eInside Events

American Greetings Sponsors Innov8athon III: #BestCardEver Hackathon

Blackstone LaunchPad collaborative event to be held on Nov. 15 at Kent State’s School of Art

American Greetings, in partnership with the Blackstone
LaunchPad program at Kent State University, is sponsoring
“Innov8athon III: #BestCardEver” to promote entrepreneurial
thinking, creative prototyping and interdisciplinary collaboration
among Kent State students.

Rethinking the greeting card is the theme of this year’s Innov8athon, an annual event that promotes entrepreneurial thinking, creative prototyping and interdisciplinary collaboration among all Kent State University students. Sponsored by American Greetings, “Innov8athon III: #BestCardEver” will provide the unique opportunity for students to learn about innovation in the context of commercial business applications.

“Creativity and innovative thinking are values that American Greetings believes in, so we are thrilled to be sponsoring this event,” says David Mayer, creative director of creative innovation at American Greetings. “We are grateful for the exciting opportunity to inspire creativity and encourage collaboration in young talent – especially right here in Northeast Ohio where American Greetings was founded and has remained for over 100 years.”

The “#BestCardEver” Hackathon event will take place over two days at Kent State, with a pre-event workshop on Nov. 5 from 7-9 p.m. on the 4th floor of the University Library, and the main event on Nov. 15 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the School of Art. Students from all majors and backgrounds are invited to participate and will have the opportunity to learn from American Greetings’ team members on what constitutes engaging and creative products.

“We are excited to have American Greetings’ support in sponsoring this creative, cross-campus event that will provide our students with the opportunity to ideate, collaborate and build their respective skillsets in a fun, competitive environment,” says Julie Messing, executive director of Kent State’s Blackstone LaunchPad program.

“This will be an exceptional opportunity for all of us, and we'll increase our understanding of how interdisciplinary teamwork and fast-paced creative thinking come together,” says Jessica Barness, assistant professor in Kent State’s School of Visual Communication Design and lead faculty mentor for the event. “Our students have been invited to consider the nature of a current retail product, and then ask themselves, ‘How can we design beyond existing solutions?’ and ‘What might this be instead?’ Once they start thinking beyond what they already know, things will get interesting -- and I'm excited to see what our students come up with.”

Winning teams may have the opportunity to have their ideas translated into American Greetings’ products. For more information about “Innov8athon III: #BestCardEver” hackathon, visit www.innov8athon.com.

For more information about American Greetings, visit www.corporate.americangreetings.com.

For more information about the Blackstone LaunchPad program at Kent State, visit www.kent.edu/blackstonelaunchpad.

31st Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth to Honor Author, Illustrator David Macaulay

Award-winning author and illustrator
David Macaulay will be honored as the
2015 Virginia Hamilton Literary Award
Winner at the 31st Annual Virginia
Hamilton Conference on Multicultural
Literature taking place April 9-10.

The 31st Annual Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth will honor award-winning author and illustrator David Macaulay as the 2015 Virginia Hamilton Literary Award Winner, the conference board announced. Macaulay will give a keynote address at the conference, along with Newbery Honor children's writer and illustrator Grace Lin and Coretta Scott King Award-winning young adult author Rita Williams-Garcia.

The Virginia Hamilton Conference is held each year at Kent State University and is sponsored by the School of Library and Information Science, the College of Education, Health and Human Services and the Office of Continuing and Distance Education.

The conference provides a forum for discussion of multicultural themes and issues for children and young adults.

The theme for the conference is "Building Global Citizens Through Literature."

Held at the Kent Student Center, the conference will begin on the evening of Thursday, April 9, 2015, with dinner and a keynote address by Macaulay.

Macaulay is a British-born American illustrator and writer. Earning him fans of all ages, his award-winning books feature detailed illustrations and a sly sense of humor. They have sold more than 3 million copies in the United States alone and have been translated into a dozen languages.

Before publishing his first book, Cathedral, in 1973, Macaulay worked as an interior designer, junior high school teacher and as a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Macaulay is perhaps best known for the award-winning international bestseller, The Way Things Work, which was expanded and updated in 1998 and renamed The New Way Things Work. This brilliant and highly accessible guide to the workings of machines was dubbed a "superb achievement" by The New York Times and became a bestseller.

Macaulay's many awards include the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award and the Washington Post-Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award. He also received the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston to an outstanding contributor to science.

In 2006, he was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, given "to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual and professional inclinations." As "an individual of distinction in the field of children's literature," Macaulay delivered the esteemed 2008 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, an honor bestowed upon him by the American Library Association.

The conference will continue all day on Friday, April 10, 2015, with workshops and keynote addresses by Lin and Williams-Garcia.

Lin is the author and illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade novels. She focuses her work on the Asian-American experience because she believes "books erase bias, they make the uncommon everyday, and the mundane exotic. A book makes all culture universal." Her 2010 Newbery Honor book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, was chosen for Al Roker's Today Show Kid's Book Club and was a New York Times bestseller. Ling & Ting, her first early reader, was honored with the Theodor Geisel Honor in 2011.

Williams-Garcia is the author of The New York Times bestseller One Crazy Summer, which won the Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She also is the author of several distinguished novels, including Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; Every Time a Rainbow Dies, a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book; Fast Talk on a Slow Track, an All-American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults, and Like Sisters on the Homefront, the 2014 winner of Coretta Scott King Award. Williams-Garcia holds a faculty position at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for and Young Adults Program.

For more information about the conference, visit http://www2.kent.edu/virginiahamiltonconference/index.cfm.

Investigative Journalist to Sign Copies of His Book of Ohio’s Unsolved Mysteries, Oct. 31

Join investigative reporter James Renner for a book signing at the University Bookstore at Kent State University on Friday, Oct. 31, from noon to 2 p.m.

The author will sign copies of his book It Came from Ohio: True Tales of the Weird, Wild, and Unexplained, a book that examines 13 eerie, unexplained mysteries of Ohio. The event is free and open to the public.

“We are very pleased to have James participate in the book signing of a title that students seem to enjoy reading,” says Tom Parsons, manager for the University Bookstore. “The book covers unexplained events in Ohio that I think have captured the imagination of our readers.”

Renner is an alumnus of the Kent State writing program, and has been published in Cleveland Scene Magazine, the Cleveland Free Times, Lighthouse Magazine and Lunar Harvest. Renner is the recipient of multiple awards from the Cleveland Society of Professional Journalists and the Press Club of Cleveland. Currently, Renner resides in Akron and writes for the Cleveland Free Times.

For more information about the University Bookstore and other events, visit www.kent.bkstr.com.

Renowned Educator Ken Bain to Speak at Kent State on Building the Best: Teachers, Students and Syllabi

Educator and author Ken Bain will speak at Kent State University on Nov. 6 and 7. The events on both days are free and open to Kent State faculty members, but registration is required.

On Thursday, Nov. 6, from 7-9 p.m., Bain, author of What the Best College Teacher’s Do, will present an overview of his 15-year extensive study of the practices of nearly 100 college educators. Through both humorous and touching stories of students’ classroom discoveries, his presentation will offer insight and inspiration for university professors at various stages in their professional career.

On Friday, Nov. 7, from 9-11 a.m., Bain will present a workshop on “The Promising Syllabus.” Based on his extensive study of highly successful college educators, Bain has identified critical elements to the course syllabus. In this interactive event, he will work with faculty on how to build a syllabus that reflects these elements.

Finally, in his recent book, What the Best College Students Do, he identifies key attitudes that distinguish the best college students from their peers. On Friday, Nov. 7, from 1-3 p.m., he will outline the critical ideas from this text, which includes some of the key research on learning and motivation, as well as interviews conducted with highly successful people from a variety of fields.

Additional resources that outline best practices associated with teaching and learning from recent “How to Build a Better Student” events can be found on the Kent State Faculty Professional Development Center website.

To register to attend Bain’s presentations, visit http://bit.ly/KenBainKSU.

For more information about Kent State’s Faculty Professional Development Center, visit http://www2.kent.edu/fpdc/index.cfm.

Main Street Kent Presents a Murder Mystery Dinner Party

Main Street Kent will host a Murder Mystery Dinner Party in
downtown Kent on Nov. 8.

On Saturday, Nov. 8, Main Street Kent will host a Murder Mystery Dinner Party in downtown Kent. In partnership with Mysteries by Moushey, a local interactive mystery production company, "The Ghost of Jeb Taylor" will be the featured performance, and it will be up to the guests to solve the mystery! One hundred tickets are available and can be purchased now on the Main Street Kent website at www.mainstreetkent.org/murder-mystery-dinner-party. This event is generously sponsored by two local businesses: Hall-Green Agency and Portage Community Bank.

How the Event Works

At 6 p.m., guests will arrive at one of four downtown businesses (to be assigned upon reservation) – Bricco, Pufferbelly, Ray’s Place or Water Street Tavern. At this venue, two drinks and light appetizers will be served, and guests will be greeted by one of the cast members who will unveil some clues to the mystery. Then at 7:15 p.m., all guests will meet up at the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center. During dinner, the cast will tell the rest of the story and guests will put their heads together to solve the mystery during "dessert & deliberation."

Tickets are $150 per couple and include two drinks and appetizers at the first stop; and dinner, one drink, dessert and coffee during the dinner party. Taxes and gratuities are included. Tickets can be purchased and full event details can be found online at www.mainstreetkent.org/murder-mystery-dinner-party. If you have any questions, call 330-677-8000 or email info@mainstreetkent.org.

For more information, visit www.mainstreetkent.org.

Main Street Kent is a nonprofit organization focused on the revitalization of downtown Kent. It is an affiliate of the national Main Street program and the Heritage Ohio program.

Kent State University Orchestra Concert on Nov. 2 Features Faculty Members Vardi and Jin in Storms and Romance

Pictured are members of the Kent State University
Orchestra.The Kent State Orchestra will continue its
2014-2015 season with a performance on Nov. 2, at the
University Auditorium at Cartwright Hall.

The Kent State University Hugh A. Glauser School of Music Orchestra continues its 2014-2015 season with a performance on Sunday, Nov. 2, at 3 p.m. in the University Auditorium at Cartwright Hall. Cartwright Hall is located at 650 Hilltop Dr. on the Kent Campus, with free parking located off Terrace Drive.

Rossini's ever-popular overture to William Tell sets the stage to feature Kent State faculty members Amitai Vardi and Yu Jin in Max Bruch's Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola. The orchestra will close the concert with a performance of Robert Schumann's powerful Fourth Symphony, a monument of German romantic literature.

"Three pieces, all completely different in style and emotion, but all composed at nearly the same time,” says Charles Latshaw, director of the Kent State University Orchestra.

Vardi, an avid soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, was recently appointed assistant professor of clarinet at Kent State. Vardi has performed with many orchestras, including the American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, with which he performed dozens of concerts and has toured to New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Miami.

Jin, a violist, has served as a Kent State faculty member since 2007. Jin is a winner of multiple competitions, including the first prize of the Washington International Competition, the Chicago Viola Society Solo Competition, the Ohio Viola Society Competition, the prize winner of the Primrose International Competition, the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Corpus Christi International Competition.

Tickets for the performance are $15 for adults, $13 for seniors and Kent State faculty and staff, $10 for groups of 10 or more patrons, $8 for non-Kent State students, $5 for children and free for full-time Kent Campus undergraduate students.

Tickets are available weekdays noon to 5 p.m. at the Performing Arts Box Office, located in the lobby of the Roe Green Center in the Center for the Performing Arts at 1325 Theatre Dr. on the Kent Campus. The Performing Arts Box Office accepts Visa, MasterCard and Discover, in addition to cash and checks.

The Cartwright Hall box office will open one hour prior to the performance for walk-up sales, and will accept Visa, MasterCard and Discover. Tickets and more information are available by calling 330-672-ARTS (2787) or visiting http://www2.kent.edu/music/index.cfm.

Kent State to Host Graduate and Professional School Fair, Oct. 29

Event brings representatives from more than 35 graduate school programs to Kent Campus

Kent State University will host a Graduate and Professional School Fair on Wednesday, Oct. 29, featuring representatives from Kent State and more than 35 other graduate and professional schools from across the country. The fair, which will take place from noon to 2:30 p.m. on the first floor of the University Library, is free and open to anyone interested in learning more about graduate education.

The fair offers a one-stop opportunity for attendees and prospective graduate students to explore their options and research a variety of graduate programs. Attendees will learn firsthand about admission requirements and application periods, and have the opportunity to collect relevant materials to help them further evaluate and review graduate programs of interest to them.

“Graduate Studies is excited to host the first Graduate and Professional School Fair at Kent State,” says Mary Ann Stephens, Ph.D., dean of Kent State’s Division of Graduate Studies. “With more of our students pursuing graduate education, students will now have the opportunity to explore the many options of graduate education on campus.”

Refreshments and a chance to win an iPad as well as other items from participating universities will be available at the fair. Some of the schools participating include Case Western Reserve University, the Ohio State University, the University of Pittsburgh and many more.

For more information about Kent State’s 2014 Graduate and Professional School Fair, visit www.kent.edu/graduatestudies/graduate-school-fair.

For more information about Kent State’s Division of Graduate Studies, visit www.kent.edu/graduatestudies.

Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center to Host Reading By Award-Winning Poet

Shara McCallum, an accomplished poet whose work has been published in the U.S., U.K., Caribbean, Latin America and Israel, will visit Kent State University for two special events hosted by the Wick Poetry Center.

McCallum will read from her collection of poems on Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Room 306 AB at the Kent Student Center. Following the reading, she will mingle with guests and participate in a book signing during a reception.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, McCallum will speak in a “Poetry Salon” where she will engage in a question-and-answer session. The salon will begin at 3 p.m. at the May Prentice House – the new home of the Wick Poetry Center – located on the Lefton Esplanade between Lincoln and Willow streets. During the event, guests are encouraged to ask McCallum questions about her poetry, writing style, craft or any other curiosities.

Both events are co-sponsored by the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) and are free and open to the public.

"The NEOMFA is thrilled to join together with the Wick Poetry Center and host poet Shara McCallum,” says Catherine Wing, interim Kent Campus coordinator for NEOMFA. “McCallum's poetry charms as it twists, dazzles as it beguiles and binds us. Nimble in its myriad voices and precise down to every detail, she catches ‘the single curl escaping your woolen hat.’ She calls to us in ‘a voice of pure sugar’ even as she shows us the gnarled hands of those that peeled the cane. We're honored to have her visit and are ready to be spellbound."

McCallum is the winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for Poetry award for her work The Water Between Us, and has been recognized for her poetry with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress and a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship.

For more information about Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center, visit www.kent.edu/wick.

Kent State School of Theatre and Dance Presents Hot Mikado

Based on Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic masterpiece, Hot Mikado will delight audiences

Yum-Yum (Lindsay Simon) is caught between her fiancé
Ko-Ko (Christopher Tuck) and Nanki-Poo (Kyle Kemph) in
a scene from Hot Mikado.

Kent State University’s School of Theatre and Dance continues it 2014-2015 season with Hot Mikado, a musical based on the classic Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Mikado. The production opened Friday, Oct. 24, and runs through Sunday, Nov. 2, in E. Turner Stump Theatre, located in the Center for the Performing Arts, 1325 Theatre Drive on the Kent Campus.

For tickets, call 330-672-ARTS (2787), purchase online at www.kent.edu/theatredance or in person at the Performing Arts Box Office located in the Roe Green Center lobby of the Center for the Performing Arts, Monday – Friday, noon to 5 p.m. Tickets are $18 for adults; $16 for Kent State alumni, faculty and staff; $14 for seniors (60+); and non-Kent State students, age 18 and under, are $10. Tickets are free for full-time, Kent Campus undergraduate students. Groups of 10 or more can purchase tickets for $12 per person. The box office accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, checks and cash.

With lyrics adapted by David H. Bell and music adapted and arranged by Rob Bowman, Hot Mikado is a comedic and thrilling combination of Japanese design and culture and the jazz and blues sounds of 1940s’ America. When the heir to the Japanese throne runs away and joins a traveling orchestra, he falls in love with a girl on his travels. But there's a problem – they are both engaged to other people. As the heir pursues his love, avoids his father and fiancé, and tries to maintain the secret of his true identity, musical comedy ensues.

Hot Mikado is directed and choreographed by Kent State Assistant Professor Amy Fritsche, whose direction of the smash hit Legally Blonde thrilled audiences last season. Fritsche describes Hot Mikado as a must-see production that “is a hilarious, hot and jazzy update of The Mikado. The show will be a swinging rip roaring good time for everyone involved.”

The production and design team includes music direction by Assistant Professor Jennifer Korecki, assistant direction by Daniel Ebert, assistant choreography by Nora Culley, scenic design by Associate Professor Raynette Smith, technical direction by Chase Drought, lighting design by Cyndi Hoffman, costume design by April Rock and sound design by Nathan Rosmarin. Cullen Motak serves as production stage manager.