Lefton chats with students over coffee

Kali Price

Kent State President Lester Lefton walked into the Music Listening Center last night, grabbed a piece of pepperoni pizza and began taking questions.

“It’s only been five months. It’s been fun,” he said in response to a student’s question about how his first year on the job has been.

About 30 people met with Lefton at the second Coffee with the President sponsored by Undergraduate Student Senate.

“It went pretty good,” USS Executive Director Ross Miltner said.

Topics ranged from minimum wage requirements to library hours to some of the more controversial issues Lefton has dealt with.

“What do you think of domestic partnerships?” one student asked.

“I think they’re great,” Lefton replied.

He explained that the reason why Kent State hasn’t taken a position on the issue is because of Ohio laws.

“It’s against the law in Ohio,” he said. “We have to change the law. I would like to do this; the university would like to do it.”

Lefton talked at length about relations Kent State has with the city of Kent.

“I would like Kent to be more open to students,” he said. “We’ve got tattoo parlors and a couple of bars … The community needs to realize that we’ve been here for 100 years, and we’re not going away.”

Overall, USS members said they thought the event went well.

“I think it went awesome,” said Christen Coppola, USS senator for student relations, who organized the event. “This was a great venue. Everybody was interested in what (Lefton) was saying.”

Contact student politics reporter Kali Price at [email protected].