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Trustees support plan for college
By HAROLD GWIN
WARREN
The Board of Trustees of Eastern Gateway Community College supports a plan to have Eastern Gateway become the collegiate partner in the Youngstown Early College Program.
The 11-member board voted unanimously Tuesday to endorse a three-year transition plan that would see Youngstown State University gradually back away from the partnership it formed with the Youngstown city schools in 2004 to allow selected city high-school students earn college credit while completing high school in a campus setting.
The YSU Board of Trustees also has endorsed the transition plan, which will keep the early-college program on its campus for three more years as Eastern Gateway begins taking over the college course offerings. The Youngstown City School Board is expected to approve the plan next week.
Under its terms, tuition would be reduced from the current $290 per credit hour to $96 per credit hour. The city school district will pick up the entire tuition tab for next year’s sophomores, juniors and seniors as they complete their YSU studies over the next three years.
Eastern Gateway and the school district will work out a tuition arrangement for next year’s freshmen and beyond who will be taking Eastern Gateway courses.
Laura Meeks, Eastern Gateway president, told her board that she has given the school district a guarantee that the tuition rate will remain at $96 per credit hour next year, which has been Eastern Gateway’s tuition for the last three years.
Dante Zambrini, an Eastern Gateway trustee, said the board wholeheartedly supports Youngstown Early College but will be needing some financial help to keep it running.
Meeks said KnowledgeWorks Foundation, which was instrumental in helping to launch the Youngstown Early College program, has offered assistance with the transition.
In other business:
Meeks said the board could vote as early as its next meeting on a proposal to open a campus in Warren. Eastern Gateway is looking at the Atrium building on Courthouse Square as a possible rented classroom space. There are other sites in Warren and Niles being considered as well, she said. The college offers courses at six locations in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Jefferson counties.
The board elected Molly Seals of Canfield, senior vice president of human resources and learning for the Eastern Division of Catholic Healthcare Partners, as its first chairwoman. John Gilmore of Steubenville, a sanitary engineer for the Jefferson County Ohio Water and Sewer District, was elected vice chairman.