Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Even in these troubled times, there are good things to note
Editorials take their inspiration from the news of the day, and good news has been in short supply lately.
The mind-boggling developments on and around Wall Street and the reaction to the same in Washington has dominated the news.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist attacks and the ramblings in New York Tuesday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will demand commentary.
Crime and punishment closer to home has gotten some attention.
Clearly, it is time for a break from all that is bleak.
So we take pleasure in noting some positive developments of late at one of the Mahoning Valley’s most important assets, Youngstown State University.
The YSU Board of Trustees has approved an interim financing plan for $40 million in construction, including the new Williamson College of Business Administration building. That building will not only provide a home for one of YSU’s strongest academic programs, it will provide a link between the campus and downtown. That is a tie that has been more than 30 years in the making.
The financing plan clears the way to seek construction bids, and it puts the university in a position to apply for a $1 million grant that will bolster the on-going capital improvement plan.
Fringe benefits
New construction is, of course, good for the university. It improves the appearance of the campus, makes it easier to tap into the latest technologies and helps in the recruitment of students.
But it also good for the community, providing work in the construction industry and business for various suppliers. Construction is an important part of an area’s economic engine.
There was other good news at the university. YSU faculty brought in $6.8 million in research and sponsored-program grants in fiscal 2007-08, an increase of 15 percent over the previous year. The university attracted nine times as much research and grant money last year as it did in 1995.
Attracting research money is also good for the university and good for the community. The Strickland administration is encouraging universities to develop the kind of scholarship that attracts research and grant money.
That’s certainly not a bad thing, but it should not become confused with the university’s core mission, which is to educate as many students as it can, as efficiently and as well as it can.