The Kent Blossom Music Festival experience returns, presenting a full season of concerts featuring festival faculty and young artists participating in a five-week, immersive celebration of orchestral and chamber music. This 54 year-old partnership between Kent State University and The Cleveland Orchestra is the only partnership of its kind between a major American orchestra and a public university. Kent Blossom Music brings together select graduate and undergraduate students from around the world with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, Kent State music faculty, and internationally acclaime...

Diane Petrella, dean of the College of the Arts is pleased to announce that associate professor Mourad Krifa, Ph.D. will serve as the Interim Director of the School of Fashion Design and Merchandising beginning May 15, 2022.  "Dr. Krifa has a long record of excellence in teaching, research and academic leadership in the field of textiles and apparel, with research that encompasses diverse activities and interests spanning the larger part of the textiles and apparel value chain," said Dean Petrella. "Professor Krifa has served as the Research Coordinator for the Scho...

Students in the School of Media and Journalism recently participated in a virtual reality training session that focused on safety tactics to use when reporting on potentially dangerous news events. Through a research grant provided by the College of Communication and Information, the United Kingdom-based company Headset was invited to complete this training on March 13, 2022, at Kent State. Headset uses virtual reality to train professional journalists for situations they may be placed in — particularly situations that may trigger traumatic reactions or may be a threat to their safety. A...

Esports has transformed online gaming into a spectator sport — and a 2021 report projects the industry will be worth $3.5 billion by 2025. As the industry rapidly grows, so too, are job opportunities. From marketing and promotion, to streaming and tournament administration, to game design and graphic arts, to writing and content creation, job opportunities in Esports grew 5 percent from 2020-21. At Kent State University, where collegiate Esports were established in 2018, the program is closely connected with the College of Communication and Information whose majors — including Eme...

Kent State University graduating senior Jameson Payne says his mom Bethany Payne loves to tell the story about how he could recite the periodic table of elements in chemistry when he was in the second grade.  Now his mom can tell people the story about how Payne and his best friend Benjamin Wales-McGrath are graduating from Kent State at the age of 18. During Kent State’s spring 2022 commencement on May 14, Payne will earn his bachelor’s degree in integrative studies with concentrations in physics and political science. Wales-McGrath will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in ce...

Hayley Shasteen (she/her) is a Kent State University alumna who graduated with a degree in Psychology in 2021. She currently works as a science writer for BioSpace and has been accepted into the Ph.D. program in the Biobehavioral Health Department at The Pennsylvania State University. Her primary research focus is on helping patients with systemic lupus erythematosus by defining the brain fog caused by this condition. Cognition in lupus patients fluctuates over time due to variables such as the weather, sunlight, stress, diet. Brain fog, while not unique to lupus patients, impacts the every...

Taylor Miller (she/her), undergraduate in the College of Arts and Sciences, is supervised by Associate Professor Christopher Was, Ph.D. (he/him), associate professor in the department of psychological sciences, to complete her honors thesis. Together, they explore the relationship between mind-wandering and multitasking during synchronous learning sessions at home among college students. The research they are conducting now is a continuation of the pilot study they performed in 2020 and 2021 on information retention differences when various simulated chat messaging is accompanying the lectu...

Beginning in an individual’s educational career, math anxiety is likely to follow someone through into adulthood. Current research is being done on the impacts of intersectional identities, such as race and gender, on math cognition and math anxiety. This is exactly what associate professor Clarissa A. Thompson, Ph.D. (she/her), graduate student Charlie Fitzsimmons (he/him), and senior psychology student Tisha Owusua (she/her) have set out to investigate. Their research looks at how someone being a racial minority within a community and/or being gender diverse impacts math performance and m...