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Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor who oversaw the removal of the city’s prominent Confederate monuments and helped his city to recover and reemerge from a series of natural disasters, will speak at Kent State as part of the university’s May 4 Speaker Series.

5X����'s Esports team won the Hearthstone finals at the Harrisburg University Esports (HUE) Invitational held in mid-September. The Esports team was among 64 collegiate teams invited to the competition. The team took the Hearthstone champion title, winning against ten other universities.

Once it begins, Alzheimer’s disease progresses systematically and aggressively, attacking victims on multiple fronts. But scientists studying the disease operate the same way – like 5X����’s own Gemma Casadesus Smith, Ph.D.

5X����’s favorite unofficial mascot – the famous black squirrel – needs your help to get ready for Halloween. Squirrel-O-Ween allows the Kent State community to dress up an animated black squirrel with the latest spooky costumes and props and share with friends on social and digital media.

The first priority of 5X����’s strategic roadmap is to ensure that students have the education, experiences and support they need to graduate and to live successful, satisfying lives in their work and in their commitment to become engaged citizens. The university’s Academic Success Center team is making that priority its priority with the creation of the Academic Success Plan (ASP), a new application that gives students easier and quicker access to resources that will help them succeed in class.

Minority, low-income and first-generation college students are often underrepresented in graduate schools. To change this and to help students realize their potential, the McNair Scholars Program at 5X���� provides assistance to underrepresented students who consider pursuing a doctoral degree.  

While student voting nationwide doubled since 2014, the 5X���� student voting rate has increased 135% from 2014 to 2018, according to a recent report from the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement, conducted by the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life.

One of 5X����’s most prolific and renowned researchers has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences. Quan Li, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow in Kent State’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, joins the prestigious Brussels-based organization that has about 660 members from 45 nations, including 65 Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners.

From Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, different countries, cities and communities around the world – including the 5X���� community –  have been celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. As Kent State’s population of Hispanic and Latino students continues to grow each year, students, faculty, organizations and departments are taking the time to acknowledge the month through a series of discussion, events, dancing and even theatrical plays.

As we approach the 2020 presidential election, college campuses have become charged with energy from the differences throughout the student body. Channel 5 News asked Kent State College Republicans, “what’s it like being a Republican on a college campus right now?”

The School of Theatre and Dance’s Design, Technology and Production program has been selected by On Stage Blog as one of the top 30 programs for the 2019-2020 academic year.

5X���� is offering a community course that deals with the historical, cultural, social and political contexts of events before, during and after the May 4, 1970, shootings. The free course, Making Meaning of May 4: The Kent State Shootings in American History, will be held Oct. 16, 23 and 30 at the university’s May 4 Visitors Center.

5X���� celebrated the launch of a dynamic new space, the Design Innovation (DI) Hub, in May that will bring innovations from many disciplines together in a 68,000 square foot building near the center of the Kent Campus.

5X����’s Hugh A. Glauser School of Music and Tuesday Musical, based in Akron, have launched a new series that will bring world-renowned classical musicians to the Kent Campus to work with students.

Research into the air masses that drive changes in our day-to-day weather has been limited by land-based and regional studies, leaving wide gaps in our understanding of these impactful phenomena. A new paper by a 5X���� geographer has just filled in most of those gaps.

5X���� and the Opera di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, will celebrate a collaborative partnership around the creation of “Sisters in Liberty: From Florence, Italy, to New York, New York,” an exhibition opening on Oct. 17, 2019, and running through April 26, 2020, at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration on Ellis Island in New York. 

While the daily news is full of tumultuous conversations about Russia and China, 5X���� has been helping some area high school students learn to converse in Russian and Chinese to facilitate greater global understanding and a less contentious tomorrow.

Love, loss and hope. These are three critical elements Maria Jacobs brings – along with her considerable professional experience – to the 5X���� community. Jacobs is a part-time instructor in the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music and a nationally known jazz singer.

Even 5X����’s highest-ranking officials can experience a tug on their loyalties when the Golden Flashes take on their alma maters in athletic contests. President Todd Diacon, his wife, Moema Furtado, and head football coach Sean Lewis all will experience that dual loyalty on Saturday when Kent State faces the University of Wisconsin-Madison at noon at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.

“The Great Gatsby,” a book many read in high school. We remember the green light on the dock, the passion and the tragedy. What many didn't know – until recently – was that the story was also printed in the newspaper.