Arts & Culture

At the beginning of the 2018-2019 academic year, the School of Theatre and Dance was nationally recognized and added several new awards to its collection, and the Porthouse Theatre, Kent State University's summer professional theatre, also received multiple honors for achievements during the 2018 Season.

Kent State University English Professor Vera Camden, Ph.D., turned a movement against sexual assault and harassment into a course in order to study the impact of the movement and the forces that led to it. “My hope is to keep a certain momentum going,” Dr. Camden said. “Because so often in our culture, things spike, and then they go away. I really feel like this is so important and so urgent and so serious.”

Janice Lessman-Moss, professor of Textiles, recently was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship in Craft, which includes $50,000 in unrestricted funds.

Jason Prufer, '03, a lifelong resident of Kent and Kent State University alumnus, has compiled “Small Town, Big Music: The Outsized Influence of Kent, Ohio, on the History of Rock and Roll,” a book that covers the college town’s impressive – and previously unappreciated – rock history.

Kent State University’s Taylor Hall is currently housing the Wick Poetry Center’s Writing Across Borders, a poetry exhibit featuring the work of immigrants and refugees living in Akron that was recently featured on Cleveland.com.

Kent State University alumna Jade Novah, appeared in a 24-minute interview with YouTuber Terrell. Ms. Novah told Terrell about her time at Kent State before getting into the entertainment industry and eventually becoming a backup singer for Beyoncé.

Wanting a career that would allow her to be independent and work from anywhere, Erin Shelley, Ed.D., MA, BSN ‘91, RN, was drawn to the nursing profession. These days, however, she practices nursing as “art imitating life” through her role as a technical expert on the hit NBC television show, Chicago Med.

A Kent State University fashion student used her passion for design to turn an Akron woman’s collection of 1,500 Netflix envelopes into a dress masterpiece.

Mark Whitmore Ph.D., an assistant professor of management and information systems at Kent State University's College of Business Administration, shared his expertise on how the public comprehends fake news in today’s society with the investment research firm Morningstar.