eInside Briefs

Kent State Fashion Design Student Wins Awards at Outdoor Retailer’s Competition

Kent State senior fashion design major Jillian Miranda
created this award-winning jacket prototype that has a
water hydration system and a beanie that serves as a
fashionable helmet.

Kent State University senior fashion design major Jillian Miranda won three prestigious awards at tradeshow organizer Outdoor Retailer’s signature design competition, Project OR- Cycle 10.

Miranda was selected, along with four other students nationally, to travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, for the competition from Jan. 23 through Jan. 26. She placed first in the design concept and second in the produced prototype section.

“We had 72 hours to design and create,” says Miranda. “I stayed up the whole time, but it was amazing.”

Miranda and the other competitors had to create a back country jacket and a headpiece. Miranda created a jacket with a water hydration system included in it, as well as a beanie that served as a fashionable helmet.

“My main design interests are creating practical clothing,” says Miranda. “I like to fuse pieces together so they serve a purpose but also look like normal clothing.”

Miranda says she and the other competitors were able to meet with people in the industry and network at the beginning of the competition.

“It was absolutely amazing,” she says. “I was actually able to meet and exchange information with people in my industry. It is usually not like that at a competition. I was even given free fabric for my senior collection.”

Miranda also won the viewers’ choice award.  She says judges and guests of the competition chose their favorite designs from the entire competition floor.

“It was awesome to have consumers who will actually buy my products pick my collection as their favorite,” Miranda says.

Click here to read the e-Inside story about Miranda participating in the Outdoor Retailer’s signature design competition.

For more information about the competition, visit www.outdoorretailer.com/winter-market/events-seminars/projector-bios-2013.  

Lane Restrictions on East Summit and Lincoln Streets the Week of March 25

East Summit Street, between Willow Street and Whitehall Boulevard, and South Lincoln Street, between Marigold Lane and College Avenue, will be reduced to one lane at various times of the day from March 25-29 for drilling pavement cores and soil borings. The lane restrictions will occur between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day. All lanes will reopen at the end of each workday.

Two-way traffic on East Summit Street and South Lincoln Street will be maintained by use of flaggers. Emergency vehicle traffic will be maintained at all times.

For more information, contact the City of Kent’s Division of Engineering at 330-678-8106.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

The Kent State University Women’s Center will offer mammogram screenings to qualified Kent State employees, spouses and students on April 10, 11 and 12.

Mammograms take approximately 12 minutes and will be conveniently provided in Tiffany Breast Care’s mobile mammography unit. The van will be located on the Kent Campus in front of the Women’s Center. Participants’ health insurance will be billed or participants may choose to self-pay.

For additional information or to register, call the Women's Center at 330-672-9230, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Registration is required by April 4.

Early Detection is Key
Many women with early breast cancer have no symptoms. It is crucial to get screened before symptoms have a chance to appear. The most common sign of breast cancer is a new lump or mass.
Other signs may include:

• Swelling of all or part of the breast
• Skin irritation or dimpling
• Pain in the breast or nipple
• Thickening of the nipple or breast
• Discharge other than breast milk
  

Marlo Kibler, coordinator of university benefits for Kent State, was asymptomatic (no symptoms) and looked like the picture of health. She didn’t drink or smoke and maintained an active lifestyle.

“I had an extremely rare form of cancer that is not typically responsive to traditional treatment methods such as chemo or radiation. Only because I go to the doctor every year to get a physical exam was it found,” says Kibler. “As it turns out, the type of cancer I had is indigenous to people of color and Greek decent. It affects less than one percent of the world population.”

Kibler encourages other women to get screened and be proactive about their health.

“Today, I am cancer-free due to a surgery and I have been that way for almost five years. I make sure I get every screening and test available to me during my annual physical and take a proactive approach to my healthcare,” she says.

Black Women and Cancer
Although the overall lifetime risk of breast cancer is lower for black women compared with white women, the death rates are higher. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among black women and in 2010, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that breast cancer was the leading cause of cancer death for black women aged 45-64 years. What was most alarming in this CDC report was that the breast cancer death rate for women aged 45-64 years was 60 percent higher for black women than white women. (See “CDC: National Vital Statistics System”: www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss.htm).

For more information about the Women’s Center, visit www.kent.edu/womenscenter.

Kent State Connects Blog: Confidence in the Kitchen, The Love of Gardening, and Take the Risk Test

Having Confidence in the Kitchen
On the Kent State Connects employee blog, Associate Professor Barbara Scheule from the School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration, writes about having confidence in the kitchen and invites you to share your favorite cookbooks or Web pages that have guided you in your explorations in the kitchen.

“Are you one of those people who can dive into the kitchen and whip up an ‘amazing’ meal in no time with ingredients on hand?  No?  Well you are not alone,” Scheule says.

Click here to read more.

For the Love of Gardening…

Maria Terleckyj provided this photo of a Gooseneck
Loosetrife in her garden. Terleckyj is planning a Kent State
faculty and staff plant exchange this spring.

Maria Terleckyj, special assistant for HR Records in the Division of Human Resources, writes about her love of gardening. Terleckyj is planning a faculty and staff plant exchange this spring.

“The first day of spring brings us Northeast Ohioans a sense of new beginning. The escape from the dreary winter is near. The cold is almost gone.  The thought of sun-filled days makes you giddy. Then, if you are like me, a self-proclaimed ‘gardening nerd,’ there is the excitement of planning what you will be doing with your vegetable and flower gardens this year,” Terleckyj says.

Click here to read more.

Are You at Risk? Take the Risk Test.
Paula DiVencenzo, tax manager with Tax and Treasury Services at Kent State, and volunteer with the American Diabetes Association, writes about the risk factors of diabetes.

“There are 25.8 million children and adults in the United States (8.3 percent of the population) that have diabetes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet). Seven million people have diabetes but do not know it. Another 79 million people have pre-diabetes,” DiVencenzo says.

Click here to read more and take the diabetes risk test.

Click here to subscribe to the Kent State Connects blog and receive an email notification when a new post has been published. It is the easy way to always keep up with what your Kent State colleagues are writing about on the blog.

“New Frontiers in Human Performance” Hosted by Kent State

Participants listen to a presentation at the Human
Performance Council Workshop that took place recently at
Kent State University.

Researchers from companies and universities across Ohio participated in a Human Performance Council Workshop on “New Frontiers in Human Performance” held at the Kent Student Center on Feb. 28. The event was sponsored by Kent State University and Case Western Reserve University.

Participants shared critical paths in research and discussed potential collaborations in such areas as sensors and sensor systems, fMRI/cognitive modeling, home and wireless monitoring, metabolic and exercise performance.

“It’s exciting to see such a good turnout and representation from multiple organizations and institutions,” says Matt Apanius, director of the SMART Center for Microsystems at Lorain County Community College.  “We’re focused on leveraging these resources to make this region a place of interest to not only conduct world-class research but also develop and grow businesses in human performance.”

The Human Performance Council was established as a forum of Northeast Ohio research organizations to explore models for complex human systems, human performance sustainment or protection at the limits of performance, and predicting and influencing behavioral responses to environmental stress.

Journal Published by Kent State University Press Awards 2013 Hubbell Prize

Carol Sheriff won the John T. Hubbell
Prize for the best article published in Civil
War History during 2012. Civil War History
is published quarterly by the Kent State
University Press.

Carol Sheriff has won the John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article published in Civil War History during 2012. Her study, “Virginia’s Embattled Textbooks: Lessons (Learned and Not) from the Centennial Era,” Civil War History (March 2012), was selected by the journal’s editorial advisory board. The prize earns the recipient a $1,000 award.

Now in its 59th year of publication, Civil War History is published quarterly by the Kent State University Press. Edited by Lesley Gordon (University of Akron) and Associate Editor Kevin Adams (Kent State University), it is the premier journal in the study of the American Civil War.

In her article, Sheriff thoughtfully reflects on the textbook controversy that erupted in her home state of Virginia in 2010, taking a broad historical view of the topic. She finds that a similar debate concerning textbook content erupted on the eve of the Civil War Centennial, with the intensity of the politics surrounding textbook production and selection only increasing as the Civil Rights Movement expanded throughout the South. Because of those disputes, the Commonwealth of Virginia chose to dispense with enlisting professional historians to write state textbooks. Hence, the current textbook standards, promoting, among other things, Stonewall Jackson’s mythic legions of “black Confederates,” are an ironic outgrowth of Civil Rights agitation in the mid-20th century.

Sheriff is the Class of 2013 Professor of History at the College of William & Mary. Her most recent book is A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War (2007), which she coauthored with Scott Reynolds Nelson.

“The John T. Hubbell Prize recognizes the extraordinary contribution to the field of its namesake, who served as editor of Civil War History for 35 years,” says Will Underwood, director of the Kent State University Press. “This year’s winning article takes a thorough look at how cultural bias can insert itself in the politics of public school textbooks.”

Hubbell is professor emeritus of history at Kent State and director emeritus of the Kent State University Press.

For more information about the Kent State University Press, visit www.kentstateuniversitypress.com.

Important Information About Final Grading of Spring 2013 Second Five Weeks (F2) Classes

Online final grading for Spring Semester 2013 – F2 courses meeting in the Second Five Weeks from Feb. 18 through March 24 part of term began Thursday, March 21, via FlashFAST. Grading is also now available for any Spring Semester 2013 course section that was flexibly scheduled and has an end date no later than March 26. The deadline for grading submission is midnight on Tuesday, March 26.

To access FlashFAST, log in to FlashLine at http://flashline.kent.edu and click the Faculty & Advisor Tools tab. Locate the Faculty Toolbox, and select Final under the Submit Grades heading.

Grades Processing Tips and FAQ may be found on the Office of the University Registrar's website at www.kent.edu/registrar/facstaff/facresc.cfm. Any faculty member needing personalized instruction on submitting their grades via FlashFAST should contact their campus Registrar's Office during normal business hours for assistance.

Troubleshooting Tip: FlashFAST is accessible from any Internet-capable computer that has the cookies function enabled. We recommend that you clean out your cookie and cache files regularly to help your computer run faster, and to potentially restore and/or improve your access to FlashFAST and/or FlashLine by improving your connection to the server. Our Helpdesk is prepared to offer assistance with these issues. Please contact them at 330-672-HELP (4357) for one-on-one assistance and technical issues.