2010s
Elizabeth “Liz” Campion, BA ’12, MLIS ’15, Cleveland, recently received the “25 under 35” award from her high school, Saint Joseph Academy in Cleveland. She works at Kent State’s Special Collections and Archives as the May 4 Archivist and assistant professor with a focus on the 1970 Kent State shootings and their aftermath. Campion says she is honored to be entrusted with the stewardship of this historic period, knowing it can result in a better understanding of the turmoil, grief and healing the nation went through. She also demonstrates compassionate leadership in her volunteer efforts with the Alzheimer’s Association. As a team leader for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, she has raised tens of thousands of dollars in honor of her grandmother.
JoAnna Schofield, MLIS ’12, Stow, Ohio, branch manager at the DeHoff Memorial Branch of Stark County District Library, has been selected to serve on the American Library Association’s 2021 John Newbery Book Award Committee. This committee selects the most distinguished written contribution to literature for children in 2020.
Scott Weaver, BS ’12, MA ’13, and Holly Henderson, BA ’12, Berea, Ohio, were married on October 12, 2019 and took the opportunity to pose for photos at some of their favorite spots on Front Campus. They were both members of the Greek community on the Kent Campus, Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity and Delta Gamma Fraternity respectively. These commonalities brought their worlds together and created many mutual friendships and connections. Today, he is a director of digital production for CBLH Design, a Cleveland-based architecture, planning and interior design firm. She is a marketing manager for CBIZ, Inc., a publicly traded professional services firm headquartered in Cleveland. The two enjoy exploring new breweries, traveling and cheering on Ohio sports teams! (Wedding photos were taken by Murphy Redmond, BA ’13, Red Photographic.)
Mitch Dandurand, BS ’13, MPH ’15, Tiffin, Ohio, was featured on Ohio Governor DeWine’s press conference on Sept. 22, 2020—and he gave a shoutout to Kent State on the air. Dandurand, an epidemiologist who works at Lorain County Public Health, is part of an interview team who is contacting people with COVID-19 in Lorain County as part of the contact-tracing process. His co-worker, Amanda Accordino, BSPH ’16, Olmsted Twp, Ohio, is a health education specialist at Lorain County Public Health—so that makes at least two Golden Flashes working to stem COVID-19 cases in the county.
Robin (Pertz) Unger, MLIS ’13, and Nathan Unger, BBA '04, AA ’04, Washingtonville, Ohio, were married on September 1, 2019 at the Kingwood Center Gardens in Mansfield, Ohio. She is the library, history and records supervisor at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and he is a regional sales rep for Jeld-Wen. (Wedding photographs were taken by Rami Daud, BA ’20, new media specialist at Kent State.)
Veronica Ceci, MFA ’14, Austin, Texas, an intermedia artist who has been working as a master printer since 2004, has had her response to the pandemic, “Too Soon?,” accepted into the permanent collection of the Library of Congress. She has recently had pieces included in exhibitions at The Contemporary Art Center New Orleans, The Shaker Museum, The Tyler Museum of Art and The Yellowstone Museum of Art.
Ceci’s solo show, Keeping House, was displayed at Neon Raspberry Gallery in Occidental, California, in July 2020. The ever-changing collection of art has been traveling the US since 2017 and is scheduled for several future venues. She would be pleased to exhibit the work with any fellow alumni who have gallery spaces and encourages you to get in touch: info@veronicaceci.com.
She is also the founder of the nonprofit organization, Flash Collective, www.flashcollective.com, which involves artists in community art making events and pop up exhibitions.
Scott Goss, MFA ’14, Cleveland, multimedia artist, began his residency at the Akron Soul Train Gallery in March, intending to expand on his engineered, interactive installation pieces with surreal video-based environments. His pieces encouraged viewers to climb, lay or crawl inside his installations to view video projections. Soon after his residency began, the pandemic required us all to “shut-down”, and everyone experienced a restructuring of reality. Goss’s work addresses our new, altered social landscape where we no longer are able to sit close to a friend, share a meal with them or see each other’s full face. His new work explores this new social interaction based on social distancing and mask wearing.
The exhibition, The Surreal Real, combining Goss’s work with fellow AST summer resident artist Timothy Gaewsky, opened September 2 and ran until October 3. At the reopening of AST’s Burton D. Morgan Foundation Exhibition Space in Akron, everyone was required to wear a mask and only six people were allowed into the gallery at one time. Goss was the recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2015) and is represented by galleries in Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh.
Shannon Ahlstrand Photography
David Hrvatin, BS ’14, married Natalie Rosmarin, BA ’15, Highland Heights, Ohio, on June 27, 2020 in Westlake, Ohio. He works for Cleveland’s WKYC-TV as senior producer, brand & marketing, and received the Sharon Marquis Friend of JMC Award from the School of Media and Journalism, in September 2019 for his dedication to the school and its students. She is an English teacher at Lake Ridge Academy’s Upper School in North Ridgeville, Ohio. Their wedding plans needed to be revised several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but postponing the wedding was never once considered. Instead of visiting Italy, the couple honeymooned in Ohio, staying at several resorts. However, these proud Golden Flashes spent the first night of their honeymoon in Kent. Though they did not meet until after graduating, the couple love KSU and the community and visit often.
Sony Ton-Aime, BBA ’14, MFA ’19, Jamestown, NY, was named director of literary arts at the Chautauqua Institution, effective January 13, 2020. A poet, teaching artist and arts administrator, he was previously program operation coordinator for Lake Erie Ink, a Cleveland-based literary arts organization. He is the author of the chapbook, LaWomann and a Haitian Creole translation of the book Olympic Hero: The Story of Lennox Kilgour. He is the co-founding editor of ID13, an online publication that published creative works by inmates he led in poetry workshops at the Lake Erie Correctional Institute.
A native of Haiti who first came to the United States in 2010, Ton-Aime joined the Wick Poetry Center as a student intern in 2014 and, as a fellow at the center, he led a group of interns and coordinated poetry outreach in the Kent community. That outreach brought him to Chautauqua in 2018, where for two summers he managed Wick’s Traveling Stanzas exhibit, now in the Hultquist Center’s Poetry Makerspace. At Chautauqua, he also served as liaison for writers in resident at the Chautauqua Writers’ Center and mentored undergraduate literary arts interns. He recently worked with Wick Poetry Center to transition the popular makerspace tool—Emerge—into an application for smart devices so users at home can read curated texts and create and share poems.
In his new role, Ton-Aime will serve as a senior member of the Department of Education and as an entrepreneurial and collaborative partner in strengthening and deepening the value of the literary arts program and experience for Chautauqua Institution stakeholders.
Anita Louise Photography
Natalie M. Amato, MLIS ’15, and Alex Czayka, BS ’09, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, were married in a private ceremony on May 1, 2020, despite COVID-19 postponing their wedding plans.
David Distelhorst, MLIS ’15, Columbus, Ohio, wrote, “I am the local history librarian at Bexley Public Library, Bexley, Ohio, having previously been the local history and genealogy librarian at Massillon Public Library, Massillon, Ohio.
Taylor (Ridenour) Sminchak, BA ’15, Tallmadge, Ohio, coordinator of outreach for ZipAssist, a central information hub at The University of Akron, was selected from over 200 nominees as one of Delta Zeta’s 35 under 35 honorees for 2020. This national recognition highlights outstanding young women who have demonstrated leadership, initiative, and dedication to their careers, are motivated by challenges, serve as volunteers in their communities and are role models for their peers.
Sminchak was also selected as the 2019 CashCourse Financial Educator of the Year. The award honors an educator going above and beyond to promote financial literacy on their campus, as well as demonstrates creativity and passion in the field of collegiate financial education. She developed and implemented the “Balancing on a Budget” program at The University of Akron, which has seen great success helping college students with their finances. Sminchak has been recognized for her efforts by The University of Akron and external partners, including an invitation to a private White House briefing during fall 2019. (See photo above left.)
She and her husband, Patrick, welcomed Karsyn Kate Sminchak, (9 lbs., 8 oz., 20 in. long) on January 20, 2020. She visited Kent State at a month old. #FutureFlash (See photo above right.)
Chris Baum, AA ’99, BA ’16, Atwater, Ohio, published his third and fourth books in May. Magnificent (Book 1 of a series) and Out of Darkness: Twists & Turns (also Book 1 of a series) are available exclusively through Amazon. Magnificent received Amazon Best Seller in three categories upon its release. If you like engaging fiction with page-turning action, you can find out more at www.chrisbaum.net, where you may also subscribe to his newsletter to stay in the loop and receive one of his books for free. He wishes you good health and prosperity.
Kristen M. Boye, BS ’16, Encinitas, Calif., will deploy on the USS Sterett (DDG 104), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer of the US Navy, as a part of the Strike Group. Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) Boye studied aeronautics at Kent State and graduated from Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI, in November 2016. She continued her training in Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) at NAS Pensacola, Fla. Upon completion of API, she endured primary flight school at Whiting Field in Milton, Fla., and flew the T6-B for VT-2 (Doerbirds). She was selected for the advanced rotary pipeline after completing the primary syllabus and was transferred to HT-28 (Hellions) where she flew the TH-57 B and TH-57 C. Although there was a 60 percent attrition rate, LTJG Boye earned her wings in October 2018 and was selected to fly the MH-60R (Seahawk).
She was transferred to HSM-40 (Airwolves) at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., where she continued her training at the Fleet Replacement Squadron as a fleet replacement pilot for the MH-60R. She completed the FRS syllabus, became qualified in model, and received orders to fly the MH-60R for HSM-35 (Magicians) in San Diego, Calif. LTJG Boye is instrument and commercial rated in both fixed wing and rotary wing. She is qualified to fly search and rescue, night vision goggles, formation, as well as operate Hellfire missiles, rockets, and torpedoes.
Greg Donnellan, MM ’16, Bay Village, Ohio, director of the Middle School (grades 7-8) at Lawrence School in Sagamore Hills, Ohio, is one of five teachers from across the country named as winners of the 2020 Leavey Awards for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education. Lawrence School is one of only three schools in Ohio that exclusively serve K-12 students with learning differences. In addition to his administrative duties, Donnellan is the founding program director of the Young Entrepreneurship Experience, an annual hands-on and experiential program for all middle school students, and also serves as advisor to the Entrepreneurship Club (grades 7-12). With his background in music education and the performing arts, he appreciates the opportunity to create a platform to facilitate students’ creativity, divergent thinking and tenacity.
Andrea M. Gump, BS ’18, Steubenville, Ohio, wrote, “I immediately deployed overseas to Iraq and Kuwait after graduating. Although I was nervous about what the future held for me post-deployment, my former professors provided me with guidance along the way, which I feel led me to my dream job. I accepted a reporting position at WTOV9 in Steubenville, Ohio, that began in April. I’d say hard work, determination and passion for this field provided me with this opportunity. However, I may have never worked hard, remained determined and grown a passion for this without Kent State. Flashes forever!”
Scott Little, BM ’19, McDonald, Ohio, accepted a full-time position with Brunswick City Schools teaching band and orchestra. He’ll teach sixth through twelfth graders as well as act as assistant director of the marching band.
Patrick W. Ulrich, MFA ’19, Arcata, Calif., is featured in the current issue of American Theatre magazine as one of “6 Theatre Workers You Should Know.” In addition to designing for productions at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he serves as assistant professor of scenography, Ulrich served as the scenic designer for As You Like It at Ozark Actors Theatre in Rolla, Mo.; I and You at Wharton Center for the Performing Arts in East Lansing, Mich.; and multiple productions at Porthouse Theatre in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Ulrich loves to work with theatres for young audiences as well as university students.
After graduating from Kent State University’s MFA scenic design program last spring, Ulrich sees his job now as training “the next generation of theatre artists to respect their chosen craft.” In his own creative efforts, he’s especially attracted to work that tells a story of redemption. “Experiencing a redemptive story live on stage,” he says, “can be healing and liberating, and is always inspiring.”