By Michael Scott, The Plain Dealer
KENT, Ohio — Maybe Kent State has finally come of age.
Four decades have slipped by since Neil Young’s”four dead in Ohio” rang out as a generation’s lament on the loss of life and innocence. And some now say a renewed and mature Kent is rising — even as it finally fully honors its dead and embraces its dreadful place at a deadly point in American history.
Certainly, a stifling shame has long shadowed Kent State University — its particular dishonor earned in 13 cruel and chaotic seconds at 12:24 p.m. on May 4, 1970.
On that day, in that moment, American troops, occupying an American college campus, killed four American students and wounded nine others.
“It’s no wonder it seems that this university was just trying to keep its head down for a 40-year period after the shootings,” said Kent State President Lester Lefton, who came to the university in 2006.
“But I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I believe we’re a very different and a more successful institution today than we were on May 4, 1970.”
Successful, certainly: Kent is now Ohio’s third-largest state university with 38,000 students (nearly twice as many as in 1970). Kent State is home to the state’s largest nursing school and a top 10 U.S. fashion school and museum is generally acclaimed as an international leader in liquid crystal research.
School officials and graduates also laud the college of education and journalism-mass communications school for annually turning out “work-ready” teachers, journalists and communications specialists.
Yet for the last 40 years, Kent State — like a troubled middle-age victim of childhood trauma — has also been awkwardly wrestling with how to reconcile those successes with the fundamental failure of May 4. Dozens of histories have been written and dozens of studies have been done — all focused on May 4, including more than an entire floor at the Kent State University library.
A dark anniversary
Tuesday will mark 40 years since the Kent State killings.
The dark anniversary falls in the same year in which Kent State University celebrates its 100th year: It formed as the Kent Normal School (with 144 students) for teachers in 1910.
“Nearly half the life of this institution has now been associated with one, terrible event,” said Carol Cartwright, another former Kent president (1991-2006), now president at Bowling Green State University. “That’s no small thing — even in the context of a centennial.”
Story Compliments Of The Plain Dealer
