Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Energy and optimism greeted groundbreaking Monday for a $12.1 million recreation and wellness center on the core of the Youngstown State University campus.
Its construction fills a gaping void for university students, serves as a catalyst for more broad-based university goals and casts a complimentary reflection on philanthropic businesses, foundations and individuals in the region.
Serious talk of the need to build a recreation center for all students began to surface on campus some 10 years ago as more and more students found it increasingly more difficult to use facilities on campus. Too often, student athletes or special events got first dibs on them. Then in 2000, students drafted an initiative that proposed construction of a rec center for all students' use. It passed by a whopping 86 percent margin.
Commitment
Not too long after that, the university took the students' wishes to heart. Rather than take the easy way out by pleading to the state, with its shrinking pot of funds for higher education -- for construction capital or socking it to students through higher tuition, YSU committed itself to a four-star recreation center financed exclusively from private sources.
Today plans call for a rec center that can meet or beat any of its rivals in northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The 65,000-square-foot two-level facility will feature a fitness area, climbing wall, weight room, jogging track, racquetball courts and a spiritual meditation room. Its location will be convenient for students and staff: attached to the west end of YSU's Kilcawley student center.
As such, the rec center also reflects the continued maturation of YSU into a first-rate comprehensive public university with all of the amenities to attract a diverse student body from near and far. Considering other colleges in the region already operate rec centers, it will be one less factor to potentially divert students elsewhere.
The center also will serve as a viable marketing tool to help the university achieve its strategic goals of increasing enrollment and slowly transforming YSU into more of a traditional campus, less of a commuter school only for students from the Mahoning and Shenango valleys.
A first in Ohio
Indeed the Andrews Recreation and Wellness Center will stand as a first in the state. It will be the first completely privately funded recreation center at a public college in Ohio. The John S. and Doris M. Andrews trust, named after the late Youngstown financier and his wife, led pledges with its $2 million gift. Nearly three dozen businesses, individuals or foundations contributed $100,000 or more to make the dream a reality. Countless others donated smaller amounts.
Such outpouring of giving proves that individuals and institutions in the region recognize Youngstown State University for what it is: a vital institution of higher learning and a critical cog for growth and economic development of our region.