YSU trustees hire Tressel, bid farewell to others

Youngstown State University trustees approved the presidential contract for Jim Tressel and the $173 million operating budget for fiscal year 2015 at a meeting Wednesday.

The budget plan includes 15 permanent layoffs and permanently eliminating 43 position vacancies.

Tressel’s official presidential tenure begins July 1 although he will begin serving as acting president Friday.

The contract runs through June 30, 2017, and Tressel will earn $300,000 in base pay his first and second years which may be increased the third years based on a performance review by the board.

Dr. Sudershan Garg, whose last meeting as trustees chairman was Wednesday, said that the presidential search that netted Tressel cost $14,504.

He compared that to the 2010 search when Cynthia E. Anderson was selected, which cost $175,000; and the 2013 search when trustees picked Randy J. Dunn as president, which cost more than $108,000.

“I believe we get a better president than the one who left,” Dr. Garg said, referring to Dunn.

Carole Weimer was elected by the board as the new chairwoman.

Wednesday was the last meeting for Ikram Khawaja, interim president who also served as provost and vice president for academic affairs since 2007, who is retiring June 30; and for Shearle Furnish, founding dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, who has resigned to become the founding dean of the College of Arts, Letters & Sciences at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Read the complete story in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.