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New platform allows for higher education dialogue around diversity issues

A key focus of 5X����’s strategic vision is creating and sustaining an inclusive environment. Trends in Diversity, a new Kent State initiative, provides a home for dialogue about diversity issues, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, class, economics, gender, and sexual identity and expression.

5X���� students Caleb “Jag” Ashcraft, sophomore fashion design major, and Brad Baumeister, senior communication studies major, have been named University Innovation Fellows, making them part of a nationwide program designed  to empower students to become agents of change at their schools. Participants acquire knowledge of tools, frameworks and program models that help college students develop an entrepreneurial mindset and creative confidence.

The 5X���� mock trial team traveled to Ohio Northern University Law School to compete in the Annual Polar Bear Mock Trial Invitational Tournament.

5X���� at Geauga students are receiving support from the Geauga County Township Association, which recently held its second annual Scholarship Fundraising Breakfast.

The Center for the Visual Arts, the new home of the 5X���� School of Art, will celebrate its grand opening on May 6. The festivities begin at 3 p.m. with a short program, immediately followed by building tours, live entertainment, student exhibitions and refreshments.

Ten students in 5X����’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication visited the studios of ABC Nightline, CNN, Fox News, Good Morning America, MSNBC and WABC during a five-day visit to New York City.

A paper co-authored by Emad Khazraee, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science, (with James Losey) titled "Evolving Repertoires: Digital Media Use in the Contentious Politics" was published in the online journal Communication and the Public, 1(1), 39–55.

Lala Hajibayova, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Science, presented a paper titled “From Individual Contributions to Collective Intelligence: A Case of Cultural Heritage Institutions” at the Computer Supportive Collaborative Work Workshop in San Francisco, California, on Feb. 27, 2016.

Michelle Baldini, M.L.S., and Marianne Martens, Ph.D., School of Library and Information Science, are co-authors of an article titled “Out of the Box and Into the Book: Innovative Library Partnerships to Close the 30 Million Word Gap” published in the spring 2016 issue of Children and Libraries, the official journal of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC).