Newly selected YSU president will have press conference

Photo

Tressel

Staff report

Youngstown

The newly chosen ninth president of Youngstown State University will be on campus today.

Jim Tressel will have a press conference tonight in the Ohio Room on the second floor of Kilcawley Center.

A special YSU Board of Trustees’ meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center to further consider the terms of the president’s new contract.

The board is expected to go into closed executive session for no more than 30 minutes, after which President-designee Jim Tressel and his wife, Ellen, are expected to join the open meeting.

It is possible that Tressel and Board Chairman Sudershan K. Garg will then sign the general terms of Tressel’s contract, YSU’s Public Information Officer Ron Cole said Sunday.

After the meeting adjourns, sometime between 7 and 7:30 p.m., Tressel will have his press conference.

After the press conference, a public reception will take place for the Tressels in the larger Chestnut Room.

Tressel was selected by the trustees in a unanimous vote Friday morning, and he accepted in principle.

Tressel expressed excitement on his Twitter account and in a statement released after the announcement of his selection.

The former head coach for YSU and Ohio State University football teams and current executive vice president of student success at the University of Akron was also in the running for the presidency at Akron, but his opponent, Scott L. Scarborough was selected as the 16th president there on Thursday.

Scarborough was offered a five-year term on the base salary of $450,000, and he will also receive $80,000 in deferred compensation for housing. Scarborough serves as the provost at the University of Toledo. He will start at UA on July 1.

After recommendations from Valley leaders, YSU’s union leadership and others, Tressel was selected over Mary Cullinan, president and professor of English at Southern Oregon University ,and Gary L. Miller, chancellor at University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

He is coming to YSU after former president, Randy Dunn, left after eight months on the job to become president at Southern Illinois University.

“The outpouring and well wishes sent by former colleagues from YSU, The University of Akron, Miami [of Ohio], Syracuse University, Baldwin Wallace, and The Ohio State University has been overwhelming,” Tressel wrote in his statement released Friday.

“It has been a healthy confirmation of the extraordinary importance of the academic mission and total student experience that is the responsibility of higher education, and most certainly those charged with the leadership of all universities in our nation.”