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YSU committee approves formation of an honors college
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
A Youngstown State University trustees’ committee approved formation of an honors college and the renaming of the School of Graduate Studies and Research to the College of Graduate Studies.
Formation of the honors college comes after YSU’s deans completed a review, comparing the university’s honors program with programs at other Ohio institutions, according to background for the resolution.
Martin Abraham, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, told the trustees’ Academic Quality and Student Success Committee on Thursday that the Honors College expands the honors program to attract students who aspire to be honors students.
Abraham said setting up the structure for an honors college doesn’t involve additional money.
The move doesn’t eliminate the Leslie Cochran University Scholars program, which provides full-ride tuition and room-and-board scholarships, but instead spreads scholarship dollars to more people.
Since that program’s creation, 40 students per year have earned those scholarships.
President Jim Tressel said the honors program will be a tool to recruit more honors students.
“Will there be 160 students [the number of Cochran Scholars at a given time] getting 51 percent of the scholarships? No,” he said. “We want to make it even more vibrant.”
The number of students who will be awarded Cochran Scholarships will depend on the number and quality of students who apply, the president said.
Committee members unanimously approved the honors-college formation. The measure heads to the full trustees’ board for approval later this month.
The same committee also unanimously approved renaming the School of Graduate Studies and Research to the College of Graduate Studies. Trustees’ University Affairs Committee approved two related resolutions: to approve creation and recruitment of an associate vice president for research and recruitment of a dean for the College of Graduate Studies.
The school houses both graduate studies and the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs.
“We’d like to be able to separate them,” Abraham said.
The school would be split into two units: the College of Graduate Studies and a unit for the Office of Research.
When the former associate provost and dean of graduate studies retired in early 2013, a proposal was made to create two positions to replace the individual who retired.
The associate dean of graduate studies position was filled with an internal candidate. A search was conducted for the associate provost and dean of graduate studies and research but failed to net a candidate.
Creation of an associate vice president for research position will eliminate the associate dean for research post. The associate dean position has been filled since 2013 by a retired faculty member who also teaches. His annual associate-dean salary is about $60,000.
Abraham said the salary range for the new position will be $140,000 to $160,000 per year.
The salary for the dean of the College of Graduate Studies will be within that same range although the salary of the person in the associate dean position is about $130,000 annually.
Tressel said, however, the university has been losing research money by not having someone dedicated to that function.
Abraham said that in 2009, the university earned $11 million in research funding. That amount dipped to $3 million in 2012 and then rose to $6 million last year.
“If we can get back up to $10 million we would be in a great position,” he said, although he believes the university could attract even more.