Student Success

Alan Talarczyk, a graduate student in Kent State's College of Public Health, got his educational start at the Twinsburg Academic Center.

In high school, Alan Talarczyk thought he wanted to be a diesel mechanic.No one in his family had ever gone to college, and all of them had done well. His father, a tool and die maker, has been with the same manufacturing company for more than 40 years. His mother, a Ukrainian immigrant, started her own successful cleaning business.His par...

Chimney Swifts appear on tiles on structure in Downtown Kent.

Since she was a child, Caitlyn Skilton, a recent graduate of the zoology program at Kent State University, has harbored a passion for ecology, with a deep love for birds of all kinds. She chose to extend this love in her undergraduate work at Kent State. On December 1, Skilton, who also minored in photojournalism, hosted a reception...

Van Deman during his posting as “director of negative intelligence” (i.e., security chief) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 Ralph H. Van Deman papers / Hoover Institution Archives

Matthew Vajda, a doctoral student in the Department of History at Kent State University, has been selected as one of only two recipients of a coveted $15,000 fellowship stipend from the U.S. Army Center of Military History for the academic year 2023-2024. This prestigious fellowship is awarded to individuals from a highly competitiv...

Grace Conrad made projectile points out of cow femur bones, similar to the Clovis technology.

Sometimes it just takes a small spark to ignite a fire within you. For Anna Mika, who started as a geology major her freshman year and switched to anthropology the following year, that spark came in 2017 while taking an Anthropology course called North America’s Ice Aged Hunters, taught by Metin I. Eren, Ph.D., associate professor and dir...

Benjamin Mudrak

While most 18-year-olds are finishing up their high school requirements for graduation and making plans to attend college or applying for jobs, a few exceptional students like Benjamin Mudrak are simply way ahead of their peers in their academic pursuits. Mudrak, who started taking college courses through the College Credit Plus Pr...

Congratulations to Julie Mazzei, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Political Science (in the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State University) for being awarded the 2021 Mid American Conference (MAC) Outstanding Faculty Award for Student Success. Mazzei is one of only 12 institutional winners for the award give...

Nick Pizzi interview banner internal

“(Nick) did not fit any stereotype of someone who went through what he did. He is extremely personable and shows excellent leadership. He had always taken full responsibility for everything and was all-in on all the classes and program-related activities." - Associate Lecturer Mandy Ulicney  In March 2015, Nick Pizzi hit rock bo...

Students at the American Academy celebrate commencement.

Last spring, American Academy student Maria Cecília Sucharski learned that COVID-19 would restrict students from attending in-person classes on the Brazilian campus. However, Sucharski was happy to learn first-hand that faculty for the dual enrollment program were equipped to deliver an optimal remote experience. “The professors actually ...

Kalin Bennett's Kent State Jersey on Display at Basketball Hall of Fame

Every college basketball player remembers the first basket they scored in a real game. That’s also true for Kalin Bennett, but his first points came with an entire nation cheering him on. Now the Under Armour size XXL jersey Bennett wore that night in a 97-58 win over Hiram is displayed at the Naismith Memor...

Kent State women’s basketball players and graduating seniors Ali Poole, Sydney Brinlee and Megan Carter smile with their caps and gowns. (Photo credit: Scott Galvin)

Kent State University student-athletes conquered the unprecedented challenge of completing the final months of the spring term via remote classes by posting the highest term grade point average (3.563) in athletics department history. All 17 programs posted a term GPA of 3.1 or better with 14 setting a new term record. A record 75 stude...