May 4

Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor who oversaw the removal of the city’s prominent Confederate monuments and helped his city to recover and reemerge from a series of natural disasters, will speak at Kent State as part of the university’s May 4 Speaker Series.

Guests of Kent State University’s May 4 Visitors Center can learn more about Jeffrey Miller, one of the four students shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, by visiting “Our Brother Jeff,” a new exhibition at the visitors center that honors Miller’s life. The exhibition will be on display from Oct. 19, 2019, to Feb. 29, 2020. Russ Miller, Jeff’s brother, helped create the exhibition by loaning some of Jeff’s personal items to the May 4 Visitors Center. 

Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor who oversaw the removal of the city’s prominent Confederate monuments and helped his city to recover and reemerge from a series of natural disasters, will speak at Kent State as part of the university’s May 4 Speaker Series.

Kent State University is offering a community course that deals with the historical, cultural, social and political contexts of events before, during and after the May 4, 1970, shootings. The free course, Making Meaning of May 4: The Kent State Shootings in American History, will be held Oct. 16, 23 and 30 at the university’s May 4 Visitors Center.

In the spring of 1970, two-time Kent State University alumna and registered nurse Pat Gless was a junior in Kent State’s inaugural nursing program. While in class on Monday, May 4, a professor rushed into her classroom and warned students who could leave campus to do so. Fifty years later, Gless now reflects on the events surrounding that tragedy and how they have impacted her life and nursing career.

On the morning of May 4, 1970, Kent State University student Howard Ruffner was hanging out in the office of the Daily Kent Stater in Taylor Hall when the phone rang.

The Midwest editor from Life magazine, based in Chicago, was calling to find out if there were any student photographers who had been taking photos over the weekend. Kent State had been the scene of student protests for several days, and more demonstrations were expected that day.  

Almost 50 years ago, the shootings of Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard brought to a head the cultural divides that had split the nation. The Kent State University Museum’s exhibition, “Culture/Counterculture: Fashions of the 1960s and ’70s,” opening Sept. 20, explores the sharp contrast between supporters of the establishment and those opposed.