The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) recently announced its 2023-24 cohort of Peace Scholar Fellows and a Kent State University graduate student is one of the 21 award recipients. Laura Mendez Carvajal, a Ph.D. candidate and adjunct professor (with an emphasis in Transnational Politics and Conflict Management) in Political Science at Kent State was awarded the fellowship for her research work titled “‘Self-help’ discourse in foreign aid and inequality: peasants' agency in rural Colombia.” She hopes her work can amplify the voices of the community members she works with in rural Colombi...

The Integrated Design Studio is a forum that synthesizes four years of architectural education into one project. The course tests the student’s ability to bring a variety of issues to bear; placing concepts, technical systems, material construction, and formal ambition into integrated relationships. Design work from the 2023 IDS class is exemplary of the richness possible when architecture is engaged across its broad disciplinary and cultural range. The high-quality design work from this year’s class is a testament to each student’s education and the fortitude of each group. They transformed c...