For the past year, Kent State has featured exhibits, panel discussions, tours and other events leading up to the 50th Commemoration of May 4, 1970. And as we approach the upcoming virtual commemoration, we wanted to highlight one innovative social media initiative in particular. Spearheaded by Mindy Farmer, director of the May 4 Visitors Center, the Kent State Voices 1970 social media campaign brings context to what was happening during the time leading up to the tragic events using a platform that can connect with current students. “We wanted to think of ways to get students involved and ...

Kent State University’s Design Innovation (DI) Initiative is responding to the COVID-19 crisis by prototyping and producing face shields and masks to help fill the gap being experienced by medical personnel on the front lines. J.R. Campbell, executive director of the DI Initiative, is coordinating a team that consists of 25 faculty, staff and students from Kent State’s College of Public Health, College of Architecture and Environmental Design, University Libraries, Research Center for Educational Technology, as well as collaboration with the College of Aeronautics and Engineering and t...

Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI) soon will be home to a new X-ray scattering instrument capable of examining materials in scales from as small as a fraction of a nanometer to as large as several micrometers. The state-of-the-art machine, with unique capabilities and options, is one of just a handful in operation in the United States, and is expected to be used by numerous universities throughout Northeast Ohio as well as in private industry. The technology acquisition is possible due to committed National Science Foundation and Oh...

Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI) soon will be home to a new X-ray scattering instrument capable of examining materials in scales from as small as a fraction of a nanometer to as large as several micrometers. The state-of-the-art machine, with unique capabilities and options, is one of just a handful in operation in the United States, and is expected to be used by numerous universities throughout Northeast Ohio as well as in private industry. The technology acquisition is possible due to committed National Science Foundation and Oh...

Mathew Blasio, an Honors College junior musical theatre major with a dance minor from Cleveland, Ohio, completed an internship during the summer of 2019 with Woodstock Playhouse in Woodstock, New York. During the summer, he acted in four productions: “Mamma Mia!,” “Newsies,” “Hair,” and a version of “Alice in Wonderland.” This kind of production schedule throughout the summer is referred to as “summer stock” in the theatre community, and it is commonly sought after by college students.   In order to get a position working in summer stock, Mathew traveled to New York City in January 2019 ...

For college students in many areas of study, an internship experience may be a requirement for graduation from their program or an otherwise necessary step to reach the next stage in their education and their eventual careers. Regardless of whether or not it is required, students in all majors can benefit from having a quality internship experience with a company or organization relevant to their field of study and desired career. Many Honors College students at Kent State take the opportunity to complete unique internships to supplement their academic work and prepare them for the future. ...

Lou Raffis, a 1981 graduate of Kent State University’s Honors College, was recently announced as the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Honors Alumni Award. He recalls his time at Kent State, saying that he truly benefitted from the academic preparation the Honors College gave him to attend graduate business school at Harvard University. Raffis says that his Freshman Honors Colloquium course in particular, taught him “how to think, to debate, and to write, which prepared me for the challenging and intense academic environment that I confronted at Harvard.” In addition, the honors business and...

William Perrine, a senior lecturer of fashion design and merchandising in The Fashion School at Kent State University, has been teaching at the university for fourteen years. He was recently announced as the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Honors Faculty Award. When asked how the environment at Kent State and in the Honors College allows him to thrive as a faculty member, Perrine said that professors receive a great deal of support for the ideas they have and the initiatives they want to implement. Perrine has experienced this support firsthand: he started The Fashion School’s Germany...

Nuclear physics researchers at Kent State University and all over the world have been searching for violations of the fundamental symmetries in the universe for decades. Much like the “Big Bang” (approximately 13.8 billion years ago), but on a tiny scale, they briefly recreate the particle interactions that likely existed microseconds into the formation of our universe which also likely now exist in the cores of neutron stars. To better understand these properties, the STAR Collaboration researchers develop precision particle detectors for experiments (collisions of gold nuclei) and analyze...