��M��

��MŮ��’s Career and Community Studies (CCS) program has partnered with the Bursar’s Office to provide opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to develop professional skills and help them transition into the workforce. Ellie McGregor, a fourth-year student currently in her final semester in the CCS program, has found great success and made solid contributions in the office while honing her business skills. She is an example of what this program can do for students. 

National Public Radio (NPR) has whittled down and decided on the college finalists in its College Podcast Challenge. ��M�� at Ashtabula Human Services Technology associate lecturer and journalism student Joan Steidl is one of ten students from across the country who became finalists.

��MŮ��’s long and extensive history has been continuously documented and studied. Those looking for the highlights of the university’s past can find it all in one place: the University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives: Digital Collections on the kent.edu website. This next installment of Where on the Web? highlights pages across the ��MŮ�� website of special interest and use to the ��MŮ�� community. 

Meghan Factor-Page is the assistant director of ��M�� of Well-being where she helps ensure students are getting relevant information so they can take care of themselves and get the wellness resources they need. Factor-Page started working full-time at ��M�� in 2009. Learn more about Meghan Factor-Page and the ��M�� of Well-being as she answers these 10 questions.

��MŮ�� has an extensive list of class options for students. But where can a member of the ��MŮ�� community go to find self-paced, free courses? The answer is closer than one might think. LinkedIn Learning takes the spotlight in this edition of “Where on the Web?”

When people consider hunger in America, they tend to think of people far away in urban centers. They don’t realize that food insecurity is a very real problem in Geauga County, even among college students. In order to combat this growing and troubling trend, ��MŮ�� at Geauga is partnering with the Geauga Hunger Task Force (GHTF). ��MŮ�� Geauga received a $2,500 grant from the GHTF in January 2022 to assist in their mission “ensuring that no Geauga County residents go hungry.”

Students across the nation were challenged as the pandemic swept the world. Healing Stanzas, a collaboration between the Wick Poetry Center, the Healthy Communities Research Institute and the Brain Health Research Institute, seeks to combine the science of brain health and public health with the creative energy of the humanities to provide ��M�� students, staff and faculty with an opportunity to improve wellness through reflective poetry.

Society’s norm for men is stereotyped as leaders, providers, and guardians. Society also posits that men cannot speak about their emotions and have to portray a strong persona to be considered masculine and to succeed in these roles. This results in an environment of “toxic masculinity,” which encourages negative self image, negative outward behavior and struggles with mental health among men who feel they have to be strong at all times. An initiative on campus is trying to change that perception.

Intentionality to build successful academic mentoring relationships with students is what sets professors apart at ��MŮ��, and each year two professors at the graduate and undergraduate level receive a student-nominated award for their ability to do so. The intent of the award is to recognize those professors exceeding in mentoring students in how to perform research in any field.  

��M�� has a history of passionate student activism. However, 2020 has really highlighted such efforts, both current and past, and its impact on the importance of students sharing their voices through voting. Efforts made by individuals, student-led groups, faculty members and ��M�� as a whole have led to an exceptionally high increase in voter engagement throughout campus.