesive unit, this writing department that we built really is living on and going to the next level now.”

Williams said the new writing program, and the students enrolled there, are an asset to the city campus.

“For years, we saw the same students applying to both schools,” said Williams. “And for years we speculated, and I learned, that they chose Chester because they really wanted to be in the country, so we recognized that as a legitimate concern and a challenge for us in welcoming these students here. We had to make sure they were comfortable, not with the institute itself, because programmatically it's very similar to Chester, but with living in the city itself. We are thrilled to have the students here, and to have the program here. They are a real asset, and a nice addition, to the school. It has been a good fit.”

Administrators at NHIA have been working to help the former Chester students make the change from rural to city campus.

“We've had some student social events, and they attend in good numbers, sometimes more than what our students had done in the past,” said NHIA Executive Vice President Rick Strawbridge. “I've observed that they tend to stick together, and that they appear to be a real family. That may be something that they developed over there, and that's a good thing. There were some concerns early on about being in Manchester as opposed to Chester, and a little fear perhaps, but from what I can see most everyone has adapted to it.”

Strawbridge said his staff were busy on Labor Day administering math and science placement tests for 200 incoming students, 86 of whom were Chester transferees. In all, 541 students are enrolled at NHIA this fall.

Bilson said she thinks the experience is starting to show up in the students' writing.

“It's early in the semester, but I'm feeling like the students are more engaged than ever,” said Bilson. “Whether or not it's because they are struggling to adjust, that maybe is coming out in the work and making things more intense, I don't know what it is, maybe the freshness of the situation is motivating them. Sad, happy — I don't know. Adversity makes good art.”

“The college closing was a tragedy,” said Dale. “We all have something to write about because of it.”

pfeely@unionleader.com