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Dear ������ Faculty and Staff,

Welcome to the 2024 Fall Semester and another academic year filled with promise. I hope that each of you is marking this beginning with renewed energy and a sense of optimism as you see our students and your colleagues and feel the bond we share as members of the Golden Flashes community.

In our nation and across the world, this fall promises to provide quite a ride. Let’s stay focused on our purpose: to educate and prepare our students to grow into their places in this world and to make it better for their generation.

Much of my message at this same time last year, and, indeed, throughout our last academic year, applies still at this time. Thank you for joining me in modeling our Kent State values each day for our students and for each other. I appreciate you taking to heart that freedom of expression, along with kindness and respect in all we do, remains paramount. A Kent State education prepares each of our students to become part of the solution for the next generation, and I am proud that together we provide a foundation in which each of us is treated how we want to be treated.

To equip each of us further as we navigate the political and cultural division around us, Kent State’s new Division of People, Culture and Belonging will continue the series of presentations and conversations it started last year titled Dialogue and Difference: A New Understanding. Learn more about the series, including the details of the first session, “Communication Do’s and Don’ts,” guided by our faculty and students from our excellent School of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Creating a Transformed Kent State

The challenges presented by state-level funding decisions, sustained inflation, the demographic cliff and declining numbers of traditional college-aged prospective students persist as leading factors behind steps we began to take last year and will pursue in earnest throughout this year. These steps will lead us to a redefinition of our university. We will reorganize, as Senior Vice President and Provost Melody Tankersley and the Division of Academic Affairs continue their work on the Transformation 2028 initiative.

We will become even more efficient as, for instance, we advance in our planning to take buildings offline and rethink many of the ways in which we do our work.

We live in a time of great challenge, and I want you to believe that we are the right people, in the right place, to make this a time of great opportunity.

Talking With Todd

I’m looking forward to the many opportunities we will have to be together this year, both in person and online. One of those recurring opportunities will be the return of our Talking With Todd webcast. Please join me for our first installment, scheduled live for 3 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26, and then available on demand.

Blue and Gold Fridays

Let's continue to make each Friday our day to be Blue, Gold and Grateful. Keep the tradition going by wearing your Kent State colors proudly.

Swipe and Eat

Stay tuned for information on free meal swipes at the Kent Campus this semester for all faculty, staff and graduate assistants.

Please know that I appreciate each of you and all that you do to make Kent State great for our students and for each other.

Go Flashes!

Sincerely,

Todd Diacon
President