43
YSU forges ahead with enrollment-center plan
By Denise Dick
Photo
Cynthia Anderson
MOVING PLANS
YSU enrollment center The Youngstown State University administration proposes creation of an enrollment center in Jones Hall to retain students and to restore its flagship building to a position of relevance and centrality. Affected services and their current locations:
Records and transcripts, Jones.
Undergraduate and Graduate Recruitment and Admissions, Sweeney and Coffelt halls.
Registrar’s Office, second floor of Meshel Hall.
Bursar’s Office, second floor of Meshel.
Placement testing, first and second floors of Meshel.
Student orientation, first floor of Kilcawley Center.
International studies and programs, first floor of Jones.
Student advisement, each of the university colleges.
Jones Hall’s current occupants and where they would be moved if determined:
First floor
Metro College, move elsewhere on campus.
Records, retain in Jones, downsize.
International students, retain in Jones.
Career services, retain in Jones, downsize.
Second floor
Upward Bound, undetermined.
Budget, payroll, procurement, general accounting and financial services, move to Tod.
Third floor
Human resources and financial services, move to Tod.
YOUNGSTOWN
There’s no money allocated to pay for it, but plans are moving forward to create a one-stop enrollment center at Youngstown State University.
Cynthia Anderson, YSU president, announced her intention to create such a center in her State of the University address last month.
“We think now is the ideal time to do an enrollment center in Jones Hall,” Jack Fahey, interim vice president of student affairs, told the trustees’ Academic and Student Affairs Committee this week.
Anderson told the committee she believes the change will have a significant impact on student retention.
Transforming Jones into a one-stop enrollment center enables YSU to restore its flagship building to a position of relevance and centrality for students, plans provided to committee members said.
The offices related to enrollment are scattered across campus. Bringing them all together under one roof would improve service to students, allowing them to complete the enrollment process in one building, Fahey said.
“I think it’s an outstanding plan,” said Harry Meshel, a trustee.
Students he’s spoken with favor the idea, and it would make things easier for families when they come to enroll a student at the university, he said.
Scott Schulick, trustees chairman, said he likes the idea of a centralized enrollment center as well.
Fahey said that he and Eugene Grilli, vice president for finance and administration, are working together and hope to have realistic budget projections for the center in the coming months.
Meshel said the university should look at capital funds already appropriated to YSU for other purposes to determine if it can be used for the enrollment center.
“Planning logistics to make Jones Hall viable is challenging,” the documents provided to the committee said. “The key is to move most of the existing tenants [primarily financial affairs[ out [primarily to Tod Hall]. Before this can be accomplished, some vacant spaces and a few current Tod Hall tenants need to be relocated.”
That must be done quickly and in the proper order, it says.
It would involve moving other offices too.
The Office of Marketing and Communications has outgrown its space in Tod, the documentation says, and needs more studio-type space than office space and would be best-suited to location on the campus periphery.
A tentative time line calls for construction to begin in early 2012 with a grand reopening in March 2012.