eInside Briefs

Parking Permit Renewal Begins April 18

All current permit holders who are full - or part-time employees of Kent State University will be eligible to renew their current parking permit online beginning April 18. The last day for online renewals with the payroll deduction option is May 20. After May 20, permits must be acquired from the Parking Services office in the Schwartz Center.

Renew your faculty/staff parking permit here:

http://solutions.kent.edu/parkingservices/Login.aspx?LoginType=STAF

Departmental Service permits can be ordered online beginning May 2, 2011. Order your department permits here :

http://solutions.kent.edu/parkingservices/Login.aspx?LoginType=SERV.

For permit renewal assistance or for additional information, contact Parking Services at 330-672-4432. Posted April 18, 2011

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Summer Reading Program Seeks Discussion Leaders

The Summer Reading Program is currently seeking 200 faculty, staff and community members to facilitate book discussions during Destination Kent State: Welcome Weekend. The program will involve a one-hour discussion on Friday, August 26, 2011, in the afternoon. Prior to the actual discussion, 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 the summer for new and returning discussion leaders.

The Office of Student Success Programs and the Summer Reading Advisory Board have chosen this year’s Summer Reading book: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman.

Sign Up
Faculty and staff interested in serving as discussion leaders should go to the following link: http://www.kent.edu/success/faculty/reading/index.cfm for the electronic sign-up. You will be asked to provide the following information:  

•     Name
•     Position/department
•     Summer address for book delivery
•     Best phone number to reach you
•     Email
•     Preferred facilitator training date

Sign-up deadline: Friday, July 1, 2011

For more information on the Summer Reading Program, visit http://www.kent.edu/success/faculty/reading/index.cfm

Posted April 18, 2011

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Digital Lab at School of Library and Information Science Benefits Students and Community

The new digital laboratory in the School of Library and Information Science is giving students hands-on experience with digital library and digital preservation technologies. 

The decision to change the former student laboratory into the new digital laboratory was made in 2009. It took about six months to plan the changes, and construction began last summer. Once the room had been renovated, it took several more months to install and test the new equipment.

The Digital Laboratory has the capability to digitize manuscripts, books, photographs and slides, architectural drawings and other larger format visual materials, as well as more than 20 audio and video formats. Digitization is the conversion of analog information into digital information, which makes the data accessible to users because it can be made available online.

"We're providing training for people in library and information science to be able to reformat obsolete analog formats," says assistant professor Karen Gracy, Ph.D. "There are very few programs in the country that offer this sort of training in digitization, particularly for audiovisual materials."

Digitization is a critical skill for students interested in digital libraries and digital preservation work.

"It's one thing for me to lecture to somebody how to do digitization, and it's another thing to sit them in front of a work station and have them actually handle the media," Gracy says. "It really gives them that experiential learning piece that has been missing. We don't assume that the students will have the same setup when they're out there in the working world, but they'll know what it's like and what quality reformatting looks like."

The lab is used by students pursuing either the digital libraries or the digital preservation specialization. Although the specializations have different goals, both use the digitization process.

"On the digital libraries side, it's really about building collections, creating resources, putting them in a repository and describing them in a way that people can access them," Gracy explains. "The focus is really on building."

Gracy adds that the digital preservation specialization focus is mainly about creating an object that can be sustained over the long term.

"We're dealing with obsolete formats," she says. "We want to make decisions while we're creating digital versions of material that will make it easier for us to access this work 50 to 100 years from now."

Gracy says the digital lab will also allow the school to partner with local institutions to work on reformatting projects using the new equipment.

"The idea is that if local institutions, such as libraries and historical societies, are willing to have supervised students work on their materials, they can get the transfer services essentially for free," she says. "The piece that the institution has to figure out for itself is how to store the files that result from the digitization process. Audio visual material in particular has a huge storage need. The main idea is to create a partnership where students get good educational opportunities and work experiences while the institution gets material transferred and becomes more accessible to the community."

For more information about the lab, contact Gracy at kgracy@kent.edu.

By Nicole Gennarelli

Posted April 18, 2011

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New York and Paris Offer New Opportunities for Fashion Students This Summer

The School of Fashion Design and Merchandising at Kent State is offering three opportunities for students to study in New York City and Paris this summer.

Fashion design and merchandising students can study in New York City during the summer session from June 6 to July 29 at the Kent State New York Studio in the heart of the city’s Fashion District.

To participate, students must have a 2.5 GPA and maintain enrollment in at least 6 credit hours. Students who enroll in the program can earn up to 12 credits for participation this summer.

The only required course is the New York Study Tour. Other courses offered include 21st-Century Designers, Fashion Forecasting, Fashion in the Media, The Luxury Market and Menswear Design, which is for fashion design students only.

A Draping Workshop Series will also take place June 20 to July 1 at Kent State’s fashion studio in New York City.

The four workshops are Basic Draping, Industry Use of Draping Techniques, Introduction to Advanced Draping and Creative Approach to Fit Through Draping; the workshops will be taught by Associate Professor Linda Öhrn-McDaniel. Each workshop costs $280 or $420, and students will receive a 10 percent discount if they enroll in all four courses.

Fashion design and merchandising students may also earn 6 credit hours while taking courses at the Paris-American Academy in Paris, France. The program, which is held July 2 to 28, includes field trips, on-site experiences, hands-on workshops, lectures and activities designed to expand an understanding of fashion.

To participate, students must be fashion design or merchandise majors of sophomore, junior or senior academic standing and have at least a 2.5 GPA. The program costs $3,766, which includes in-state tuition and fees; housing costs are separate.

The courses offered are, European Fashion Marketing Seminar, European Fashion Marketing, European Fashion Design Seminar and European Fashion Design. Each course is 3 credit hours.

Click here for more information on the summer session in New York City, click here for more information on the Draping Workshop Series and click here for more information on the Fashion School and Paris-American Academy program.                                                                                                       

By Sara Petersen Posted April 18, 2011

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Kent Community Dinner Celebrates Unity in Diversity With Annual Dinner at the Islamic Community Center

The Islamic Society of Akron and Kent (ISAK) recently collaborated with the Kent community to coordinate the third annual Spring Celebration of Brotherhood. ISAK hosted the affair at the Islamic Community Center in Cuyahoga Falls. This is the one time each year the Kent Community Dinners, scheduled monthly spring through autumn in and around Kent, take a noteworthy field trip to break bread with their Muslim neighbors. Participants gathered for the purpose of learning more about each other by sharing food, conversation, music and programming.

Kent City Councilman and Theodore Roosevelt High School teacher Jack Amhrein welcomed the community to the dinner and thanked ISAK for its hospitality, saying, "We understand the Kent Community Dinners to be Kent's small, but important contribution to the creation of peace on earth, one diverse friendship at a time. Thank you for hosting the dinner and joining us in this important work."

More than 300 people attended the event, and enjoyed the chicken and rice provided by Kent's Muslim neighbors, the salads, vegetables and desserts brought by participants, the camaraderie and the program. The programming was extensive and included youth talking about a fundamental tenant in each person's religious teaching, that of respecting and honoring all people, regardless of religion. Taylor Collins, president of Alpha Epsilon Pi, the international Jewish fraternity from Kent State University, represented Jewish people. Dioswal Johnson, University of Akron student and a Muslim, represented Muslim people. Gabriel Skora, an 8th grade student at Miller South School for the Performing Arts, represented the Christian view.

The evening was made possible with the help of many fine men, women and young people in Kent and Cuyahoga Falls. Among the individuals and groups that helped with the event were Boy Scout Troop 253; the 4th grade class at the Islamic Community Center's school; Alpha Epsilon Pi, the Jewish fraternity at Kent State; Kent Floral and Maurice Drake, who provided his bus for transportation for the third year, carrying people from Kent to Cuyahoga Falls and back again.

Posted April 18, 2011

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