eInside Briefs

Kent State Board of Trustees Approves Balanced Budget as Key Indicators Show Healthy University on the Rise

Kent State University shows strong enrollment growth at
its Kent Campus. Unduplicated (or preponderant) enrollment
has grown from 22,316 students in fall 2006 to 28,565
students (*as of Sept. 7, 2015) in fall 2015. The official fall
2015 enrollment numbers will not be finalized until the 15th
day of the semester.

Embracing another year of record enrollment, a solid financial foundation and indications of continued universitywide growth, the Kent State University Board of Trustees approved a balanced university budget for fiscal year 2016 and demonstrated continued confidence in university leaders who are delivering on promises to students, staff and the community. Among the items included in the budget:

• The approved balanced operating budget for fiscal year 2016 spans July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016. The balanced budget for Kent State’s eight-campus system totals about $666.3 million.
• Overall, the university budget for fiscal year 2016 recognizes the importance of affordability and encouraging student success.
• Priorities in the new budget include compensation increases for represented nontenure-track faculty and for the AFSCME-represented employees, and anticipated increases in healthcare costs for faculty and staff. For the 2016 budget, the Board approved a 1.5 percent pay structure increase for Unrepresented Classified Civil Service Staff and a select group of classifications that are paid according to a market-adjusted rate. The Board also approved a 2 percent pay increase for unclassified staff and unrepresented classified staff members at Kent State, which was recognized for the fourth time as one of the nation’s “Great Colleges to Work For” by The Chronicle of Higher Education this past July.
  

The Board’s budget also highlights the university’s continued investment in student success:

No Increase in Undergraduate Tuition

The budget approved by the Board on Sept. 9 recognizes the importance of affordability and encouraging student success. Included in the budget is the freeze of tuition and general fees for in-state undergraduate students for the academic year 2016.

No Charge for Taking Additional Credit Hours

The budget also included the extension of the tuition credit hour plateau, which allows full-time students to enroll in a maximum of 18 credit hours with no additional fee. For fall 2015, Kent State students will be able to take 18 credit hours per semester yet pay only what students taking up to 16 credit paid last year. This action means that for the same price students starting this semester can earn two credit hours more per semester, accumulating enough credit in seven semesters to graduate one semester early. Doing so on the Kent Campus would save a student $12,825, which is a 12.5 percent reduction in the cost of a degree.

“Kent State’s ‘Students First’ priority encourages student success and recognizes that affordability is an important component of graduating on time,” says Kent State President Beverly Warren. “We know that the best course to lower debt is to shorten the time to complete a degree. This fall, our students are responding to the increase of the tuition cap to 18 credits by enrolling in more credit hours than students in fall 2014 – so much so that to date, students have saved more than $1.2 million dollars over last year.” 

Continued Support of Students With Scholarships

Kent State has experienced record enrollment for seven consecutive years with a concurrent increase in the academic quality of our students. The changing academic readiness of our incoming students is having a profound impact on student success in terms of persistence and graduation on time. In the last six years, the number of students with a high school grade point average between 3.5 and 4.0 has increased by 58 percent. During this period, Kent State awarded more than $125 million in scholarships to entering freshmen. Further, the 2016 budget includes a total of $43 million in scholarship and fellowship awards to be made to student scholars on all eight campuses.

Honors College Greets New Scholars; Next Year, Some Freshmen Head to Italy

Kent State welcomed more than 410 new freshman students to the Honors College this fall, an increase of 10 percent versus a year ago, and its second-largest class in Honors College history. Honors freshman students have a mean GPA of 4.03 compared to 3.98 last year and a mean ACT composite of 29.2. The Honors College is part of a long tradition of promoting academically talented students with the unique academic experience of a small liberal arts college within a large public research university. Starting with the Class of 2020, Honors freshmen enrolled in fall 2016 will be able to begin their academic career by spending their first semester at Kent State’s center in Florence, Italy. While studying abroad, they can pursue coursework as well as explore Italy and Europe.

To read about other Board actions, visit www.kent.edu/kent/news/kent-state-board-trustees-approves-balanced-budget.

Kent State President Beverly Warren Shares Strategic Vision With Board

Kent State University's Board of Trustees has endorsed
the university's new vision statement: “To be a community
of change agents whose collective commitment to learning
sparks epic thinking, meaningful voice and invaluable
outcomes to better our society.”

Kent State University President Beverly Warren began her second year in office by acknowledging that she is at the helm of the university at a time when Kent State is on an impressive upward trajectory. In this context, Warren is intent on leading Kent State with a well-defined and bold vision – one that will distinguish the university not only in Northeast Ohio but across the world.

At the Sept. 9 Kent State Board of Trustees meeting, Warren reviewed for the trustees the momentum that has made Kent State a powerhouse and model of higher educational excellence, access and affordability. She cautioned, however, that the 21st century brings substantial changes to the higher education landscape, from the impact of U.S. demographic shifts to advances in science, technology and changing societal norms.

Warren summarized for the Board the significant community dialogues, research focus groups and survey assessments, inclusive of almost 10,000 responses regarding a shared vision for the university. This discovery journey led to a shared institutional recognition that the time has come for Kent State to move boldly as a distinctive and distinguished national public research university.

Warren revealed the work of the Strategic Visioning Advisory Committee. This group of faculty, staff and students has the charge to guide the university community to develop a vision statement, articulate the university’s core values and define the aspirational strategic priorities for the next five years. Warren’s presentation of the shared vision statement and a strategic roadmap to a bright future was met with strong support as the Board endorsed Kent State’s new vision statement:

“To be a community of change agents whose collective commitment to learning sparks epic thinking, meaningful voice and invaluable outcomes to better our society.”

Warren also shared with the Board evolving thoughts from the community about the university’s core values and potential aspirational priorities, which have been discussed by university leaders in this continuing process. Current drafts of core values and priorities, as well as an outline of the visioning process and mechanisms for community feedback may be found at www.kent.edu/strategicvisioning.

Warren unveiled the proposed five university priorities that were shaped through multiple discussions with the university community:

Students First: Provide an inclusive and engaged living-learning environment where students thrive and graduate as informed citizens and productive leaders

A Nationally Distinctive and Distinguished Kent State: Drive innovation, idea generation and national distinction through top-tier academic and research programs and the recruitment and development of talented faculty and staff

Globally Competitive: Advance Kent State’s contributions as an international university that prioritizes the cultural competency of students, faculty and staff

Regional Impact: Serve as an innovative engine for the region and state through partnerships and programs that contribute to the quality of life for Ohioans

Excellence in Stewardship: Ensure future growth and vitality through the strategic management of fiscal resources and infrastructure

In addition to the endorsed bold vision for Kent State’s future and aggressive priorities, Warren presented the Board with a business intelligence dashboard. The dashboard Warren shared with trustees contained key metrics and performance indicators she, her leadership team and the Board will use to measure outcomes and to ensure accountability of the organization to the public and its many stakeholders.

Her presentation went even further by naming those public universities that Kent State considers peers and thus institutions that Kent State believes it is most like today. Warren further unveiled aspirational public universities that will assist in the process of strategy execution. The key performance areas that Warren says Kent State will regularly monitor and report publicly include student graduation and retention rates, research expenditures, endowment size, student diversity and Board of Regents financial accountability scores, to name a few. Her presentation gave more than a nod to Kent State’s intentions to move from being an excellent regional university to becoming a nationally ranked public institution. There is only one university in Ohio and none in Northeast Ohio among the peer or aspiration groups.

Warren ended her presentation by turning the meeting over to the consulting firm 160over90. The consultants have served in a critical role to Kent State for more than six months by conducting an environmental assessment and facilitating the dialogue and analysis carried out by the Strategic Visioning Advisory Committee. In introducing 160over90, Warren acknowledged that a bold vision means doing more of the great work that Kent State already does well but also doing new things in new ways. She said the smartest institutions do not take on a bold vision without the right partners. Based on the experience of collaborating with 160over90 for six months, she said there is an organizational confidence that they know the Kent State culture and have a deep appreciation for institutional aspirations.

160over90 was the successful responder to a competitive national search for an agency of record to partner with the university on integrated communications, strategic marketing and media planning across the eight-campus system. 160over90 will be the first agency in university history to partner and serve Kent State’s 11 colleges and eight campuses. 160over90 presented a concept for an integrated communications platform that reflects the new bold vision and articulates the distinctiveness of Kent State’s culture. The Board approved a three-year, $2.332 million contract for 1690ver90 to be the Kent State agency of record for the institution’s integrated platform across the eight campus system.

To read a summary of Board actions from Sept. 9, visit www.kent.edu/kent/news/kent-state-board-trustees-approves-balanced-budget.

Kent State English Professor Receives NEH Grant to Host Chaucer Seminar

Kent State University English Professor
Susanna Fein, Ph.D., has been
awarded a $114,616 grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH) to support a summer seminar for
college and university teachers on
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. 

English Professor Susanna Fein, Ph.D., in the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State University, has been awarded a $114,616 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The grant will support a summer seminar for college and university teachers on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to be held on the Kent Campus from July 18 to Aug. 13, 2016.

“The grant projects announced [today] represent the very best of humanities scholarship and programming,” says NEH Chairman William Adams. “NEH is proud to support programs that illuminate the great ideas and events of our past, broaden access to our nation’s many cultural resources and open up for us new ways of understanding the world in which we live.”

“Chaucer is an ideal subject for an NEH seminar because he is one of the foundational authorial voices in the English language,” Fein says. “His broad interests and varying styles established for future generations the possibilities for what English poetry could accomplish, and his writing holds distinguished and permanent status in the curriculums of college and university English programs. His subjects include comedy and tragedy, faith and science, philosophy and psychology, the private and the social, indeed the whole scope of the human condition. Selections from his works, and especially the The Canterbury Tales, regularly appear in the standard anthologies of British, European and world literature.”

Fein attributes Kent State’s selection as host site for the NEH Seminar to the University Library’s “excellent collection of books and journals on Chaucer and medieval studies,” which Fein claims “will be essential to the work of the seminar.” The selection also reflects Fein’s reputation and expertise as a medieval scholar and her longstanding role as editor of The Chaucer Review, an academic journal that has been housed in Kent State’s Department of English for the past 14 years. Fein’s work has established Kent State as a central institution for Chaucer studies. 

The seminar will be co-directed by David Raybin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University and also editor of The Chaucer Review. In addition to editing the journal, Fein and Raybin have jointly published three books on Chaucer, the most recent one, Chaucer: Visual Approaches, forthcoming in 2016.

Distinguished guest scholars from Yale University, the Ohio State University, Indiana University and the Cleveland Museum of Art will visit the seminar and speak to participants about their specialized work on Chaucer and medieval culture.

In March, Fein and Raybin will select 16 highly qualified college and university teachers from across the United States to participate as members of  The Canterbury Tales Seminar. Up to two seminar spaces are reserved for current full-time graduate students in the humanities. Each participant will receive a stipend from the NEH to partially cover expenses during their residency at Kent State. The participants will attend daily meetings to discuss the The Canterbury Tales, while also conducting their own advanced research projects on Chaucer and medieval English literature. The seminar has been carefully designed to facilitate outstanding scholarship, stimulate collegial conversations and strengthen the teaching of the humanities in American colleges and universities.

"It is terrific that the seminar participants and visiting scholars will get to experience the university's beautiful campus, modern facilities and collegial English department, along with Kent's vibrant downtown community,” Fein says. “We have here just the right combination of ingredients to foster in splendid fashion a summertime company of scholars."

For more information about Kent State’s Department of English, visit www.kent.edu/english.

Kent State Women’s Center Offers Digital Mammogram Screenings, Oct. 6-8

The Kent State University Women’s Center will offer digital
mammogram screenings to qualified Kent State employees,
spouses and students at DeWeese Health Center on the
Kent Campus on Oct. 6, 7 and 8. 

The Kent State University Women’s Center will offer digital mammogram screenings to qualified Kent State employees, spouses and students on Oct. 6, 7 and 8. Registration is required by Sept. 29.

A new provider, Severance Radiology Services, will make use of upgraded digital technology for the screenings. Mammograms will take 15 minutes and will be done in Room 135 of the DeWeese Health Center on the Kent Campus.

Each participant’s health insurance will be billed, or participants may self-pay.

If you have questions or want to schedule an appointment, call the Women’s Center at 330-672-9230.

Performing Arts Library Presents Winners of Colloquium Series' Excellence in Research Awards

Students recognized for excellence, accomplishment in student scholarship

Four Kent State University students have been recognized by the Kent State Performing Arts Library for their winning entries in the Colloquium Series’ Excellence in Research Awards for 2015.

Fourth-year honors student Rosemary Heredos received the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research for her entry, “Lily Pons: The Littlest Lakmé.”

Music education doctoral student Kristin Coen-Mishlan received the Award for Excellence in Graduate Research for her entry, “Gender Discrimination in the Band World: A Case Study of Three Female Band Directors”

An award of $250 and a certificate of recognition was given to both Heredos and Coen-Mishlan for their winning research papers. 

The Honorable Mention Award for Excellence in Graduate Research was given to students Bryan Helsel for his submission, “To Tour or Not to Tour: A Case Study in Music Education Ensemble Travel,” and Darren LeBeau for his submission, “Taking Charge: Looking at Student Leadership in the High School Band Room.” Both Helsel and LeBeau were awarded $50 for their submissions.

The Colloquium Series' Excellence in Research Awards recognize accomplishment in student scholarship, and are presented annually at the conclusion of the spring semester for the past academic year. The awards are open to all Kent State students who present original research papers as a part of the Colloquium Series, and must relate to theatre, dance or music.

For more information about winning entries for the Colloquium Series, visit the Performing Arts Library online journal, Excellence in Performing Arts Research, at http://digitalcommons.kent.edu/epar/. The journal features both undergraduate and graduate research.

The Performing Arts Library is one of Kent State’s four specialized branch libraries on campus and is home to a vast collection of musical scores, books, videos, journals, reference materials, theatre play scripts and electronic resources. The library is available to students of all majors and disciplines across campus. For more information about University Libraries, visit www.library.kent.edu.