Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staff report
youngstown
Youngstown State University’s award-winning SMARTS — Students Motivated by the Arts — program, a community arts school that has been providing quality arts education for more than 15 years, is relocating its operations from downtown Youngstown to the YSU campus.
“We are very proud that our SMARTS program was among the earliest participants in the revival of downtown Youngstown by being housed in the DeYor Center; however, we’re hopeful that by moving to an on-campus location, our increased access to faculty and campus resources will broaden and expand the reach of this important community engagement initiative,” said Bryan DePoy, dean of the College of Creative Arts and Communication at YSU.
SMARTS, which has provided programming free of charge to thousands of youths throughout the tri-county region and early-teaching opportunities to hundreds of YSU students, will relocate its administrative offices to Tod Hall on the YSU campus July 1. Programming will continue this fall at partner sites and on campus, with a strong focus on connecting to the academic departments in the College of Creative Arts and Communication. More details about programming locations will be announced soon. The SMARTS store will be relocated before the Holiday season.
“In addition to expanding opportunities for collaboration within the campus community, budget realities of the university also impacted the sustainability of supporting the lease of the DeYor facilities,” DePoy said.
For information, call 330-941-ARTS. A video about SMARTS can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/66083672.
Meanwhile, SMARTS will be releasing a new coloring book this summer filled with drawings by local artist Chris Yambar. The book, titled “I’m So SMARTS!’ features Itsi Kitsi Happy Adventure Cat & Friends. Proceeds from sales of the coloring book will benefit future SMARTS programming.