Sweet fears that interests of the Valley will be overlooked by new commission

The panel can consider the sharing of undergraduate degree programs.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Dr. David C. Sweet is worried about the representation on a new commission created to study collaboration among five Northeast Ohio universities.
He's concerned that the greater Youngstown area might get short shrift by a group that appears to have a Cleveland dominance, at least among its initial membership.
The state Legislature created the North East Ohio Universities Collaboration and Innovation Study Commission last fall to develop a plan and make recommendations on collaboration among Youngstown State University, Kent State University, the University of Akron, Cleveland State University and the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.
It will be a 19-member panel and former Gov. Bob Taft made the five gubernatorial appointments before he left office in early January, naming five business executives to the group.
Sweet, president of YSU, pointed out that three of those executives are from the Cleveland area. One is from Akron, and the man named chairman of the commission is from Canton.
"It's a Cleveland agenda that is being served," Sweet recently told the YSU Academic Senate.
He said he fears that the Cleveland corporate community will control the study. That area of the state frequently has an agenda that talks about Northeast Ohio, but often doesn't extend to the Mahoning Valley.
They tend to think of Northeast Ohio as the I-77 corridor (Cleveland, Akron, Canton), Sweet said, adding that he and others from this area always try to get the entire "lake to river" region included. This area has as much potential as any other, he said.
He said YSU doesn't want to lose its identity, "and we will be working to assure that is not the case."
Formation
The study commission hasn't been fully formed yet. Each of the five universities will get two appointments, and Sweet and Atty. John Pogue of Warren, chairman of the YSU Board of Trustees, will represent Youngstown State.
The Ohio Board of Regents, the coordinating body for higher education in Ohio, got two appointments and named its interim chancellor, Garrison Walters, and Bruce R. Beeghly of Youngstown, Regents' vice chairman and a former YSU trustee, as its representatives.
The state House and Senate also each get one appointment and those haven't been made yet, Sweet said.
The panel is empowered to look at such things as the sharing of undergraduate and graduate degree programs, sharing of some governance mechanisms and coming up with a coordinated approach to academic and administrative roles of public higher education for Northeast Ohio.
Sweet said one of his concerns is the possible push for a change in the higher education system that might put all higher education in the region under a single CEO and board. Right now, each of the five universities has its own president and board of trustees, and, although there are various collaborations, each remains independent.
Changing the system won't necessarily make it better, Sweet said.
Specifics
He would like to see more of a concentration on collaborative programs that already exist, such as the BS/MD degree program that YSU, Kent and Akron run in conjunction with the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.
That's just one example, and there are many more that could benefit from some incentive funding form the state, Sweet said.
Ohio gives incentives to the business community, why not to collaborative efforts in education? he asked.
Sweet would also like to see the commission come up with a plan that more closely links primary and secondary education with higher education in Ohio. The state spends 10 billion a year on education (with 2.5 billion going to higher education) and some of that money might be better spent on encouraging collaboration among educators from kindergarten through college, he said.
YSU has been a leader in that area, he said, referring to Youngstown Early College, a partnership with the Youngstown city schools that puts freshmen high school students on YSU's campus, where they can take college courses while completing high school.
YSU is also looking at the creation of a community college, which would be a collaborative effort among a number of area institutions, he said.
"We have, or are putting in place, programs that serve as a model for the rest of the state," Sweet said.
gwin@vindy.com