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Kent State President Todd Diacon and others express their appreciation for the hard-working employees who have pulled together to keep our campuses operating throughout the pandemic.

5X���� is marking the promotions and tenure of 135 faculty members during the 2019-2020 academic year.

5X���� has inducted 53 employees into its 20-Year Club Service Awards Program for 2020.

Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in 5X����’s Department of Physics, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Kent State alumna 1st Lt. Ashley White-Stump is featured along with other American heroes in the new National Museum of the United States Army, which just recently opened in Virginia.

Since March, COVID-19 has become a widespread topic of conversation. Finding ways to explain what this virus is, how one can treat it and how to slow the spread of the virus are just a few commonly asked questions with few clear answers. Xiaozhen Mou, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and her research team recently received funding for their hard work as part of Ohio’s statewide collective effort to discover traces of COVID-19 virus particles in wastewater.

Kent State’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA Kent) Chapter, along with two School of Media and Journalism (MDJ) alumnae, earned national recognition at the 2020 PRSSA Annual International Conference. Public relations alumna Jill Golden, won the highest individual award, the National Gold Key award, and alumna Carrie Kandes, APR, earned the Teahan Professional Adviser award.

Kent State will recognize the accomplishments of its Fall Class of 2020 graduates with a virtual commencement recognition ceremony. Students, faculty, staff, parents and friends are invited to tune into the virtual ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 19, at 11 a.m.

While it's no secret that many college students drink alcohol, how COVID-19 affected these behaviors and patterns is the focus of recent research published in the journal Addictive Behaviors by the collaboration of William Lechner from the Department of Psychological Sciences and Deric Kenne from the College of Public Health. The pair sought to study the effects that a major stressor such as the pandemic could have on addictive behaviors and how vulnerabilities such as anxiety and depression played a part in the coping process of college students. 

In preparation for honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Kent State’s Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee is requesting that university divisions, departments and student organizations submit programming, activities and events (scheduled Jan. 25-Jan. 31, 2021) to the MLK Events Calendar by Friday, Dec. 4, 2020.

Through multiple organizations and collaborations on and off campus, 5X���� ended 2019 as a more sustainable campus. Those who contributed to sustainable efforts worked hard to reduce the university’s carbon footprint leading to the university being honored as a finalist for the 2020 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Campus Sustainability Achievement Award  along with the 2019 Keep Ohio Beautiful award for Colleges and Universities.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, MMPI, is a standardized psychometric test that was first published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1943 and quickly became the gold standard for assessing psychopathology. 5X���� has played a key role throughout the history of this test and a Kent State faculty member led the revision for the recently published and updated 2020 MMPI-3. 

A policy of municipal takeover was implemented to help relieve Flint, Michigan, of financial and political hardships in response to the water crisis. Ashley Nickels, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, extensively researched Flint's municipal takeover for seven years, earning her three awards for her work.

A true milestone in the concept of international education, the American Academy celebrated its first  in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, this year. The American Academy is a dual-enrollment program jointly operated by 5X���� and the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. Fourteen of the students who first enrolled in the program when it launched in July 2018 were the first to graduate.

Alumna Pamela R. Anderson-Bartholet has a long history at Kent State, graduating from the university three times before working for Kent State. In August, she added a new feather to her cap when The Poetry Box published her first complete collection of poetry, “Just the Girls: A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies; A Drift of Honeybees” with the help of two other alumnae.

Kent State Alumna Priya Midha, M.S. ‘20,  is making a difference in Northeast Ohio, working to track COVID-19 to stop community spread and was recently featured in Akron Life Magazine.

Kent State launched its month-long celebration of philanthropy, Giving Tuesday, on Nov. 9 and highlighted a fundamental belief that “Flashes Take Care of Flashes.”

Students struggling academically or with time management skills will have an additional, powerful resource in the form of a fellow student to coach them to success. The Academic Success Center’s Peer Academic Coaching Program at 5X���� is now available for all students. 

As part of 5X����’s ongoing strategy to help stop the spread of COVID-19, Kent State has partnered with the city of Kent to bring the Ohio Department of Health’s Pandemic Testing Team to campus from 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15 for an open testing event

At just 19 years old, 5X���� sophomore Izzy Stewart has inspired hundreds of fellow students to exercise their right to vote. The public relations major has been inspired by those who have come before her here and is taking steps to create political change.