Collaboration will lead to more students attending college, Sweet said.

By Harold Gwin | August 21, 2007 at 2:00a.m.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The president of Youngstown State University has called for the creation of a Mahoning Valley P-16 Council to help align education curriculums from preschool through college.

YSU needs to expand its leadership role and serve as the focal point for the educational pipeline in the Valley, Dr. David C. Sweet told the university community Monday during his annual State of the University Address.

“Our goal should be to collaborate with area school districts to encourage more students to attend college and to strengthen the preparation of these students to improve their potential for success when they get to college,” he said.

Getting curriculums aligned to ensure the proper progression through the educational process is one key to increasing the number of people going to college, Sweet said.

It would also help resolve the issue of reducing the number of students requiring remediation when they enter college, an issue Ohio’s Chancellor of Higher Education has raised, Sweet said.

YSU is spending $1 million a year on remediation programs, he said.

Community college proposal

The major gap in that educational pipeline is the absence of community college education here, Sweet said.

That’s something the state is addressing, although the chancellor has said no final decisions have been made.

YSU has tried to address it as well, coming up with a community college plan that the chancellor said could be considered as part of the state’s plan.

“I believe that any plan for providing community college education in the Mahoning Valley should have YSU at its center,” Sweet said.

Next year will be a particularly significant year in the history of YSU as it marks a century of service, but it is a school year begun with sadness over the loss in July of Provost Robert Herbert, he said.

Herbert, who died in a vacation accident, was leading an academic transformation of the university, from the creation of two new colleges to a significant increase in the number of minority faculty, something the university has been trying to achieve for years.

“Our commitment to what Bob started will be one of the themes for the coming year,” Sweet said.

The university has been true to a number of other “themes” over its history, including educational access and opportunity, evolution to meet educational needs of the region and being a center of civic life and source of community identity and pride, he said.

“These themes define, identify and unify us,” Sweet said, predicting they will serve as keys to YSU’s future as well.

There are changes coming in Ohio higher education as evidenced by recent actions of the governor and General Assembly, he said. YSU must recognize the reality of change and act accordingly, taking an active role in that process.

The members of the campus community must effectively communicate with one another, and Sweet said he and Dr. Sunil Ahuja, president of the Academic Senate, have agreed to initiate a series of “campus conversations” this fall open to everyone to discuss issues confronting the university. The first session will take place at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 14 at Pete’s Place in Kilcawley Center, he said.

He called for a unified approach in addressing any issues.

“Our ability to succeed as an institution will be severely compromised if we weaken ourselves with internal conflicts and attacks,” Sweet said. “Those who engage in these activities will be compromising the university as a whole.”

Both the faculty and classified employee unions have contracts that will expire next August.

Sweet said he shares the commitment of the outgoing classified union president seeking to conclude negotiations by May 2008 to ensure students that classes will be ready to resume in the fall.

Both unions staged strikes just before the start of classes in late summer 2005. Classes did start on time as both groups settled.

gwin@vindy.com