Bixenstine Named 2019 Distinguished Honors Alumni

Bart Bixenstine, a 1971 graduate of Kent State University’s Honors College and the recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Honors Alumni Award,

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says that the connections he has made at Kent State continue to help him today, as he has run into and worked with people who also attended Kent State over the years. Bixenstine also enjoys the opportunity to periodically teach a course at Kent State on the First Amendment, for which he jokes that he “shamelessly plagiarize[s] the approach taken by” his professor at the University of Chicago Law School.
 

His connections at Kent State have also brought some “neutral work” in law. When asked how his education at Kent has helped him give back to the community, Bixenstine says that it is “a matter of appreciating what Kent does.” He says that it takes time and distance to reflect on one’s life and what has made a difference, and he realized that Kent State has had an impact on him. He told students in his Distinguished Honors Alumni Award acceptance speech at the Senior Honors Luncheon that Kent State and the Honors College as they are today is even better than what they were for him, and that he hopes students may complete their education and are able “to achieve the goals the Honors College has given you.”