Dear Alumni; What You've Missed in the Past Year

Returning alumni of Kent State University will see some big changes around town and campus this Homecoming weekend.

So many big stories have happened in the past year, it's hard to find a place to start.

We'll go with the obvious:

• Robin Hood Demolished: a bare patch of grass is all that remains of the Robin Hood Inn, which was demolished in May. Watch our video to and hear residents' reactions.
• New Kent State Hotel: where one building falls, another will rise. The Kent State Foundation and Columbus hotelier The Pizzuti Companies broke ground in September in downtown Kent. The hotel could open as early as next year.
• Sculpture Mile, Esplanade Link Campus to Downtown: a new pathway, referred to often as the "yellow brick road," will link the Kent State campus to downtown and has taken several big steps forward in the past year. In April, the university christened the , which cuts across campus to South Lincoln Street. The wide pedestrian path will pick up and carry it through the neighborhood west of campus and into downtown, where it will meet up near the new hotel. Construction will start in the spring.
• New Student Housing Under Construction: two big, new student apartment complexes are under construction near campus. The first is the brand new Province at Kent, which will bring . The second is the , which is being built on the former Sunrise Apartments site on Rhodes Road.
• Record Enrollment: The  enrolled at Kent State this year, causing .
• Library Makeover: the addition of new study spaces to the Kent State Library .
• 41 Years Since May 4 Shootings: hard to believe, but it's been 41 years since the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970. Big news this year was , which should start to open in 2012.
• Lefton Marks 5 Years at Kent State: The university's 11th president, Lester Lefton, marked his fifth year running Kent State this summer. We profiled Lefton this month to .
• Provost Stepping Down: Kent State Provost Bob Frank announced in July at the end of this academic year.

Those are the bigger headlines that happened on campus in the past year. Let's take a look at the more city-oriented big news you've missed since you left:

• New Transit Center Breaks Ground: a huge new parking deck and bus transfer facility downtown. Across from the new hotel, the PARTA Kent Central Gateway transit center will add almost 400 parking spaces and a 10-bus transfer bay to Kent.
• Acorn Alley Double-Take: construction started downtown on the counterpart to the wildly popular Acorn Alley. Acorn Alley II and brings new restaurants and businesses downtown.
• City Starts Downtown Redevelopment: city officials broke ground with Cleveland development partner Fairmount Properties on a that will remake an entire downtown block.
• Record Demolitions: all this redevelopment work means a lot of old buildings and houses in the past few years.
• New Bridge Almost Done: the new Fairchild Avenue Bridge has been under construction probably since before you graduated, but the news is that .
• Traffic Lights to Improve Flow: new stop lights on S.R. 59 along campus, stretching from Horning Road all the way to Middlebury Road, will to improve traffic flow through Kent.

To make things easy, we've attached videos and photos from these big news stories to this article, so peruse the gallery to see what you've missed in the past year.