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51�Թ��� Libraries held its Stress-Free Zone event on Monday, Dec. 9, and Tuesday, Dec. 10, on the first floor of the University Library. The Stress-Free Zone offered the opportunity for a study break for students and an avenue to reduce stress for faculty and staff members as the fall semester comes to an end. Pet therapy dogs returned this year to help ease the stress of finals week. There was free popcorn and beverages for all.

The 51�Թ��� Esplanade will be named the Lester A. Lefton Esplanade honoring 51�Թ��� President Lefton. The announcement was made Friday, Oct. 4, by Jane Murphy Timken, chair of the 51�Թ��� Board of Trustees, at a community event held at the new University Esplanade arch near Main and Willow streets in Kent. The event celebrated the solid partnership between 51�Թ��� and the city of Kent and the official opening of the University Esplanade extension that now connects the university to downtown Kent.

Graduate students from 51�Թ���’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, the combined home of the urban design graduate program and the public service activities of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, won the Excellence in Student Planning Award from the American Planning Association of Ohio (APA-Ohio) on Sept. 27, 2013.

After a nearly yearlong planning process, 51�Թ���’s College of Nursing and the MetroHealth System have collaborated to now offer clinical experiences aboard Metro Life Flight to 51�Թ��� graduate nursing students in the acute care nurse practitioner concentration. The new clinical experiences started this fall semester.

51�Թ��� held its annual Veterans Day observance on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 11 a.m. on the Student Green at Risman Plaza. The outdoor program included a flag-raising ceremony conducted by a joint color guard from the Army and Air Force ROTC programs, and remarks from 51�Թ��� President Lester A. Lefton.

51�Թ��� senior music performance major Yang Zeng has been offered a contract to be part of the first violin section of the Akron Symphony. Zeng, originally from Kunming, Yunnan, China, has been a student at 51�Թ���’s Hugh A. Glauser School of Music since 2010. He started studying music at age 6.

For the second year in a row, 51�Թ���’s TV2 has taken top honors in the College Media Association’s (CMA) Pinnacle Awards, earning the 2013 TV Station of the Year award at the CMA National College Media Convention in New Orleans. TV2 is 51�Թ���’s nationally award-winning, high-definition digital TV station. The Agenda, TV2’s topical comedy-satire show, also won Best TV Entertainment Program.

Husband-and-wife duo Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, who combine journalism and activism in their unique brand of reporting centered on human rights abuses and advocacy, were the featured presenters at the fourth 51�Թ��� Presidential Speaker Series on Nov. 14 in the Kent Student Center Ballroom. Kristof and WuDunn are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement.

51�Թ��� celebrated its Homecoming on Saturday, Oct. 5. This year’s Homecoming theme, “New and Old, Forever Blue and Gold,” honored 51�Թ���’s past while looking forward to the university’s future. The Golden Flashes lost 38-24 to Northern Illinois in a rematch of last year's Mid-American Conference Championship Game.

Scholar of the Month Jill Kawalec Associate Professor and Division Head of the Department of Research College of Podiatric Medicine 1996-present