ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï

When Becky Lehman walked into her first class at ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï, she was in her 30s, raising kids and working at an embroidery shop in nearby Mogadore, Ohio. Today, she is the health commissioner for the Portage County Health District – a career milestone she credits directly to the degrees she earned close to home at ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï State. 

When Cameren Hicks graduated from ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and a minor in finance, he knew he wanted to build a career rooted in numbers, problem-solving and analysis. Today, Hicks is a fraud modeling and analytics lead associate at KeyBank, where he helps protect customers and the company against fraudulent credit and debit card activity.

ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï graduate Emma Sherrie, '09, always had a feeling she would study anthropology, but still she took the time to check out all the other options available before finally settling on her original plan. ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï State’s Exploratory Program, which helps undecided students sample different disciplines before committing to a major, was a key part of Sherrie’s experience, and the main reason she chose ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï State in the first place.

It's 10:30 on a weeknight. Will Kalkhoff, Ph.D., a professor and graduate program coordinator in ÌìÌì³Ô¹Ï State's Department of Sociology and Criminology, has just settled in after a long day. Then his phone goes off. A possible drowning. A local lake. The clock starts ticking. Within minutes, he's on his way. And in that moment, everything he teaches in the classroom becomes something else entirely.