News Releases

The Ashland University Department of Music is honored to host the 2020 Ohio Private College Instrumental Conductors Association Honors Festival, culminating with a free, public concert on Sunday, Jan. 19 at 1:30 p.m. in Hugo Young Theatre. The 2020 OPCICA Festival is organized by association President John Packard of Mount Vernon Nazarene University, along with Ashland University hosts Joseph Lewis and Dr. Scott Garlock.

OPCICA represents the instrumental music programs in Ohio's private colleges and universities, whose primary purpose is sponsoring an annual honors festival. This year's festival will involve 111 student musicians and 25 band directors representing 17 schools including Ashland University, Bluffton University, Case Western Reserve University, The College of Wooster, Defiance College, Heidelberg University, Kenyon College, Malone University, Marietta College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Muskingum University, Notre Dame College, Ohio Northern University, Otterbein University, the University of Findlay, Wittenberg University and Walsh University.

Ashland University’s Department of Foreign Languages will hold a Tournées Film Festival in January featuring five recent French films and one classic film. The festival, which is free and open to the public, will take place each evening at 7 on Jan. 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 and 29 in the Ronk Lecture Hall in the Schar College of Education.

The festival, which is presented in collaboration with Ashland University’s College of Arts and Sciences, was made possible by a grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange received by Dr. Richard Gray, associate professor of foreign languages, who organized the festival. Gray is the only professor in the Midwest to have received this grant six of the last seven years.

Ashland University wishes a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all and reminds everyone that AU offices will be closed for the Holidays beginning at 5 p.m. Dec. 20 and will reopen at 8 a.m. on Jan. 6. In case of an emergency, please contact Safety Services at 419.207.5555.

Ashland University’s Winter 2019 Commencement will be held on Dec. 14 at 10 a.m. in Kates Gymnasium inside the Physical Education Center on the Ashland University campus. The speaker for the event will be Brandon Edwin Chrostowski, founder, president and CEO of EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute in Cleveland, which provides formerly incarcerated adults a foundation in the culinary and hospitality industry whole providing a support network necessary for their long-term success.

No tickets will be required for the event, which is open to the public. The ceremony will be streamed live at – www.ashland.edu/commencement -- and also broadcast live in the Student Center Eagles’ Nest and the Student Center Auditorium. Faculty and students who are participating in the ceremony are to assemble at 9:15 a.m. in the Conard Field House located just west of the Physical Education Center.