The May 4 Visitors Center, a museum located inside Taylor Hall that tells the story of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, has a new leader.

Alison Caplan, a native of Akron, was named as Kent State’s new director of the May 4 Visitors Center Jul. 5 after a national search.

Caplan received her undergraduate degree in art history from Oberlin College and attended graduate school at Case Western Reserve University, where she studied art history and museum studies. While in grad school, Caplan worked in the library of the Cleveland Art Museum. She also holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Akron. 

Additionally, she previously worked at the National First Ladies Library in Canton and the Akron Art Museum.

As the new director of the May 4 Visitors Center, Caplan said her duties include connecting with students and faculty members and creating programming inspired by the center’s exhibitions, as well as protecting the memories of the May 4 victims and survivors and connecting the tragedy to today’s climate.

“We’ve just celebrated, during the pandemic, the 50th anniversary of May 4, so now I think it’s preserving the memories of the people who survived, because they are aging too,” Caplan said. “We want to make sure that their stories are passed on to other generations.”

Moving forward into the new school year, Caplan said some of her goals for the center are to increase community engagement and also to encourage people who visit the museum to reflect on their experience and inspire them to take action.

“We want to offer a chance for audiences to take action, whether they want to tell us how they’re going to speak out, what issues they care about and enact change,” Caplan said.

Reaching out to K-12 schools and encouraging more people to visit the center is key to further developing the museum into an educational space, Caplan said.

Honoring and telling the stories of the four students who were killed on May 4 is something that Caplan said is one of the museum’s main purposes.

“One of the things that the center does is tell you who Jeffrey Miller was, who Sandy Scheuer was, who Allison Krause and Bill Schroeder were, so I think getting to know these students and connect with them and find a personal connection with them, and really understand that they were similar to Kent State students today,” Caplan said. “Some of them were there protesting and some of them were just caught in the action of the moment.”

Caplan said that she is honored to educate younger generations about May 4 and inspire them to create change.

“I think students today are at the forefront of a time where they are going to make pivotal changes in this world,” Caplan said. “Being able to work with college students and connect with them and help them take these stories and make them more relevant is something special.”

Aden Graves is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected]