YSU faculty attracts $6.8M in research and program grants

By Harold Gwin

The university brought in nine times the research money it secured in 1995.

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University faculty brought in just over $6.8 million in research and sponsored-program grants in fiscal 2007-08.

That’s a jump of nearly $1 million over the previous year and reflects a generally steady growth in external funding for campus programs and projects over the past 14 years.

YSU received only $738,249 in that type of funding in 1995.

“The state has been great in the last couple of years,” said Dr. Peter Kasvinsky, YSU associate provost for research and dean of graduate studies and research. Significant funding has come from state education and other state sources.

Ohio’s Chancellor of Higher Education, Eric Fingerhut, toured the YSU campus last week, saying that he believes the university can become a “first-class, fully developed research university” as part of its fit into the new version of public higher education in the state.

“That’s part of my vision,” said Kasvinsky, who came to the university 15 years ago.

There wasn’t even a grants office on campus then, he said, recalling that one was created in 1995 to begin assisting faculty in tracking down and securing grant funding for various projects and programs,

It’s been a real concerted effort to increase the research assistance coming into the university, he said, adding that he is “really pleased” with the results so far.

“We have some really terrific faculty here,” he said.

Youngstown State has somewhat of a disadvantage in attracting research dollars compared with some other, larger public universities in the state that can hire faculty primarily for research purposes.

“We are still a teaching university, and faculty must be in the classroom,” Kasvinsky said, explaining that it limits their ability to take on additional research projects.

The university is expected to be involved with commercialization and intellectual property development in the near future, Kasvinsky said. That will be a first for YSU, he said.

It will also tie into the chancellor’s and governor’s vision of Ohio’s public universities’ becoming driving forces behind economic development and new job creation.

Dr. David Pollack, associate professor of mathematics and statistics, is listed as the “principal investigator” on a $573,290 grant from the Ohio Department of Education last year, one of the larger awards received by the university.

The money funded an ongoing professional development program for local mathematics teachers working in grades three through 10, Pollack said, noting that the total three-year funding amounts to about $1.5 million.

Pollack and Dr. Howard Pullman, professor of teacher education at YSU, run workshops in the summer and during the academic year for math teachers, with most of the school districts in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties participating.

Nearly 270 teachers went through the program in its first two years and 120 are expected to participate this year, Pollack said.

gwin@vindy.com