eInside Events

Kent State Hosts Seventh Annual Entrepreneurship Extravaganza on Oct. 24 and 25

Event features motivational speaker Nobby Lewandowski, and co-founder of Priceline.com Jeff Hoffman

A speaker addresses the audience at
last year's Entrepreneurship Extravaganza.
This year's event features motivational speaker
Nobby Lewandowski, and co-founder of
Priceline.com Jeff Hoffman.

Kent State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation will host its seventh annual Entrepreneurship Extravaganza on Wednesday, Oct. 24, and Thursday, Oct. 25, at the Kent Student Center. The theme for this year’s event is “The Magic of Entrepreneurship Exposed,” which will feature several workshops, panel discussions and speakers, and the opportunity to learn from experienced entrepreneurs. The program is free and open to the community and to all students, but registration is required by Oct. 19.

The event on Oct. 24 will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Kent Student Center Ballroom, and features former professional baseball player, motivational speaker and Kent State alumnus Nobby Lewandowski as the keynote speaker. Lewandowski will present on the topic “Leadership, Integrity and Success.” The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, the first and only nationwide entrepreneurship tour, will present a series of workshops and speakers from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Jeff Hoffman, co-founder of Priceline.com, will facilitate the Lunch with Entrepreneurs panel session at 12:30 p.m. Entrepreneurs on the panel include successful student business owners – Chad Radke, Rachel O’Neill and Ryan Golphin – speaking about their strategies and struggles to success. A seasoned entrepreneur in the Internet, technology and entertainment industries, Hoffman has founded, co-founded and been the CEO of several start-ups and larger companies. Hoffman continues to use his expertise to support Kent State’s entrepreneurship initiatives.

On Oct. 25, the event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. with activities taking place at the Kent Student Center Kiva and Ballroom. Hoffman will keynote the event with a motivational and inspirational talk for entrepreneurs. The Lunch with Entrepreneurs session at 12:05 p.m. will feature a discussion about the “Tricks Entrepreneurs Keep Up Their Sleeves.” The event also includes a panel discussion of classroom and dorm businesses, and participants will have the opportunity to attend breakout sessions.

“As with other years, we have an impressive panel of successful entrepreneurs to help us celebrate our seventh annual Entrepreneurship Extravaganza this year,” says Julie Messing, executive director of entrepreneurship initiatives at Kent State. “I am excited to have experienced entrepreneurs Nobby Lewandoski and Jeff Hoffman keynote our events. If you have a budding business idea, you will benefit from participating in this event and hearing from some from of the best entrepreneurs.”

To register or view a full schedule of events, visit www.kent.edu/cebi/extravaganza. For more information, contact Kent State's Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at 330-672-9430 or cebi@kent.edu.

Annual Celebrating College Teaching Conference Takes Place Oct. 25-26

The 19th annual Celebrating College Teaching Conference takes place Oct. 25 and 26 at the Kent Student Center.

This year’s pre-conference workshop, “Simulation and Learning,” will be held in the Moulton Hall Ballroom on Thursday, Oct. 25, from 1:30 - 4 p.m. The workshop will look at ways to help students translate their academic experiences to the post-academic world.

The conference features internationally recognized speaker, Young Zhao, Ph.D., presidential chair and associate dean for global education, College of Education at the University of Oregon; Professor Emeritus of History Thomas Sosnowski, Ph.D.; and Carole Bersani, M.A., Professor Emerita of Teaching, Leadership and Curriculum Studies and director of the Child Development Center.

The conference opens on Thursday, Oct. 25, with the Read Distinguished Lecture, “World Class Education: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students,” delivered by Zhao at 7 p.m., in the Kent Student Center Kiva.

On Friday, Oct. 26, the conference continues at 8:30 a.m. with the Provost’s Breakfast, followed by refereed round tables; invited round tables; a panel discussion on Student Engagement and Experiential Learning to Promote Retention, with related round tables; poster displays; the President’s Luncheon; and Glenn W. Frank Lecture. The conference culminates with a dessert reception at 2:30 p.m. to honor recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Awards and the Outstanding Teaching Awards and the wealth of teaching excellence at Kent State.

Bersani will present the Glenn W. Frank Lecture, “The Teaching-Learning Relationship,” and Sosnowski will host the Emeritus Round Table, “The Old vs. the New: Does the Old Pedagogy Still Work in Our ‘Age of Technology’?”

Celebrating 19 years of relevance, the annual conference on college teaching focuses on the four pillars of a Kent State undergraduate curriculum — knowledge, insight, responsibility and engagement.

All events are free and open to the public. However, registration is required for the breakfast and luncheon. To register, click here.

For more information about the conference, contact Kim Peer at 330-672-0231 or kpeer@kent.edu.

2012 National Depression Screening Day

Kent State students, faculty and staff are
invited to National Depression Screening
Day on Oct. 11 at the Kent Student Center.

Come to National Depression Screening Day (NDSD) on Thursday, Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is being held on the second floor of the Kent Student Center and is open to all students, faculty and staff, as well as the larger Kent community.

As part of the free screening, participants have the opportunity to complete a questionnaire, which screens for depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and to talk to a clinician in the mental health field to review their results and discuss any concerns they may have. If necessary, appropriate referrals can be made, and participants can also pick up information on depression and other mental health issues for themselves or for someone they may be concerned about.

Students can also attend the event at Kent State University at on the Stark at the Herbert W. Hoover Foundation Counseling Center located on the lower level of the Campus Center between noon and 4 p.m.

Students unable to attend the in-person screening event may consider accessing an anonymous online screening: www.mentalhealthscreening.org/screening/kent.

National Depression Screening Day is being co-sponsored by Psychological Services, University Health Services and Active Minds @ Kent State University. Food and other giveaways will be available. All are invited to participate.

For more information, contact Psychological Services at 330-672-2487 or either one of the co-coordinators, John Schell at jschell@kent.edu or Carrie Berta at cberta@kent.edu.

Poet Mayda del Valle to Speak at Guest of Honor University Artist/Lecture Series

Poet Mayda del Valle will speak at this year’s Guest of Honor
University Artist/Lecture Series on Oct. 17 at the Kent Student
Center Kiva.

Acclaimed poet and spoken word artist Mayda del Valle will speak at this year’s Guest of Honor University Artist/Lecture Series. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at the Kent Student Center Kiva. This event is free and open to the public.

“I invited Mayde del Valle to speak at Kent State for two reasons: first, to celebrate Hispanic Awareness Month, and secondly, to provide students specifically, but also faculty, staff and members of our community, with an opportunity to meet a young woman who is successful in her creative endeavors,” says Deborah Craig, Ph.D., coordinator of recruitment and scholarships for the Honors College.

Del Valle is the winner of the 2001 Nuyorican Grand Slam Championship and went on to win the 2001 National Poetry Slam Individual Championship. Del Valle is also the youngest person and first Latino to win the title. A native of the South Side of Chicago, she began performing her own writing while in high school and relocated to New York City after graduating from Williams College with a B.A. in art.

Del Valle also made an appearance on the HBO show “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.” She also started a one-woman show, “The Insecurities of an Eagle,” which won her an Audience Favorite Award at New York City’s third annual Downtown Urban Theatre Festival. While an artist in residence at Youth Speaks, she recently premiered an excerpt of a new show “Salida” as part of the Living Word Festival.
She combines profoundly personal and thought-provoking work with the rhythm and pulse of hip-hop culture.

The Guest of Honor University Artist/Lecture Series is funded by the Office of the Provost and coordinated by the Honors College.

For additional questions or if you need special accommodations for disabilities, please notify the Honors College as soon as possible at 330-672-2312.

World-Renowned Harvard Chemistry Professor to Speak at Kent State on Oct. 9

Whitesides to speak in the Kiva about simplicity

Harvard Chemistry Professor George M.
Whitesides will speak about "Simplicity as
a Component of Invention," on Oct. 9 at
Kent State.

On Oct. 9, Kent State University will host a seminar featuring Harvard Chemistry Professor George M. Whitesides at the Kent Student Center Kiva. The seminar, “Simplicity as a Component of Invention,” will begin at 3:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

With more than 950 scholarly scientific articles, Whitesides is one of the most cited scientists in the world for his work in the areas of NMR spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics and nanotechnology. He is currently the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard, one of only 21 university professorships at the institution. He is listed as an inventor on more than 50 patents and has co-founded more than 12 companies with a combined market capitalization of more than $20 billion.

One of his many current research and development projects, the fabrication of a medical diagnostic lab-on-a-chip, has gained international notoriety for its simple, effective design. The low-cost “lab-on-a-chip,” made of paper and carpet tape can be made for only one cent. He has co-founded a nonprofit called Diagnostics for All that aims to provide dirt-cheap diagnostic healthcare devices to people in the developing world.

"Complexity is relatively simple to think about (at least for academics); simplicity is more complex,” Whitesides says. “This seminar will consider simplicity, together with an idea we call stackability, as a parameter in research, using two examples—one from ongoing large-scale technology, and one from our own research.”

Whitesides received his A.B. degree from Harvard College in 1960 and earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1964. Among his many awards, Whitesides is the recipient of the American Chemical Society's Award in Pure Chemistry (1975), the Arthur C. Cope Award (1995), National Medal of Science (1998), the Kyoto Prize in Materials Science and Engineering (2003), the Dan David Prize (2005), the Welch Award in Chemistry (2005), the Priestley Medal (2007), the Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences (2009) and the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry.

To learn more about Whitesides, go to the Whitesides Research Group home page.

Related video: Professor Whitesides TED talk (Feb. 2010) on "Toward a Science of Simplicity."

Poets Edward Hirsch, Carolyn Creedon in Reading Series at Wick Poetry

Poet Edward Hirsch will present at the
Wick Poetry Center's Oct. 10 reading.

The Wick Poetry Center’s Reading Series will feature two poets familiar to Kent State University: Edward Hirsch and Carolyn Creedon, on Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Kent Student Center Kiva.

Hirsch, judge of the 2011 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose. He has received many awards including fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and an Academy of Arts and Letters Award. He is currently the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Creedon is the winner of the 2011 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize for her book Wet. She is a writer, editor, and 15-year veteran of the waitress wars. Her poems have appeared in the Massachusetts Review, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Yale Review, Rattle, Best New Poets, Best of the Best American Poets, and elsewhere.

The prestigious annual Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, published by the Kent State University Press, now in its eighteenth year, is a highlight of our reading series and one of the many ways that the Wick Center continues to encourage new voices regionally and nationally,” says Wick Poetry Center Director David Hassler. “This year's winner, Carolyn Creedon, will be reading from her book, Wet, along with contest judge, award-winning poet Edward Hirsch. We are thrilled for the praise Creedon has already received for her book, which Hirsch calls ‘fiery and fervent.’”

Poet Carolyn Creedon will present at the
Wick Poetry Center's Oct. 10 reading.

Yale literary critic Harold Bloom has said that Creedon "is not like anyone else now publishing in our country. Her directness and immediacy make her a kind of legitimate granddaughter of the sublime Walt Whitman."

The Kent State University Press will publish Creedon’s book this fall.

For more information, visit www.kent.edu/wick/readingseries.

Wine and Cheese Reception at the Cohn Jewish Student Center

Kent State University faculty and staff are invited for a wine and cheese reception Wednesday, Oct. 3, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Cohn Jewish Student Center on 613 E. Summit St. The event is hosted by Hillel and Kent State’s Jewish Studies Program.

Faculty and staff are encouraged to join colleagues in the Hillel’s Sukkah, an outdoor dwelling built to celebrate Sukkot, the Jewish harvest fall festival.

Please RSVP by Oct. 3 at www.kenthillel.org or email Hillel@kent.edu for more information.

Kent State University School of Art Downtown Gallery Presents Phone Photo Show

New exhibition demonstrates technology’s impact on photography

Kent State University School of Art Galleries will present “Phone Photo Show,” curated by Kent State University Assistant Professor Gingr Vaughan, Oct. 3-27 in the Downtown Art Gallery. The gallery will host an opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 4, from 5 to 7 p.m., which is open and free to the public. The Downtown Art Gallery is located at 141 E. Main St. in downtown Kent. Free parking is available behind the gallery.

Vaughan, Brad Bolton, Bob Mayfield, Kent State University graduate student Bridget O’Donnell, and Kent State University Lecturer Albert Reischuck, have contributed phone photography to the exhibition.

“Phone Photo Show” features the products of the five artists’ experiences in mobile-phone photography and shows the exciting new opportunities produced by improved phone technology. Each artist will share eight photos, including one self-portrait—all of which were shot and edited completely on their phones.

Vaughan says that while she has been a serious photographer for 30 years, she has not made much use of her professional-grade camera since she purchased a smartphone.

“My photos are very different now that I wear my phone/camera,” Vaughan says. “They have become both impulsive and compulsive reactions to my visual world.”

New technology has reduced the time and resources required to capture a moment in time. Now, a mobile phone user can snap a photo, edit and distribute it all within the phone’s software, saving the photographer the processing and printing time required of traditional photography.

“Perhaps no artistic medium has been more affected by rapid growth in technology than photography,” Director of Galleries Anderson Turner says. “Now, with the addition of higher-quality cameras installed in many people’s mobile phones, we are finding many artists taking the opportunity to ‘capture the moment’ in new and interesting ways.”

Prints, priced at $40, will be available for purchase at the exhibit. The Downtown Gallery’s hours of operation are Wednesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 330-676-1549 or visit http://galleries.kent.edu.