Project Team

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kent State University's 2020 "Making Meaning of May 4" workshops will be offered Summer 2021. We're in the process of updating this website for the 2021 workshops, so check back soon.
Project Directors
Laura L. Davis, PhD, project co-director, is a Kent State professor emerita of English, and co-creator of the May 4 Walking Tour and May 4 Visitors Center, for which she received $300,000 in NEH funding through its America’s Historical and Cultural Organizations implementation grant program. A witness to the May 4 shootings, she team-taught Kent State’s May 4, 1970 & Its Aftermath course and co-authored successful nominations of the May 4 site for the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark status. In 2019, she received Kent State’s President’s Medal for documenting, educating the public about, and preserving the history and site of the May 4 shootings.
Todd S. Hawley, PhD, project co-director, a high school social studies teacher for seven years, is professor of social studies teacher education at Kent State University. He integrates the Kent State May 4 digital archives into his secondary social studies methods courses and co-developed a workshop for teachers titled Using the Kent State Shootings Digital Archives to Spark Inquiry and Action. He is co-project director for a Jennings Foundation grant, May 4, 1970 Then & Now: Voices for Change, which funded an August 2019 workshop about May 4 for middle and high school teachers.
Project Faculty and Presenters
Lori Boes, MLIS, assistant director of the May 4 Visitors Center, oversees K–12 and college tours and the museum’s outreach. She participated in the workshop funded by Jennings Foundation mentioned above, and on the project team for Annette Kratcoski’s NEH-funded grant titled Layers of History, which is described below. For the 50th Commemoration, she has curated exhibits that honor each student who died on May 4 and a Twitter feed (@KSUVoices1970) translating experience of students then into tweets now.
Alan Canfora, MLIS, a surviving casualty of the May 4 shootings, is library director of the Akron Law Library. As a student, he co-founded the May 4 Task Force, which began organizing annual May 4 commemorations since 1975, and the May 4 Coalition, which led efforts 1976–78 to limit construction within the site. He has spoken at more than 150 colleges and provided countless interviews to K–12 students.
Roseann “Chic” Canfora, PhD, a witness to the Kent State shootings, remains a stalwart advocate for remembrance May 4 and its place in history. A 28-year high school journalism teacher and now chief communications officer for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, she served as a crisis communications consultant following the Parkland shooting.
Shannon Christen-Syed, MAT and MA, grades 7–12 integrated language arts and English, teaches classroom Pan-African sections of English courses (primarily college writing) and online and classroom Pan-African Studies courses ranging from Black Experience I & II, The Legacy of Slavery, to Oral and Written Discourses.
Cara Gilgenbach, MLIS, head of Kent State’s Special Collections & Archives, has provided research services to thousands of users of the May 4 Collection and hundreds of instructional sessions teaching students how to access and use archival resources.
Mark Goodman, JD, Duke University School of Law, is Kent State’s first Knight Chair in scholastic journalism. Each year he speaks to over a dozen groups of high school journalists and journalism teachers about how their rights and responsibilities are defined by cases decided in the era of May 4, 1970.
Thomas M. Grace, PhD, a surviving casualty of the May 4 shootings, followed a career as a social worker and union representative and became adjunct professor of history at Erie Community College and author of the definitive Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties, which workshop teachers will receive. His book and workshop presentation contextualize the history of May 4 within the activism of Kent State students during the long sixties.
William Kist, PhD, is professor emeritus of education at Kent State University, where he taught literacy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and the recipient of the 2017 Ohio Outstanding University English Language Arts Educator Award. A former high school English teacher and language arts and social studies curriculum coordinator, he has been working with schools and districts on a national level for more than fifteen years. An author of over fifty articles and four books, he has presented many keynote addresses for organizations including the National Dropout Prevention Conference, American Reading Forum, and Denver Comic-Con.
Annette Kratcoski, PhD, director of Kent State’s Research Center for Educational Technology, oversees research and outreach related to K–12 curriculum and technology integration and leads K–12 teacher professional development. She is co-PI for an NEH-funded grant titled Layers of History: Experiencing May 4, 1970 and its Legacy and is co-project director with Todd Hawley for the 2019 Jennings Foundation grant to offer workshops on May 4 for middle and high school teachers.
Mike Levicky, MEd, taught high school civics and psychology for nine years and now is a lecturer on teaching methods and research practices in Kent State’s School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies. with a deep interest in May 4 and the arts.
Mwatabu Okantah, MA, a freshman at Kent State when the campus reopened in 1970, is associate professor and poet-in-residence in the Kent State Department of Pan-African Studies. A widely published poet, he has conducted residencies and workshops at numerous middle and high schools. He is a product of the Black Student Movement and the Black Arts Movement.
Mark Seeman, PhD, Kent State professor emeritus of anthropology, is co-author of the NR and NHL nominations and This We Know: A Chronology of Shootings at Kent State, May 1970, a copy of which workshop participants will receive. He has led tours of the site, served on discussion panels, and presented on the history of May 4, at times to grades 6–12.
James Ronald Snyder, Ohio National Guard (ret.), was a 32-year-old detective for the Portage County Sheriff’s Office and captain in the 145th Infantry, Ohio National Guard, stationed on the campus on May 4, 1970. Just after noon, Capt. Snyder led Company C from the skirmish line behind Oscar Ritchie Hall to the left of Taylor Hall. He and his company closed off the space between Taylor and Prentice Halls and remained in place there during the shootings. He and his troops had views of the parking lot side of Taylor Hall, where the shootings took place. He has participated at Kent State previously as co-discussant on a panel with Laura Davis for Kent State student organization the May 4 Task Force. 
Idris Kabir Syed, MEd in community counseling and MFA, is associate professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies and curator of the Uumbaji Gallery in Oscar Ritchie Hall. As an undergraduate at Kent State, he was editor of Black United Students' Uhuru periodical and more recently served as Middle East Chair of Progressive Students Network, long-time active member of and faculty advisor for the May 4th Task Force, and team-teacher of Kent State’s course May 4, 1970 & Its Aftermath.