Note: Gretchen Hoak is a former television reporter/anchor and current assistant professor of journalism in Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research survey, “Are We Teaching Trauma?”,  focused on how universities prepare young journalists for the trauma they may endure in covering violence. Kent State Today asked Hoak to share her thoughts on the impact the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton will have on the reporters assigned to cover these events.  “It’s awful, y’all. Barely hanging on. Our newsroom is command central.”There is a Face...

The Kent State University Wick Poetry Center’s “Traveling Stanzas” project, part of its effort to facilitate a global conversation that enhances person to person communication, arrives at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration this fall. On Nov. 10, KSU will host a reception for the exhibit, Sisters in Liberty: From Florence, Italy to New York, New York, created by the Opera di Santa Croce in Florence in collaboration with faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences who have pioneered unique visualization technologies and KSU’s Design Innovation Initiative. The Wick Poetry Center...

Kent State alumna Shannon Gardiner, BSN ’09, RN, CCRN, always knew she wanted to help people, but also longed for a career that would provide flexibility along the way. After a few years working in Akron Children’s Hospital’s pediatric Intensive Care Unit, followed by some time as a traveling nurse, a Google search for volunteer opportunities led her to Mercy Ships, who own and operate the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world. A native of Champion, Ohio, who now resides in Florida, Gardiner returned home from her third volunteer experience aboard the Africa Mercy in A...

Some researchers almost make the funding process look easy, and one of Kent State University’s most prolific and consistently funded scientists is at it again.   Trustees Research Professor Oleg Lavrentovich, Ph.D., a chemical physicist in Kent State’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI), just received nearly $1 million between two grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for separate studies with potential applications in biomedical science, commercial electronics and beyond. “While it is uncommon to see researchers receive such sizable grants in su...