When Kent State University President Todd Diacon took the stage at Spring 2026 Commencement, he didn't open with statistics or institutional milestones. He opened with a potato peeler.Drawing on his own work history, from a Kansas restaurant at age 14 to a college career mastering the Hobart commercial dishwasher, Diacon delivered an address built around a thesis he clearly believes deeply. Kent State students are, in his words, "proudly not pampered." They work. They balance. They earn their way through college while building the skills, grit, fortitude and experience that make them...

From the time she was in seventh grade, Kent State School of Fashion alumni Siera Santos Terry knew she wanted to attend Kent State.  With an entrepreneurial mindset from the time she was 11, where she sold her brand Things by CiCi at craft fairs, attending the Kent State Master of Fashion Industry Studies (M.F.I.S.) program during her college years was almost inevitable. Combining the craft of fashion and entrepreneurship, Kent State's M.F.I.S. program elevated Terry's natural talent for selling products and running her own businesses. Throughout her time earning her Bachelor o...

Kent State Today is following a group of Golden Flashes for the 2025-26 academic year, chronicling their efforts and successes during the fall and spring semesters. The students are at various stages of their academic careers and will share their experiences as they participate in Kent State's distinctive programs, research and campus activities.Just one more year at Kent State University and 19-year-old twin brothers Ray and Will Maynard of Green, Ohio, expect to be graduating and, hopefully, off to medical school.The pair, biological sciences majors in the College of Arts and Scien...

When Ray Strumbly started to envision his retirement and the future of the business he spent decades cultivating, the idea of selling to private equity didn’t sit well with him.“In my long history, I've yet to meet a private equity organization that made a company better. Usually, it has to do with reducing headcount and creating efficiencies, and then the company turns over repeatedly, and unfortunately, that's not good for your customer base,” he said.Strumbly joined Timbers-Kovar Company, a Mentor, Ohio-based distributor of loading dock equipment and doors, in 1997, working his wa...

The Kent State University Board of Trustees will hold its next regular business meeting at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 20, in the Cene Lecture Hall, Room 120, in The John Elliot Center for Architecture and Environmental Design on the Kent Campus. The Board will consider the recommendations of the standing committees, proposed personnel actions and new business. Trustees will retire into executive session to consider specific topics as provided under Ohio’s “Sunshine Law.” The roll call vote for this session will occur at 8 a.m. in public in the Cene Lecture Hall, Room 120.A limited number of sea...