YSU students offer book on China trip

The book was planned as a learning experience from the start of the trip.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Ten Youngstown State University students who completed a three-week study tour across China last spring have written a book documenting their experience.

A reception and book-signing are set for 4 to 6 p.m. Friday at the McDonough Museum on the YSU campus to mark the release of “2008 Summer Art in China,” a 96-page, full-color volume. The book features essays and photographs reflecting the students’ first impressions of contemporary China, with a focus on Chinese visual arts.

The students designed and published the book to culminate a three credit-hour undergraduate communications course, “Visual Arts of China: Intercultural Communication through Chinese Art and Architecture,” that YSU offered in partnership with William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. Eighteen art students from William Paterson also took the course and helped create the book.

The students were writing, taking photographs and planning the design of the book from the start of the tour, based on the premise that they would learn more working actively on a project than they would with a more traditional, lecture/test-taking course format, said George McCloud, YSU professor of communication and vice president for university advancement.

McCloud and two faculty members from William Paterson accompanied the students on the trip.

“We were working 14-hour days, seven days a week. If the students weren’t touring or eating, they were writing,” he said. “It was hard work. Our goal was to get all the writing done before we left China, and we met that goal.”

The reception and book signing will include brief comments by two of the student authors, Tony Angnardo of Warren and Shaunda Yancey of Youngstown.

Other YSU students who participated in the course and co-authored the book are: Arica Angelo of New Middletown, Sarah Cammarata of Youngstown, Benjamin Chell of Youngstown, Jennifer Fitzgerald of Boardman, Courtlynne Peterson of Youngstown, Jennifer Ramsey of Youngstown, Thomas Sebulsky of Boardman and Nina Stanislav of Poland.

Copies of “2008 Art in China” will be available for sale at the reception and at the YSU Bookstore for $20. All proceeds will be used to promote future international study projects involving China.