YSU President David C. Sweet delivers his final State of the University Address in Kilcawley Center.

Youngstown State University
State of the University Address
President David C. Sweet
Aug. 17, 2009

Good morning, and welcome to the start of the new academic year.

It is hard to believe that we will soon be concluding the first decade of the 21st century. It seems like yesterday that Y2K was part of the public consciousness and YSU was completing Q–2–S, the transition from quarters to semesters.

It also seems like yesterday that Pat and I came to Youngstown. I began my presidency on July 1, 2000, and delivered my first State of the University remarks on October 1st of that same year.

Much has been accomplished since then and I want to begin by thanking all of you, the Board of Trustees, the faculty and staff, and all who have served in my administration for playing a pivotal role in making our University stronger academically as well as better prepared to serve the needs of our students.

So now as I deliver my final state of the university address, one may ask:

What is the state of the University?

In summary, I believe that:

We are a bigger and better university.

We are a more diverse university in terms of our students, faculty and staff.

We are a more efficient university in our operations, our expenditures and especially our energy consumption.

We are a financially stronger university. Our state financial ratios (SB–6 ratios) are the highest in this decade–well above current state averages.

We are a safer university, and

We are engaged in a dramatic transformation– becoming an urban research university.

We have worked together to develop a series of plans. And, of greatest importance, together, we have implemented these plans.

Finally, we have successfully pursued the vision, articulated in our strategic plan, of becoming “a national model for student–centered urban universities, transforming its students into successful professionals, scholars, citizens and leaders.”

Today I would like to:

The past year was marked by three major milestones:

First, we started our fiscal year with the good news delivered on July 7, 2008, that Youngstown State University was officially reaccredited for a full ten years by the Higher Learning Commission — the gold seal for higher education.

Second, we successfully concluded celebrating our Centennial Year with a year–long series of events that recognized our proud past and promising future. And

Third, we completed the Centennial Capital Campaign raising more than $50 million, exceeding our initial $43 million goal. It is by far, the largest and most successful fund–raising campaign in our 100–year history.

Shortly after becoming president, the Board of Trustees and I held a two–day retreat to reach agreement on the initial goals of my presidency. We were greatly concerned about issues raised during the 1998 accreditation visit and report issued by the North Central Regional Accrediting Association, including the issues of enrollment decline and the lack of diversity on campus.

Emerging from the retreat were five priority issues:

• enrollment management, 
• diversity, 
• financial stability,
• university partnerships, and
• planning.

As a result, throughout my tenure as president, enrollment, diversity and partnerships have been constant themes and focal points of our collective efforts, and they will remain priorities for this coming academic year.

Let’s briefly look at our accomplishments:

• In Fall 2008, enrollment reached a fourteen–year high. As of this morning, headcount enrollment is 13,251, which is significantly above the headcount last year at this time. And enrollment of 14,000 is within reach.
• This year, more than 2,150 students earned degrees and moved on to the workforce or to further education. These graduates, those who preceded them, and those who will graduate in the years ahead, will be the primary contributors to the economic revitalization of the Mahoning Valley.
• Our minority enrollment continued to increase and reached an all–time high. The growth in the richness of diversity on our campus goes well beyond numbers to the multitude of events and programs each year that add to and enhance our learning environment.

  Professor Chet Cooper, president of the YSU Academic Senate, presents a special proclamation to President David C. Sweet prior to the State of the University Address. It was Sweet's final State of the University speech.

First, the Board of Trustees approved our plan to dramatically reduce the out–of–state surcharge for undergraduate students in eight counties in Western Pennsylvania. To date, response to the initiative has been beyond our expectations, and accepted applications from Western Pennsylvania have run 15% ahead of last year.

Second, we reached out to another population of potential students — veterans — and we opened a new Office of Veterans Affairs, designed to assist and support the men and women who are taking advantage of the new GI bill.

Finally, because campus safety is a primary concern to prospective students and the entire campus community, we installed a $1.5 million campus emergency communications and alarm system, established a Threat Assessment Team that is serving as an early warning system and next month we will complete implementing a campus–wide text messaging system.

There are several challenges (and opportunities) during the coming year that have potential enrollment implications.

One is the opening of the Eastern Gateway Community College (EGCC), which is offering its first classes this fall at selected sites in the Valley. Challenges and confusion are inevitably part of a start–up of this magnitude. As the community college opens and evolves, our campus needs to be assured that we are actively participating as a major partner in its activities, while at the same time advocating for our interests.

A second enrollment–related challenge is our partnership with the Youngstown City Schools. The success of this partnership, in particular the Youngstown Early College, has been recognized through its designation by the Ohio Department of Education as a School of Excellence. Last year the Early College generated over 1100 student credit hours of enrollment and most importantly, the program has significantly improved the lives and aspirations of its “at risk students”. A priority for this year will be to negotiate a successor agreement with the Youngstown City Schools and identify stable funding to ensure the Early College’s continued operation.

We continue to move forward with our Centennial Campus Master Plan and supporting the goals of Youngstown 2010, based on our partnerships with the City of Youngstown, the Humility of Mary Health Partners, the Catholic Diocese Youngstown, Wick Neighbors and private developers, among others.

Major progress can be reported on:

• The Groundbreaking and start of construction on the new building for the Williamson College of Business Administration, which, by the way, through its LEED certification, is the first of a series of efforts to create a more Green Campus.
• The approval by the Board of our agreement with a private developer to provide apartment style student housing north of campus, in which the first phase will open in Fall 2010.
• And, the selection by the Board of an architect for the WATTS Indoor Athletic Facility.

During the coming year we will continue the transformation of the campus and its neighborhood. Among the priorities for the year, we will:

• Develop a project plan for a new building for the STEM disciplines.
• Finalize and finance a plan for the restoration of the Wick Pollock Inn.
• Continue to acquire blighted properties in order to convert them to desirable uses.

One of the best news items of the summer is the acquisition of the long time eyesores — the two blighted red houses across from Stambaugh Stadium, made possible with the support of the YSU Foundation. We now control the entire corner block, and demolition of all four eyesores will be completed this fall.

This month, as the capstone of the Centennial Capital Campaign, we are launching a fundraising initiative to establish a Campus Beautification Endowment to help sustain our campus landscape, which is treasured by those of us on campus and in the community. Opportunities will be made available for campus colleagues, alumni and friends to purchase Memorial Trees and Benches. Another component of the endowment initiative will be a Centennial Circle Brick Campaign, where personalized bricks will be available for purchase for placing around the sculpture of President Howard W. Jones.

Academically, we may look back on the past year as a watershed moment in the history of the University. As part of the first full year of implementation of the state’s Strategic Plan for Higher Education, the Board of Trustees formally recognized four Centers of Excellence:

• Materials Science and Engineering
• Applied Chemical Biology
• International Business
• Rich Center for the Study and Treatment of Autism

I am proud of our open, collaborative process through which this and the other new reporting requirements of the state’s plan were met, and I want to thank all of our faculty and staff who worked so diligently on them.

During the coming year we must begin to meet the challenges associated with our designation as an Urban Research University. Foremost among them is the fact that state support per full time equivalent student and overall investment per student at YSU are both significantly less than the median of our peer universities designated in the Plan. In part, this is due to our historic low proportion of graduate students, which are funded at a higher level than undergraduates. While our general fund operating budget approved by the Board in June allows for initial funding for these Centers, in the future we will need to develop sources of consistent and annually–growing support.

One component of this required additional support will come from external grants in support of faculty and staff research. YSU faculty and staff are to be congratulated for securing more than $9 million in competitive external grants in 2009, the highest amount in the university’s history. This 157% increase since 2000 is the result of the dedication of faculty who apply for grants.

Another source of external support has been the congressional appropriations secured through the advocacy of Congressman Tim Ryan. This past year four faculty research projects, totaling $2.2 million, were funded by federal agencies that are increasingly recognizing the great work of our faculty scholars. In our entire history, the University did not receive a single federal funding earmark until 2005. Since then, Congressman Ryan has been responsible for securing over $13 million in research funds that support university faculty Centers and projects.

And finally, for the second year in a row, our Annual Fund received more than $1 million in contributions from our faculty and staff, alumni and friends: a 62% increase since 2000. These funds are a growing source of support of student scholarships, faculty research and University priorities. Scholarships for our students from the YSU Foundation and Annual Fund contributors will be even more important this year given the 60% cut in state student financial aid.

Obviously, along with these sources of financial support, our hope is that Ohio will move beyond current economic conditions, and we can look to increased state support as a future goal. Along with state support, we always will have to rely on student tuition.

With the state financial crisis and uncertain impact of the new higher education funding formula, the past year was the most difficult in a decade of fiscally challenging years. Both the mid–year state budget cuts and the decline in state support that was part of the final 2010 budget were successfully addressed without employee layoffs and with funding provided for new initiatives. This was accomplished through a three–month long budget development process in which expenses were reduced and resources reallocated. To emphasize my point, take a look at the layoffs and furloughs that are occurring at many state universities in Ohio. During the coming year, we will continue to advocate our interests related to the new state funding formula with its increased emphasis on course completion and graduation rates.

In January, Provost Khawaja and Vice President Anderson established a Task Force to review our record of student success. This initiative was motivated in part by our ongoing efforts to improve student graduation rates and in view of changes in the state funding model and the opening of the community college. The Task Force examined data on retention, degree completion, financial aid, developmental education, and advisement. The key task force recommendation, which I endorse, is to establish a structure whereby students who are underprepared could be served university–wide in a focused and consistent manner, facilitating their success at the University. To that end, we will be bringing to the Board, as a priority this year, a plan to start a University College.

In spite of the financial challenges confronting higher education and this university, we were able to successfully conclude negotiations with both the APAS and FOP bargaining units completing the two–year cycle of negotiations with our four campus unions. We will continue our efforts to improve campus labor relations, a key to which will be the recruitment of a new Executive Director of Human Resources. We will continue our commitment, articulated in the university’s strategic plan: “to develop a competent, motivated, diverse and competitively paid workforce committed to carrying out the mission of the university."

While we have had many accomplishments and successes to celebrate during the past year as well as our share of challenges, real transformation in higher education is measured in decades and represents the cumulative impact of annual plans and reports.

Let us first look at how Youngstown State has changed through the first decade of the 21st century and then imagine the outcome of continued transformation of the University ten years from now.

One way to assess change is through numerical indicators. Here are just a few:

• Ten years ago, our enrollment was at its lowest point in its entire history as a public university, 11,800.  The 16% increase in enrollment since then was the highest rate recorded by all state public universities during that period. 
•  Minority enrollment has grown 80% since Fall 2000 and has increased from 11% of our student population to 18%.

Youngstown State University has been transformed and it is transforming the Mahoning Valley. One way to measure this is through the ultimate outcome of our work, the awarding of degrees.

• Since the 2000 academic year, over 17,600 students have earned YSU degrees. Research confirms that the overwhelming majority of these graduates remain in the Mahoning Valley to live and work, transforming our region.

Sometimes, significant change is masked when we look only at endpoints of a time period. For example, while our overall full time faculty numbers have remained relatively stable, 300 new faculty have been hired since 2000. That means that nearly three–fourths of the full time faculty has nine years or less experience here at the University. Similar changes have occurred with our staff. Our faculty has been transformed and the best years of their professional lives lie ahead for both them and us.

Today we welcome 17 new faculty members to campus, along with two new deans: Brian DePoy for the College of Fine and Performing Arts, and Joe Mosca for the Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, as important new members of our team. We look forward to their leadership and creativity in the year ahead. The leadership of the entire group of Academic Deans is critical to our future.

Numbers cannot measure many of the most significant transformations. Let’s look first at academic programs.

• Since 2000, 14 new programs have been added for our students, enhancing the depth and breadth of our curriculum and meeting the changing needs and interests of our students and the region including: bachelor degrees in Gerontology, Forensic Science and General Studies; masters degrees ranging from American Studies and Financial Economics to Computer and Information Systems, Social Work, and Art Education; and the doctoral degree in Physical Therapy.
• These new degree programs currently have nearly 750 majors.

Moreover, there was no STEM college in 2000, nor was there a College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. To the credit of our faculty, YSU was the first university in the state to develop a STEM college, and our College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences brings greater focus to the humanities and social sciences.

The University has been transformed by the technological advances of the first decade of the 21^st century:

Each decade witnesses a change in how the campus looks and how the campus interfaces with its surrounding neighborhood.  Since 2000, a major transformation has occurred on our campus and in the immediate neighborhood.

• In Fall 2000, there were no University Courtyard Apartments; no Andrews Student Recreation and Wellness Center; no renovated bookstore nor renovated Beeghly Center; and no Bliss Hall Annex.
• The Campus Gateway concept was not yet conceived, let alone implemented.
• There were no statues honoring Howard Jones and Dom Roselli, and no beautifully rendered penguins sculptures throughout campus.
• There was no 9/11 memorial.
• There were no improvements to the bridges crossing the Madison Expressway, making them safer for our students and more attractive 
• However, there were also many more blighted and abandoned properties that thankfully no longer exist.

How did all of these transformations occur?

I believe there are two reasons:

First, and foremost, is your pride and dedication to Youngstown State University and its students. Without your commitment, much less would have been accomplished in the face of continuous budgetary challenges.

Second is the commitment to planning and allocating the resources to implement the plans.

The first planning initiative was the Operations Improvement Task Force, an advisory committee I appointed in late 2000 to review campus operations and make recommendations to improve our efficiency and effectiveness. Most of the Task Force’s 96 recommendations have been implemented, and we are now one of the most efficient campuses in Ohio in terms of cost and employees per student

This initiative was followed by the Centennial Strategic Plan, and more specific planning efforts centered on enrollment management, technology, the physical campus master plan and the academic strategic plan. Through the implementation of thoughtful, collaboratively developed plans, we can observe and measure our amazing transformation.

Let us now shift our attention from the past to the future.

What transformations will the Higher Learning Commission observe when it returns to the University in 2018?

I believe the Commission will be visiting a campus:

• With at least five new doctoral programs, including the doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering currently under development.
• With Centers of Excellence that have matured into units of national and international prominence.
• With a new building for the STEM College.
• Where the Williamson College of Business Administration building has become a hub of campus and community engagement, linking the University with a fully revitalized downtown Youngstown.
• With a renovated and revitalized Kilcawley Center that meets the interests and needs of 21^st century students, and a restored Wick Pollack Inn that along with the Kilcawley renovations and the new Williamson College building conference facilities are gathering places for campus, local and regional meetings.
• Where YSU has become a destination university for students from the Tech Belt between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and beyond, with an enrollment profile with a higher proportion of juniors and seniors, more international students, and a higher percentage of graduate students.
• Our campus is fully integrated with the surrounding neighborhood through student housing, restaurants and retail services and recreation spaces.
• Where the revitalization of the Smoky Hollow neighborhood becomes a textbook case on how a university, city and neighborhood development corporation (Wick Neighbors) can form successful partnerships, and
• Where the University–City collaboration that led to the comprehensive plan, Youngstown 2010, is widely heralded as the turning point in the revitalization of the core city.

  U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan praises YSU President David C. Sweet for his vision and accomplishments prior to Sweet's final State of the University address.

In conclusion, we should all be proud of what we have accomplished during the past year, and we can look back at the first decade of the 21^st century with an even greater sense of pride and accomplishment.

In July, I attended the summer Council of Presidents meeting of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). The theme was Uncharted Waters, and the sessions revolved around the unprecedented financial and operational challenges and uncertainties being confronted by universities throughout our country.

One conference presenter spoke of the new reality, “in a tumultuous financial environment, university presidents are being told to do more, better, with less”.

Another speaker highlighted the common mistakes being made at some universities, including over–promising and expanding institutional commitments, losing focus on the core mission, and failing to cultivate a distinctive strategic niche.

As plans are developed for the decade ahead, we must be mindful of the turbulent times that YSU and most — if not all — public universities confront. But this is not the time to be timid.

The decade ahead provides an opportunity to complete the transformation that we are now engaged in of becoming an urban research university and in so doing better serving our students, our city, our region and state.

I am confident the talent that exists on this campus today will enable the University to capture this exciting opportunity.

My personal thanks to each and every one of you for your great work during the past decade, and Pat and I look forward to following your progress in the decade ahead.