Thirteen Fashion School students attended the Shop.org Summit at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington, Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 after becoming semi-finalists of the Ray Greenly Scholarship and finalists of the Student

Program Scholarship.  

The Ray Greenly Scholarship is a travel scholarship for students to attend the Shop.org Summit and exclusively network with retail CEOs. To be considered for the scholarship, you had to create a digital retail case study said Brittany Randolph, senior fashion merchandising major.

“I did my case study on Nordstrom and furthering their app on the iPhone for their customers,” Randolph said.

The Shop.org Summit is a conference that connects all retailers and industry professionals and this year’s theme was digital retail division, said Hillary Stone, industry liaison for the School of Fashion Design and Merchandising.

“Kent State is a member of the National Retail Federation and because we are a member we were able to participate in the two scholarships for this Summit,”Stone said.

Randolph was among three other students, Olufisayo Akanni, Alexandre Marr and Erika Mayiras who were semi-finalists and received $2,500 scholarship.

“There were a total of 25 semi-finalists, but only four of them represented Kent State,” said Alexandre Marr, graduate student of the Fashion School.“I felt pretty exclusive being in the group of semi-finalists. There was a cocktail dinner for us the night before the summit where we met with a bunch of CEOs,”

Marr said.

Additionally, there were nine other students: Kata Bjelopera, Robin Bonatesta, Gabrielle Chaffin, Yuberniz M. Orengo, Sabrina Pierotti, Jamie Rivera, Lillian Scott, Arianna Toth and Eleonore F. Zurawski who received $1,000 scholarship to attend the student portion of the Shop.org Summit through the Student Program Scholarship.

To be considered for the Student Program Scholarship, you had to write an essay about why you wanted to go and what you would gain from it, Scott said.

“The student portion of the Summit was really intense and fun,” Scott said. “I got a chance to talk to a lot of people, but I really loved talking to REI and Lilly Pulitzer.”

William Perrine, associate professor for the School of Fashion Design and Merchandising, was the faculty member who accompanied the students to the Summit.

“This was the first time Kent State has won this many scholarships with the NRF,” Perrine said.

Contact Felicia Ssempala [email protected].