YSU program is semifinalist

YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University's SMARTS program has been named one of 50 semifinalists nationwide for the 2006 Coming Up Taller award.
SMARTS -- Students Motivated by the Arts -- was selected from more than 350 nominations by the program that recognizes outstanding community arts and humanities programs for America's young people. Finalists will be named by the end of June.
The award is presented by a consortium of arts organizations: The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
SMARTS, created in 1997, is an arts education project of the YSU College of Fine and Performing Arts, the Beeghly College of Education and arts organizations in the region. The program seeks to motivate children to succeed in all areas of life by teaching the discipline and focus that creating arts takes. SMARTS also provides early teaching opportunities for YSU students training to be teachers.
The program reaches 100 to 150 children a week in kindergarten through 12th grade at the SMARTS Center, 258 Federal Plaza West, and at other locations in the community.
SMARTS classes are free and open to the public by application and include music, dance, theater and visual arts with literacy at the core of the SMARTS mission. The program's primary focus is to serve at-risk students who reside in Youngstown.