eInside Events

Save the Date for the 10th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration

Marc Lamont Hill, Ph.D., activist, social
critic and one of the nation’s most notable
African-American leaders, will be the keynote
speaker at Kent State's Martin Luther King Jr.
Celebration on Jan. 26.

Kent State University will hold its 10th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration on Thursday, Jan. 26. The theme for this year’s event is “Empowering the Individual, Strengthening the Community.” The event is free and open to the public.

Marc Lamont Hill, Ph.D., activist, social critic and one of the nation’s most notable African-American leaders, will be the keynote speaker at the event. Hill is an associate professor of English education and anthropology at Columbia University, and is an award-winning newspaper columnist and blogger. He is known for his thoughtful perspectives on everything from sexuality to education and religion. Hill’s respected commentary has been featured on NPR, in The Washington Post, Essence and The New York Times, as well as on Fox News where he is a regular contributor.

A cultural celebration of music, word and dance will take place from 1-1:45 p.m., at the Kent Student Center Kiva. The celebration will continue at 2:10 p.m. with a lecture by Hill at the Kent Student Center Ballroom, and the Diversity Trailblazer Awards presentation that will recognize contributions to the promotion of diversity. Signing of Hill’s book, Beats, Rhymes and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity, and reception will follow at 4 p.m. on the Ballroom balcony. The book is now available for purchase at the University Bookstore, and will also be sold from 1-2 p.m. on Jan. 26, prior to his speech. This event will be streamed live for Regional Campuses.

This year, Kent State will begin the celebration with a week of pre-celebratory events, beginning Tuesday, Jan. 17, with screenings of documentaries and films about King and the civil rights era, and other diversity-related events leading up to the actual campus-wide celebration on Jan. 26.

Kent State has also added an international component to the annual celebration, featuring for the first time a Festival of Nations on Friday, Jan. 20, from 5-7 p.m., at the Kent Student Center Ballroom. The event will educate and celebrate the diversity of Kent State students and showcase a variety of cultural activities from around the world.

Registration tables will be available at the Kent Student Center on Jan. 23, 24 and 25, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., for faculty, staff and students interested in signing up for Kent State’s “100 Commitments” initiative that provides learning experiences about diversity and inclusion.

For more information, visit www.kent.edu/diversity/news/index.cfm or call 330-672-8563.

Kent State’s LGBTQ Center Announces Ally Training for Faculty and Staff

Kent State’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Student Center will hold ally training workshops for Kent State faculty and staff on Thursday, Jan. 12, from 3 - 5:30 p.m., and Friday, Feb. 3, from noon to 2:30 p.m. Both events take place in Room 204 at the Kent Student Center.

The advanced workshops will explore lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues and common misconceptions, with the ultimate goal of creating a group of trained allies at Kent State to make the campus environment more welcoming for all people, regardless of gender identity or gender expression.

“Ally training is for members of the community who desire to commit themselves to being an ally, in a non-judgmental way, for all people who identify along the spectrum of sexual identity,” says N.J. Akbar, interim director of Kent State’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Student Center. “These sessions will include strategies on how to respond to students or colleagues who choose to ‘come out,’ and to identify known resources in the area. Faculty and staff members will have the opportunity to develop a personal ‘plan of action’ on ways they will further commit to supporting the LBGTQ community.”

Click here to register for the Jan. 12 workshop.

Click here to register for the Feb. 3 workshop.

For more information about the workshops, contact the LGBTQ Student Center at 330-672-8008 or email lgbtq@kent.edu.

Catherine Wing to Read at the Wick Poetry Center

Kent State's Wick Poetry Center will host
poet Catherine Wing on Jan. 26.

Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center will host poet Catherine Wing on Thursday,
Jan. 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 306 ABC of the Kent Student Center.

Wing teaches English at Kent State University and also serves as the editor of the Wick Chapbook Series. Her first book of poems, Enter Invisible (Saraband Books), was nominated for a Los Angeles Times’ book prize in 2005. Her second book, Gin & Bleach (Saraband Books), is forthcoming.

Wing’s poetry has appeared in The New Republic, Poetry, and The Nation, among other publications, and was included in Best American Erotic Poems, and Best American Poetry 2010. She has won fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

More information is available at www.kent.edu/wick or by calling the Wick Poetry Center at 330-672-2067.

Kent State School of Art Downtown Gallery Opens Steady As She Goes, Jan. 11

Artist, Professor Mark Schatz creates metaphoric landscapes on sculpted polystyrene foam

Artist Mark Schatz showcases his metaphoric landscapes
art in his exhibit Steady As She Goes at the Kent State
Downtown Gallery, Jan. 11 – Feb. 11.

Photo Credit: Mark Schatz

The Kent State School of Art’s Downtown Gallery will present the exhibit Steady As She Goes, featuring artist Mark Schatz, from Jan. 11 to
Feb. 11. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will take place on Thursday, Jan. 12, from 5 – 7 p.m. The Downtown Gallery is located at 141 E. Main Street in Kent.

Schatz is assistant professor and foundations program coordinator in the School of Art at Kent State University. His exhibit focuses on the theme of seeking stability in an unstable world. In this exhibition, lush and familiar landscapes float or balance precariously on ice floes.

“The major pieces in Steady As She Goes are miniature fragments of what could be the Midwest – sprawling neighborhoods, hilltop radio towers, distant cities – all set adrift on icebergs, which are beautiful but also serve as this elegant metaphor for a landscape that seems fixed but is always shifting and changing with time,” says Schatz.

The “ice” is made from expanded polystyrene foam, or EPS. EPS is almost exclusively used to create stability and as coolers and insulation, providing a stable temperature or custom forms designed to hold merchandise of all sorts in a stable position for shipping or storage. Though designed for stasis, the material is also expendable and ephemeral, typically being thrown away after one use where it is again disastrously stable, remaining unchanged in landfills for untold centuries.

To create the forms, Schatz customized a hot-wire tool that runs current through a metal wire, allowing it to heat up and melt through the foam like butter, resulting in both fantastically organic forms and a blue-grey smoke containing cyanide gas. Besides the tensions of stability and instability, EPS’s environmental impact and the toxic gasses it releases contain the unseen and unintended consequences of humanity’s double-edged progress.

“Since Steady as She Goes is a nautical term for holding course, particularly through rough waters, it struck me as funny to have a nautical theme for a geologically-themed body of work. I liked thinking of these landscapes as ships lost at sea, hoping that if they just point in one direction and hold tight they will eventually find their way,” Schatz says.

Schatz earned a master’s in sculpture from the University of Texas-Austin and a B.F.A in sculpture from the University of Michigan.

For more information, visit http://galleries.kent.edu/ or call 330-676-1549.

School of Art Gallery Biennial Exhibit Highlights Talents of Art Faculty

Faculty members Michael Loderstedt (printmaking),
Kathleen Brown (jewelry and metals), and Janice
Lessman-Moss (textiles), at a recent art opening in the
School of Art Gallery.

The Kent State University School of Art will open the Biennial Faculty Show in the Art Gallery located in the Art Building at 400 Janik Dr. in Kent, on Jan. 10. The exhibit runs through Feb. 10, and will feature art by current and emeritus art faculty from the school. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, Jan. 12, from 5 - 7 p.m., and is free and open to the public.

Visitors can expect to see sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, mixed-media, textiles and fiber arts, jewelry and metals, as some of the submissions on display.

For more information, visit http://galleries.kent.edu/ or call 330-672-7853.