Resting on a hill overlooking the north side of Cincinnati, Clifton offers a wide range of experiences from a college atmosphere with the city's largest school, the University of Cincinnati, to an international center for cutting-edge medicine featuring University, Children's and Good Samaritan hospitals. Clifton's history has been preserved in historical buildings and homes — from modest to millionaire. Trendy shops and restaurants can be found on Ludlow Avenue in the Gaslight District, along with the Esquire Theatre, yoga studios, Clifton Market and a newly renovated branch of the Cincinnati Public Library. Even though Clifton is tightly compacted with large buildings and interesting architecture, green space does exist at Burnet Woods.
An Ohio River overlook. A major public square. A balcony with a city view. An urbane, and urban, library. These are a few of the local sites that inspire and influence a cadre of Cincinnati's creative class. Soapbox photographer Scott Beseler captures inspiring images of a few in their favorite city sites.
The University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music is one of the first universities to use locally developed web-based software to streamline and manage video applications for creative and sports programs.Acceptd, co-founded by Don Hunter of Oakley and Derek Brown of Columbus, manages digital applications, making them easier to upload, edit and share. It can be used by potential students and college programs as a central place to communicate. "With Acceptd, students upload their digital audition, which saves them time and money in travel; and faculty can view and discuss candidates online, which saves them time and resources that could be spent with the most qualified applicants," Hunter says.CCM, along with The Ohio State University's Department of Dance and Otterbein University's Department of Theatre and Dance, will be part of a pilot that uses Acceptd for their admissions processes this fall.The founders believe the program is game changer for both potential students and faculty. "It saves the colleges time because universities can be more selective in whom they ask for a live audition," Brown says. "Generally, colleges spend hundreds of hours watching live auditions to select a handful of students. It saves students money, because they will only need to travel to schools where they are a likely candidate for admission."The program contains a dashboard where applicants can upload their videos and send them to multiple colleges or universities. Students can add their social media pages, bios and more. The social media component also lets students connect through Facebook and see where their friends are applying. Acceptd will notify students by email or text when their video has been received, viewed and commented on.Acceptd has caught the eye of the state's investor community. The company received a $50,000 TechGenesis grant from TechColumbus, a catalyst for economic growth in Central Ohio, as well as $20,000 from the 10-xelerator, a new venture accelerator designed to attract and retain young entrepreneurs in the state of Ohio. By Feoshia HendersonYou can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites
Heather Britt teaches dance at Northern Kentucky University and works as one of the city's most sought-after choreographers. She finds inspiration at Fountain Square.
The University of Cincinnati Medical School joins seven other top medical training programs, including Stanford and UCLA, to include nine brief interviews to test if potential medical school students have the social skills needed to survive in a field where communication is critically important and too often undervalued.Read the full story here.
Clifton Comics & Games, a part of its community for almost seven years, has changed names and locations. Owner Steve Struharik now mans the counter of his new store, Arcadian Comics, on Monmouth Street in Newport, Kentucky. His current place of business neighbors The Galaxie Skateshop and Mammoth Coffee, and is maintaining a good portion of the customers who frequented the Clifton store. The move itself, however, was a complete surprise. Struharik recalls his first unofficial notice."Two gentlemen came in, they were looking around, and one guy was taking pictures of some of the stuff. I asked them what was going on." One of them mentioned a demolition. "Are you talking, like, fall?" the then-shocked storeowner recalls asking. "No," the man replied. "Next month. You didn't know?"Once Struharik had the circumstances confirmed in writing, it was clear that he had less than the six-month notice he expected in such an event when he first began his lease the space through a previous management group."I had a total of about 50 days from when I heard any mention of it before I had to get out...the biggest (financial) impact is having no income for 30 days...I had no forewarning," he says. "With this kind of thing, if I only had two grand in the bank, I'm done."Uptown Rental Properties LLC manages the property."Clifton Comics was on a month-to-month lease, so either party could give 30 days notice to vacate," says Johnna Mullikin, an Uptown Rental Properties representative. "To my understanding, that's what was done."Both Struharik and Mullikin believe that the current ownership group wants to use the prime Jefferson Avenue space for student housing.The new shop should feel reasonably familiar to former clientele of Clifton Comics, and includes specified sections for regular series, graphic novels and indie books. The upstairs space is devoted to gaming, like the Magic: The Gathering tournaments Arcadian currently hosts.Despite the drama, Struharik, who links his love of comics back to an old TV ad for G.I. Joe #11 he saw as a kid, manages to find some humor in the situation. "I'm really hoping to win an Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award for Clifton Comics," he says with a grin, alluding to the comprehensive application that was accepted shortly before he learned he'd have to leave. "It would be really fun to win, 'the Spirit of Retailing Award' (and then say) 'that store's closed.' "By Adrian Beiting
Children in low-income communities in six cities, including Cincinnati, will take part in improved summer learning programs, beginning this summer, thanks to substantial grants from the Wallace Foundation. Cincinnati Public Schools were chosen, in part, because of the Fifth Quarter program, which taps community organizations to provide fine arts, technology, fitness and environmental education. Read the full story here.
A national safety symposium taking place at the University of Cincinnati this week looks at successful partnership models from around the country, and broadcasts some of its sessions live.Read the full story here.
A University of Cincinnati neurobiologist may soon help mental health researchers understand depression at a more effective level than ever before, thanks to an innovative research method and a nearly-quarter-million-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health.James Herman, PhD, received a two-year NIH grant worth $248,159 in its first year to fund research into the role that microRNA (miRNA) - molecular-level controllers that help regulate the brain's chemistry - play in how the brain reacts to stress."We're attempting to develop this as a discovery platform to understand what's going on in the brain," Herman says. He explains that this research, in which scientists analyze how miRNA in mice affect the brain's mood-regulating prefrontal cortex, is very early-stage work in the exploration of the molecular process behind depression. But the ultimate implications of Herman's work could be significant. He explained that miRNA in mice function the same as miRNA in humans: identify a link between mouse miRNA and a brain dysfunction, and there's good reason to look for a similar relationship in the human brain. Beyond this tantalizing fact, though, scientists don't completely understand how miRNA works, or even how many types of miRNA exist in the brain.Herman's team is tackling this hurdle with a new analysis technique, called deep sequencing, to analyze miRNA at a high level of detail."The method is really, really powerful," he says. Processing one set of data from a sample, for example, can keep lab computers running nonstop for a weekend. Thanks to a collaboration with informatics researchers at the University of Michigan, Herman's team can spot relationships and patterns in this sea of data, results that could help scientists link certain miRNA function - or dysfunction - to the stress-processing problems underlying depression and mood disorders.These results could eventually give psychiatrists a new weapon against mood disorders. Rather than giving a patient medicine that floods the brain with mood-altering chemicals - a practice that often comes with severe side effects - physicians could one day provide treatment that fixes the way the brain controls its own chemistry. Medicine has a long way to go to reach that point, but the work Herman's team is undertaking at UC could be a major step in the right direction.By Matt Cunningham
I grew up visiting Findlay Market with my parents every Saturday. My mom and I explored Eden Park while my siblings took weekend art classes at the Cincinnati Art Museum. These were routines, not adventures. Or so I thought. In the eyes of city newcomers, and on the pages of Soapbox, I see the power in revisiting the familiar with a fresh perspective. I see the promise in a publication in which even natives can discover something new about their city every week. It's great to have a Soapbox. Let the next adventure begin.
If any book deserves the right to indulge in a little self-consciousness, it's Trophy, that takes us through the flash before the eyes of a dying man, and Cincinnati novelist Michael Griffith indulges to a delightful and dizzying degree (even the notion of flashing "before" one's eyes, as opposed to the more anatomically correct behind one's eyes, is scrutinized).Read the full story here.
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