May 4

While Alison Caplan grew up in nearby Akron, Ohio, and has spent time in Kent, when she joined the university as the new director of the May 4 Visitors Center in July, she began to see, and understand, the campus in a whole new light. Caplan is part of a group of Golden Flashes that Kent State Today will be following for the 2023-24 academic year.

Kent State Today is following the new director of the May 4 Visitors Center as part of its "Year with a Flash" series. 

Kent State Today will be following a group of Golden Flashes for the 2023-24 academic year chronicling their efforts and successes during the fall and spring semesters. The group includes students, faculty and administrators who are at different places on their Kent State University journeys.

An exhibition at the May 4 Visitors Center will highlight the personalities of each of the four students who were killed on May 4. 

Videos show Thursday's storm and the damage it caused to the May 4 Memorial. 

Strong storms caused damage across the Kent Campus on Thursday night. 

After a national search, Alison Caplan has been selected as the new director of Kent State University’s May 4 Visitors Center, a museum that tells the story of the shootings at Kent State on May 4, 1970, set in the context of the 1960s.

Kent State University is building on the legacy of May 4, 1970, and the mission of its School of Peace and Conflict Studies, when it joins forces with the University of Rwanda in July to help advance peace education across the globe. 

A literature professor from Chonnam National University in Gwangju, South Korea, is wrapping up a year as a visiting scholar at Kent State University with hopes of creating an exchange program between the two schools based on their historic campus tragedies. 

Before he leaves the Kent Campus at the end of June, Yeonmin Kim, Ph.D., ’13, hopes to have plans in place for a continued exchange of students between the two universities, to further the understanding and legacies of May 4, 1970, at Kent State and May 18, 1980, at Chonnam.

A visiting documentary star (and Elvis fan) received a very special welcome at Kent State.