A post-pandemic world is slowly but surely becoming a reality and Kent State is moving with the times. Welcoming their incoming freshman class in the fall, the faculty and staff are working to help where they can — starting out with a slightly new admissions process which Sean Broghammer, associate vice president of enrollment management, changed in the spring. 

“We allowed students when they applied to the university to tell us if they intended to submit a test score or not. If they intended to give a test score then we would include that in our evaluation. If they say they’re not then we took a different path,” Broghammer said. “Either way they are viewed as a listable applicant.” 

This fall, Kent is also including more opportunities with their incoming students allowing admission to be more accessible. 

“One of the exciting things this year that we’ve seen is an increase in our diversity of our first year class, so our students of color numbers are higher, our first generation numbers are higher as a proportion of the class,” Broghammer said. “Kent is really trying to position ourselves as an access university and help students who may not have the opportunity to attend a research university to choose Kent.” 

Kent’s administration wants this year to be as close to a normal year as possible and is actively changing things to allow for that. Dean of University College Eboni Pringle said some of the guidelines are changing. 

“We are reevaluating our health and safety setups so that we can allow students to have a close to normal or more than normal fall semester,” Pringle said. “There were six-foot physical distancing restrictions, and we are now reviewing the CDC guidelines and also guidelines provided by other organizations that help to inform colleges [and] universities to determine what our physical distancing will be like in the fall.” 

Along with guidelines changing to help the students’ year look normal, Kent staff is also bringing back classic events that couldn’t happen last year. 

“Our plan is to have an in-person Kickoff, which would include Blastoff and other in person activities. Having Blastoff, where students can learn about student organizations and connect with upperclass students,” Pringle said. “Our hope is that our students will be able to return to campus and have a full college experience, in and out of the classroom. We want there to be vibrant, engaged activities for the students to feel connected to each other and engaged with each other.” 

Taylor Gay covers DKS. Contact her at [email protected].