eInside Briefs

AnnMarie LeBlanc Named Interim Dean of Kent State’s College of Communication and Information

AnnMarie LeBlanc will serve as interim
dean of Kent State University’s College of
Communication and Information, starting
July 1. LeBlanc currently serves as
director of Kent State’s School of Visual
Communication Design.

AnnMarie LeBlanc has been chosen to serve as interim dean of Kent State University’s College of Communication and Information, starting July 1.

LeBlanc currently serves as director of Kent State’s School of Visual Communication Design, one of the four schools in the College of Communication and Information. She succeeds Stan Wearden, Ph.D., who announced last month that he will retire on June 30 after 30 years of service to Kent State and also will pursue a new opportunity at Columbia College Chicago as its new senior vice president and provost. A search for a permanent dean will begin later in the year.

“We are very fortunate that Professor LeBlanc has agreed to serve in this important capacity,” says Todd Diacon, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “She brings a wealth of experience within the college combined with a keen knowledge of the important issues in higher education today.”

LeBlanc joined Kent State’s School of Visual Communication Design as its director in 2007. Previously, she taught at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, where she served as chair of the Department of Visual Communication and Design and associate dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. While in Indiana, she was the recipient of the university’s Outstanding Teacher Award. She also received an SBC/Ameritech Fellowship and was honored with an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission. LeBlanc also has instructed in summer and semester-long sessions at the University of Michigan, Purdue University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

LeBlanc’s areas of expertise include color theory and traditional and digital illustration. In the past, her images have focused on ethnobotanical studies of her home region of the Louisiana Delta, the relationship of environment to folklore, and cross-cultural mythology. Her work has been included in more than 50 national and international adjudicated exhibitions, a dozen solo or two-person exhibitions and is in more than 300 private and corporate collections in the United States and abroad.

She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Bowling Green State University, a Master of Arts from Purdue University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Louisiana State University.

LeBlanc resides in Aurora, Ohio.

For more information about Kent State’s College of Communication and Information, visit www.kent.edu/cci.

Kent State’s Said Sewell Selected for Millennium Leadership Initiative Institute

Kent State University’s Assistant Provost
for Academic Affairs Said Sewell, Ph.D.,
has been selected as a protégé for the
Class of 2014 Millennium Leadership
Initiative Institute. The institute, a premier
leadership development program, is
co-sponsored by the American Association
of State Colleges and Universities, and the
Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities.

Kent State University’s Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs Said Sewell, Ph.D., has been selected as a protégé for the Class of 2014 Millennium Leadership Initiative Institute that is co-sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. Sewell was nominated to attend the institute by Christopher Brown, Ph.D., past president of Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss.; Walter Kimbrough, Ph.D., president of Dillard University in New Orleans; Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools; and F. Carl Walton, vice president of student services at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pa. Sewell will attend the institute from June 7-10 in Washington, D.C.

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Millennium Leadership Initiative is a premier leadership development program that provides individuals traditionally underrepresented in the highest ranks of higher education the opportunity to develop skills, gain a philosophical overview and build the network needed to advance to the presidency.
 
The Millennium Leadership Initiative prepares, enhances and advances the prospect of protégés to compete successfully for executive positions in higher education, such as president or chancellor at public or private universities or colleges. Protégés learn from an esteemed team that includes college presidents and chancellors, and other experts in media relations, advancement, financial management and more.

“I am humbled to have been nominated for the Millennium Leadership Institute,” Sewell says. “I look forward to learning from and engaging with fellow protégés and senior leaders from various institutions across the country. This professional development opportunity is a way of expanding my understanding of issues in higher education. I fully intend to use that which I will learn to enhance the projects that I am involved with at Kent State.”

Sewell, a native of Houston, Texas, joined Kent State in 2012 as dean of undergraduate studies and was appointed assistant provost for academic affairs that same year.  He previously served as executive director of the Academic Success Center and associate professor of political science at Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, Ga. Prior to that, Sewell was an associate professor of political science and planning at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Ga.

He entered Morehouse College at the age of 16 in 1988, excelled academically and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He received his Master of Public Administration in public policy from Texas Southern University at the age of 21, becoming the youngest person in the program’s history to complete all the requirements for the degree in a year and a half. He continued his academic pursuits in Georgia by earning a Ph.D. in political science from Clark Atlanta University in 2001. Sewell also has done post-graduate work at the Harvard School of Divinity.

Sewell is the author of several articles on faith-based initiatives, community and economic development, religion and politics, and juvenile issues. He also is completing work on two forthcoming books titled Empowering Black Males Students to Greatness and Let Us Make Man: A Conversation with Black Men on Saving Black Boys. He also is co-author of Georgia State Politics and the editor of two American government readers: Conflicting Democracy: A Critical Analysis of America’s Political Process and We the People: Reflections on American Politics. He is recipient of several awards that recognize his work as a scholar and exceptional professor.

Sewell, who has been mentioned as one of America’s rising young leaders for the 21st century, is active in several professional, civic and social organizations. He is a life member and the former national chairman of Leadership Development Institute for his fraternity – the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and a member of the 100 Black Men of America.

For more information about Kent State, visit www.kent.edu.

For more information about the Millennium Leadership Initiative Institute, visit www.aascu.org/MLI.

Kent State to Honor Educators During Faculty Appreciation Week, April 14-18

Todd Diacon, Kent State University's senior vice president
for academic affairs and provost, serves breakfast to faculty
members during last year's faculty appreciation breakfast
event.

Kent State University will honor its faculty members with a week of celebration from April 14-18. Faculty Appreciation Week, with the theme “You Inspire Us!,” is coordinated by the Office of the Provost and recognizes the impact that faculty members have on the university and student success.

“Universities can exist in many forms, but for a university to be a university, it has to contain two groups: students and faculty,” says Todd Diacon, Kent State’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “Literally, universities cannot exist without faculty, and we aim to recognize this fact and to celebrate the excellence and dedication of our professors during Faculty Appreciation Week.”

The week of celebration begins with a faculty appreciation breakfast event on Monday, April 14, at 8:30 a.m. at the Kent Student Center Ballroom. To confirm your attendance at the breakfast event, visit www.kent.edu/facultyweek. A promotion and tenure dinner, by invitation only, will take place Tuesday, April 15, at the Kent State Hotel and Conference Center in downtown Kent, and a faculty author reception will take place Wednesday, April 16, at 4:30 p.m. in the Quiet Study Area of the University Library.

The celebration continues Thursday, April 17, with a Faculty Club reception that will recognize new and retiring emeritus faculty members from 5-7 p.m. at the Schwebel Dining Room. The week concludes on Friday, April 18, with “Faculty Fun and Frolic” that will feature refreshments, karaoke and a canned food drive from 5 p.m. at the Kent Student Center Rathskeller.

For more information about Kent State’s Faculty Appreciation Week, visit www.kent.edu/facultyweek.

2014 Kent State Common Reading Book Announced

The Circle by Dave Eggers has been
selected as Kent State University's 2014
Common Reading book. All new Kent State
students will discuss the book with faculty,
staff or community members on Aug. 22
during Destination Kent State: Welcome
Weekend.

The Common Reading Committee and the Office of Student Success Programs is pleased to announce the selection of this year’s Kent State University Common Reading book, The Circle by Dave Eggers. Eggers is a well-known author whose works have received a significant amount of critical acclaim. He also is the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition.

The book follows Mae Holland as she is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful Internet company. Holland feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Holland tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Holland cannot believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world — even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy and the limits of human knowledge.

The Common Reading Program is designed to welcome and connect incoming students to the Kent State academic community. The goal for reading the book is to provide common ground for new students to share with their peers. The objectives of the program are:

• To help students get acclimated to the academic life of the university.
• To provide students with an understanding of the university values, principles and standards.
• To build and maintain relationships that foster success with peers, faculty, staff, administrators and community members.
  

All new students will discuss the book with faculty, staff or community members on Aug. 22 during Destination Kent State: Welcome Weekend. The program, as a whole, will build a supportive and encouraging atmosphere that will ease the transition to university life. The book will be available for purchase at the University Bookstore in May.

Common Reading Program Seeks Discussion Leaders

The Common Reading Program is currently seeking 200 faculty, staff and community members to facilitate book discussions during Destination Kent State: Welcome Weekend. The Common Reading program will involve a one-hour discussion on Friday, Aug. 22, in the afternoon. Prior to the actual discussion, leaders will be provided with a copy of the book, a training session and discussion materials. There will be several training sessions that will be held throughout summer for new and returning discussion leaders.

Sign Up

Kent State faculty, staff and alumni interested in serving as discussion leaders should go to the following link: www.kent.edu/success/programs/reading/index.cfm for the electronic sign-up. The link is located at the bottom of the page. Please be prepared to provide your contact information and training time preference. 

New Book Traces Local History of the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps

Public lecture by historian Kenneth Bindas on April 8 at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Pictured is the kitchen crew at the Kendall Reserve in
1935. The Kendall Reserve later enfolded into what
became the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

(Photo Credit: National Park Service)

One of the most popular trails to hike in Cuyahoga Valley National Park is the Ledges, which takes visitors in a circular path past Ice Box Cave, massive ledge walls and a vista overlooking Akron and Cleveland, the elevations eased by hewn stone steps.

The trail, steps and overlook -- even the trees on the hills -- were put in place in the 1930s by young men who were rescued from long-term unemployment by the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps. A historian and his students at Kent State University have told their story in a new book published by the Kent State University Press, The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Construction of the Virginia Kendall Reserve, 1933-1939.

Today, most people hiking the Ledges and the other trails nearby in the Virginia Kendall Reserve area of Cuyahoga Valley National Park off Truxell Road have no idea that in the 1930s, the land was largely unforested, says Kenneth J. Bindas, professor and chairperson of the history department at Kent State.

A scholar of the 1930s and the Great Depression, Bindas became curious about the Kendall Reserve after hiking there with his family. He gathered primary source materials about the Civilian Conservation Corps and its role in creating the park, and used them in his 2009 class on the Depression era, teaching graduate and upper-level history students how to research and write history.

Their best papers, along with his research, formed the basis of the book, which he edited.

In the 1930s, the Kendall Reserve was a metro Akron park. It was later enfolded into what became Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The land, inherited by the widow of Cleveland businessman Hayward Kendall and given to the parks, was molded by the vision of Akron parks director Harold Wagner. He was an adherent of the modernist “parkitecture” movement of designing the visitor’s experience with nature. Trails were mapped with the idea in mind that “when you turn this bend, you’ll see this,” says Bindas. The movement reinforced the goals of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which worked in parks throughout the U.S.

“Those in charge of the Civilian Conservation Corps believed nature needed to be made more ‘natural’ than its wild state,” the authors wrote.

Pictured are workers building the Ledges shelter in1935.

(Photo Credit: National Park Service)

Wagner was one of the first park directors to take advantage of the manpower supplied by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which formed in 1933. The New Deal program was directed at the nation’s youth – 17-to-21-year-olds – who had a 38 percent unemployment rate, double the national average in the Depression, and no hope for jobs. They were fed, housed in barracks and camps and paid $30 a month, $25 of which they had to send home to their families. They were trained in construction and craftsmanship, vocational and literacy skills as they learned how to work as a team and adhere to the expectations of employers.

“It was done to create a generation of citizens that could see the government doing something for them,” says Bindas. The money spent on the Civilian Conservation Corps was “such a drop in the bucket compared with the benefit.”

In what is now Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Civilian Conservation Corps men quarried rock from Deep Quarry in Peninsula and built the stone steps for the Ledges trail. They created a 600-foot toboggan run on a then-barren hill into Virginia Kendall Lake, which they dug. They constructed picnic shelters and lodges that still are in use, the timbers sawed from dead American chestnut trees that they cleared. They planted more than 60,000 trees and shrubs and hauled by wheelbarrow 624 cubic yards of hand-mixed concrete for the Kendall Lake dam.

As they built the park, they built their own skills. As the authors wrote, the men regained a sense of pride and masculinity that the Depression had depleted.

“It was amazing and transformative for young men,” says Bindas.

The results of their work stand today on the trails and in buildings such as the Happy Days Lodge (then the Civilian Conservation Corps barracks) on Route 303, where Bindas will give a free public lecture at 7 p.m. on April 8, followed by a reception and book signing, sponsored by the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Student Employee Appreciation Week: A Time for Recognition and Reflection

A Kent State University student employee attends to a
customer at the Hub in the Kent Student Center.

In conjunction with the National Student Employment Association, Kent State University’s Career Services Center has designated April 13-19 as Student Employee Appreciation Week to show appreciation to all student employees. The Career Services Center is encouraging all departments to recognize their student employees in many different ways, whether it’s a simple thank you card, appreciation certificate or homemade treat.

“It’s definitely important to appreciate student employees because they are working hard toward their academics, as well as working part-time to hone their skills and gain experience,” says Ami Hollis, associate director for Career Services. “They do valuable work for the university.”

Appreciation also can be shown through placing an ad in the Daily Kent Stater’s special Student Employee Appreciation edition on April 18.

Career Services is also encouraging departments to engage each student employee in reflecting on their work experience through the Students @ Work questionnaire, a survey designed to create a conversation about skills being learned in the workplace.

“What we’re trying to do is help the supervisor make a meaningful connection with the student through a guided dialogue,” says Hollis. “The feedback support is helpful in order for the supervisor to have that conversation with the student to get them thinking about the connection between the work they’re doing here at the university, their academics and their future career.”

Once completed, the questionnaire should be forwarded to the Career Services Center in order for them to follow up with students requiring career planning assistance.

For more information and to download the Students @ Work questionnaire, visit www.kent.edu/career/jobs/students_at_work.cfm.

Golden Flashes to Come Together for Alumni Day of Service

The Kent State University Alumni Day of Service will take
place on Saturday, April 12. Alumni across the nation will
come together to volunteer at several sites.

Kent State University alumni across the nation will come together to volunteer for the Alumni Day of Service on Saturday, April 12.

“Alumni Day of Service came about because we wanted an opportunity for our alumni to give back to the community while having the chance to mingle with other Kent State alumni and community members,” says Lisa Mascellino, assistant director of outreach for Alumni Relations.

Participants can choose to volunteer at one of the 12 volunteer sites. Sites in Ohio include Haven of Rest in Akron, the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland, Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Kent, Loaves & Fishes in Ravenna, Ronald McDonald House in Columbus, Lake County Historical Society in Painesville and YWCA in Canton. Other sites outside of Ohio include Food & Friends in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, the Phoenix Zoo and Habitat for Humanity in Tampa, FL.

Jamie Rhoads, ’06, will be participating for the second year in a row. This year, she will be volunteering at Loaves & Fishes in Ravenna. Rhoads and her husband decided to participate in this event as a way to give back to the community and be involved with Kent State.

“The people are my favorite part of volunteering,” says Rhoads. “I love being able to put a face to the cause and actually interact with the people we are there to help. Their stories are heartfelt and courageous, and it really puts things in perspective. I leave feeling that I met some amazing people and got lucky enough to make their day a little brighter.”

Last year, 177 alumni volunteers logged 621 hours of service across the nation.

“Each year, we have more volunteers,” Mascellino says. “We hope to keep branching out and making the event larger.”

For more information about volunteer sites, times and registration, visit www.ksualumni.org/serviceday2014.