Success Stories Archive - April to June 2011

Kent State University has forged a new partnership with Siauliai University of Lithuania that focuses on student and faculty exchange opportunities and potential joint research projects. Dr. Vidas Lauruska, rector of Siauliai University, and Kent State President Lester A. Lefton signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the two universities.

Steve Toepfer, associate professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Kent State University at Salem, says he has always been interested in the power of writing. In 2007, he created an assignment in his Building Family Strength class intended to show his students that being kind to others has psychological benefits. He decided to measure these benefits in a pilot study where participants wrote letters of gratitude to determine if there are benefits in terms of well-being for the authors of the letters.

The closest most 19-year-olds get to having their own clothing line is selling designer jeans at the mall. Ricky Bortz, a Kent State University student from Beachwood, Ohio, who recently completed his freshman year, is the exception.

Kent State University head football coach Darrell Hazell and the university’s football coaching staff hosted an “A” Ladies Must Get “A’s” women’s football clinic June 29 at Dix Stadium and the Kent State Field House. Kent State coaches shared inside knowledge, giving women the opportunity to participate in drills on offense, defense and special teams.

The Kent State baseball team will be forced to play a winner-take-all championship game after falling to Texas, 9-3, Sunday, June 5, in 2011 NCAA Championship Austin Regional play at the University of Texas’s UFCU Disch-Falk Field.

The Kent State University community proudly congratulates Dick Goddard, a 1960 Kent State graduate and WJW-Fox 8 chief meteorologist, for being on television for 50 years. To celebrate this milestone, members of the Kent State Alumni Association and university mascot Flash recently joined Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Goddard’s Fox 8 colleagues for a special dedication ceremony. The city of Cleveland renamed a portion of South Marginal Road “Dick Goddard Way,” which extends from East 55th Street to the front of the television station’s studios.

Kent State University’s Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and its Upward Bound Programs celebrated the 2nd Annual Senior Recognition Luncheon and the Parent Advisory Council’s Scholarship Presentation on May 14 in the Kent Student Center Ballroom. The ceremony honored graduating high school seniors who participated in Kent State’s TRiO Upward Bound programs.

Sixteen Kent State students and their two journalism professors, Gary Hanson, and Mitch McKenney, spent 10 days in Shanghai in March 2011 to produce a multimedia collection of news and feature stories. They traveled at the invitation of Shanghai International Studies University, which hosted the 10-day visit and provided student-partners to serve as guides.

When theatergoers gaze down Cleveland’s Euclid Corridor, they will now see Kent State University signage among the bold and theatrical buildings. The new location of Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative in the PlayhouseSquare District sports new signs that help bring attention to the university’s continued presence in downtown Cleveland.

Kent State University Professor David C. Riccio just wrapped up his 46th year as a faculty member in the university’s psychology department, and he has no plans of calling it quits anytime soon. From May 19 to May 21, Kent State’s Department of Psychology hosted a Festschrift to recognize Riccio’s life’s work and service to the university with a scientific meeting and a reception.