Over the years, a handful of Ohio college towns have appeared on lists tabulating great universities and their communities, but Kent is notably absent.

Some city officials believe the absence won’t last….

…In June 2005, the Princeton Review and Campus Compact, a national group which promotes the civic purposes of higher education, released a book titled “Colleges with a Conscience.” The book named Defiance College in Defiance, Oberlin College in Oberlin and Miami University in Oxford as conscientious colleges in small Ohio towns.