Faculty Staff Giving (can change page title)
The Faculty & Staff Campaign lets you support exactly what you're passionate about. Put your money where your heart is! Your gift will go directly to the area that you choose: scholarships, a specific school, facilities - wherever you decide. For your convenience, we encourage you to give through payroll deduction. Read below to learn why your colleagues choose to give back to Kent State, or GIVE NOW THROUGH PAYROLL DEDUCTION.
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(Above photo credit: Richard Falco / Vision Project)
For Barbara Allegra Verlezza, art is about acceptance and empowerment. The Kent State University Associate Professor of Dance has focused much of her career on using her art form to promote artistic growth and physical and emotional wellness in her students with and without disabilities, believing that a disability shouldn’t prevent a person from enjoying dance.
“The improvement for participants is the self-identification,” she says. “They identify themselves as dancers. For those who just want the opportunity to be in the room, that’s true equity; to gain confidence in their bodies and to feel beautiful when so often they are told they are not.”
As the current Associate Director of Verlezza Dance and former co-director of Dancing Wheels, Barbara has worked with individuals with disabilities for over 20 years, including senior adults through the HELP Foundation, Inc. and the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Barbara has built a career based on inclusion in the arts for people of all ages and abilities.
While she began a successful dance career in New York City, Barbara has called Kent State University her home since 2003.
“I came here originally as guest faculty and loved the university atmosphere,” she says. “Kent called in 2003 with an open position and I never left. I was embraced as an educator right from the get go. I love the intimacy in the School of Theatre and Dance; everyone knows each other. We support each other and our students, which is so important in the performing arts where every victory and every failure is public.”
Through Kent State, she also found a place that honors this goal of acceptance, which she’s felt through her own experience and that of her son, Sabatino A. Verlezza ‘12, who struggled with depression and its unhealthy remedy of self-harm.
It’s at KSU that he found a safe place to distance himself from these destructive habits. In this environment, he flourished as a healthy, engaged and productive young adult. And it’s also where he grew as a professional. Following in his parents’ footsteps, he now is a full company member with RIOULT Dance NY.
“My time at Kent State helped develop me not only as an artist and a person, but as a young professional entering the field of dance,” he says. “I built a family of friends, a wealth of knowledge, and a network of tools that will never leave me."
Understanding the financial barriers involved with higher education, and the arts, Barbara has established the May O’Donnell Memorial Dance Award Scholarship Fund* to help students like her son pursue their dreams.
“I wish I could do more. I have met so many students who have the talent, who have the passion, who have the rigor it takes to make it, but they don’t have the funds they need to succeed. It is crucial to find a way to support our students financially,” she says.
(*To give to the May O'Donnell Memorial Dance Award Scholarship Fund, use the link above or the Give Now link below, select "Featured Fund" as the Gift Type, then choose "May O'Donnell Memorial Dance Award Scholarship Fund" as the Program.)
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Professor of Printmaking Michael J. Loderstedt has been a part of the university’s art culture since he arrived on campus in 1982 to attend graduate school, and is dedicated to fostering the next generation of artists at Kent State University.
Loderstedt understands the plight of universities. “Quality education costs more and more money to deliver,” he says, “while support from state and federal government continues to diminish. Many of our buildings, like the Art Building, had exceeded their useful lives here on the Kent Campus and needed renovation.”
Loderstedt was inspired to give back by Craig Lucas, one of his Kent State professors who became a good friend and artistic collaborator. “After Craig’s passing in 2011, I found out about his anonymous long-standing financial support of the Student Art Annual,” says Loderstedt. “His generosity was never anything he wore on his sleeve. It was just a part of his life, and that made me think it should just be a part of all of our lives.”
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“I didn’t know where to go to get help.”
That’s how Marlo Kibler felt as a young mother without strong prospects of financial aid and unable to pay for her college classes.
Like many middle class families of the time, Marlo’s was wary of lenders. “My father refused to fill out the FAFSA paperwork that would allow me to file as an independent and qualify for financial aid. My parents were old school, and my Dad was very private.” Marlo was forced to withdraw from school and began working full time to support herself.
Marlo’s manager at the time — who is still one of her mentors today — told her that she needed to go back to school and finish her degree. Now a single parent, Marlo was eligible for some financial aid. Over the course of the next 6 years she completed three degrees.
Fast forward to 2007, just prior to beginning her new job at Kent State University, tragedy struck. Marlo lost her husband. And a month later, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her treatment required her to stop working for two months. When her new co-workers heard the news, they donated the vacation and sick time that Marlo needed to cover her leave.
It’s fitting that today, in her role of assistant director of donor engagement and stewardship, Marlo handles scholarship administration, and helps ensure that the generous donations provided by alumni and friends are being awarded.
Not surprisingly, Marlo is also a donor. “I support other organizations, but I give more to Kent State because Kent State gave more to me. Work is work, but family is forever, and we are a family at Kent State.”
Marlo says she gives because of the “heart of people at Kent State.” She talks about how “people reached out to help me through the darkest time in my life.” When Marlo looks at her coworkers, she sees extended family. “It was a testament to the true heart of Kent State, that people will come together to help you even if they don’t know you.”
When she is not working on campus, she is out in the community giving back to others and doing her best to “pay it forward” just as others had done for her when she was a struggling single parent.
Marlo set up the Marlo and Paul Kibler Single Parents Scholarship Fund, a scholarship that provides support to single parents who are working hard to complete their undergraduate education.
She gives back so she can help others like her younger self. “I want to help people move beyond their current circumstances.”