Division of Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement

The Kent State University Board of Trustees has approved awarding Roe Green, MA ’80, a Doctor of Humane Letters, an honorary degree recognizing her contributions to the university and her advocacy for the arts not only in Northeast Ohio, but also across the nation and around the world.

Kent State University will be equipped to offer more financial assistance to students in need thanks to donors to a key area of the university’s ongoing comprehensive fundraising campaign. The Forever Brighter campaign includes a scholarship-support component, Prioritizing Student Success, that now stands at $142 million, surpassing the $100 million goal set at the campaign’s outset in October 2021.

Award winning reporter and news executive Mizell Stewart III will discuss “Journalism as a Civic Good” at 7 p.m. on March 1, 2023, in Franklin Hall’s First Energy Auditorium (Room 340).

This November, members of the Kent State University community joined together to shine their light on philanthropy. During the November campaign, Kent State’s Giving Tuesday raised $3.6 million, marking the sixth year it has brought in more than $1 million to support scholarships and programs across Kent State’s eight-campus system.

Sponsored by the Kent State University Alumni Association, the Alumni Awards are the university’s highest alumni honors. Recipients are selected based on their exceptional professional and civic contributions and for their outstanding support of the university. The 2022 Alumni Award recipients include six alumni and one student.

Kent State University launched the public phase of its $350 million Forever Brighter comprehensive fundraising campaign in October 2021, and during the first year of the public campaign, a record-breaking $77.6 million was raised. This philanthropic feat was made possible with the support of 10,687 donors, 3,753 of whom made a gift to Kent State for the first time.

Kent State’s Division of Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement launched the university’s most ambitious fundraising campaign, called Forever Brighter, last October, creating communications and fundraising materials that share the remarkable impact of alumni engagement and donor philanthropy on the university. The division has earned 19 marketing and communications awards from multiple competitions. 

George L. Jenkins, a 1963 graduate of Kent State University, and his wife, Gina, of Scottsdale, Arizona, have pledged $1 million to create the Gina and George Jenkins Student-Athlete Scholarship Fund that will support student-athletes in any varsity athletics program or team sponsored by Kent State’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.