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�鶹��ý held its annual Veterans Day Commemoration on Thursday, Nov. 7, in the Kent Student Center Kiva. This year’s guest speaker was Lt. Col. Colleen VanNatta. A graduate of Kent State’s Air Force ROTC detachment, VanNatta served as a media escort for joint information bureaus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during Operation Desert Storm.

“Our challenges are many, our resources are great and our commitment is real.” �鶹��ý President Todd Diacon drove home the focus of his inaugural address with passion, purpose and a direct call to action for the university community.

Mitch Landrieu, the New Orleans mayor who oversaw the removal of the city’s prominent Confederate monuments and helped his city to recover and reemerge from a series of natural disasters, will speak at Kent State as part of the university’s May 4 Speaker Series.

On Saturday, Sept. 21, the �鶹��ý fight song blared down Main Street, the city of Kent was flooded with blue and gold, alumni and friends gathered and reminisced about their Kent State days, fans packed the stadium to cheer on their beloved Golden Flashes and the entire campus boomed with Kent State pride.

�鶹��ý’s new FedEx Aeronautics Academic Center provides a world-class training ground to help aviation students and future pilots soar to even greater achievements.

�鶹��ý has made impressive moves in the rankings in the newly released 2020 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list. Kent State has climbed three spots, a 3% increase, on the Top Public Schools list. Kent State is the only Northeast Ohio institution on the Top Public Schools list. 

Last year, �鶹��ý celebrated 100 years of Homecoming. This year, the university starts the next century of Kent State Homecoming celebrations with a new president leading the institution.

More than 1,000 volunteers from the �鶹��ý community welcomed and assisted new students as they moved into their residence halls on freshman move-in day, Sunday, Aug. 18. The annual community program, known as Movers and Groovers, is coordinated by Kent Interhall Council, the student government of the Kent Campus residence halls.

The �鶹��ý alumni network again grew its ranks this summer as more than a thousand Golden Flashes got their degrees. Kent State will held its Summer 2019 Commencement ceremonies for the Kent Campus on Saturday, Aug. 17, at the Memorial Athletic and Convocation (MAC) Center.

�鶹��ý hosted several dozen high school students from the LeBron James Family Foundation's I PROMISE program for a month of intensive college entrance exam preparation.