YSU may take over steel museum

By Harold Gwin

YSU officials see the link as a good fit for the university’s history department.

Youngstown State University’s Board of Trustees could vote as early as December on a plan that would have YSU’s history department take over day-to-day operations of the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor.

The center at 151 W. Wood St., commonly called the “steel museum,” is owned by the Ohio Historical Society, which has been actively seeking local partners to operate some of its 58 historical sites and museums. Half of them already are being run under local partnership agreements.

It was the society that approached the university’s history department with the proposal, said Ikram Khawaja, YSU provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Ownership would remain with the society, but the university would take over operations and planning and integrate the museum into its history department, he said.

“I see it as a real plus,” he said.

Shearle Furnish, dean of YSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said the museum would be a good fit for the history department.

The university has an applied-history program that includes archival history and historic preservation that could easily be linked to museum operations, Furnish said.

The arrangement is expected to generate student internships, work opportunities and assistantships, he said. The university already has two graduate students working at the museum under intern assistantships.

“We’re very much interested in having that partnership,” Khawaja said, explaining that the arrangement would be in line with the objectives of YSU’s academic programs and would provide another step in the physical interface of the university with the city.

YSU would move its historic-preservation department into the museum, Khawaja said.

Negotiations with the society are nearing a conclusion, and he expects to be able to take the issue to the trustees for action in December, he said.

That is a reasonable timetable, said George Kane, the society’s director of historic sites and facilities. The agreement is very close to completion, he said.

Furnish said the university would seek to extend public usage of the museum by conducting events there and expanding the K-12 school connection.

It costs the society, which has five part-time employees working at the museum, between $180,000 and $190,000 a year to run the facility, and the society offered YSU $100,000 a year to take over the operation, including those employees.

Details aren’t final yet, but the university isn’t sure it wants to take on that added employee responsibility, which could result in a long-term obligation, Khawaja said.

YSU has proposed the society keep its employees in place if it wishes, deduct their cost from the $100,000 and give the university what is left. That could amount to about $50,000 a year, he said.

YSU figures it can run the museum for just under $100,000 a year, which would require it to come up with around $50,000 of its own annually, he said.

gwin@vindy.com