Tressel charts a course for YSU that recognizes changing times

As the trustees and faculty at Youngstown State University prepare to vote on a contract that should bring labor peace to the urban institution for the next three years, President Jim Tressel, who has been on the job since July, has been meeting with the presidents of Kent State University and the University of Akron to discuss areas of collaboration aimed at reducing operational costs.

With higher education in Ohio under pressure from Republican Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-controlled General Assembly to reform — by ending duplication of academic programs, cutting costs and reducing tuition so a greater number of Ohioans can attend the public universities and colleges — collaboration of the sort being discussed by Tressel, Dr. Scott Scarborough of Akron and Dr. Beverly Warren of Kent is the future.

Indeed, their effort has attracted statewide attention, as evidenced by a story Nov. 6 in the Columbus Dispatch. Here’s a key paragraph that puts in perspective what’s being pursued — but actually had the opposite effect in the state’s capital.

“Although an outright merger of Youngstown State, the University of Akron and Kent State University has not been discussed, almost everything else is on the table, Scarborough, president of the University of Akron said yesterday.”

Use of the word “merger” was enough to get tongues wagging at a gathering of state government officials, higher education types, political consultants and reporters. They were on hand to discuss the legislative agenda for the lame-duck session and for next year.

CONSOLIDATING SERVICES

Although the story made clear that the YSU-UA-KSU initiative could include combining or coordinating information-technology departments, treasury services, purchasing, academic programs, research facilities and other operations, the chatter in Columbus centered on the three institutions becoming one.

Tressel, Scarborough and Warren have given no indication that creating one university with branch campuses is being contemplated, but with all the financial pressures on Ohio’s 13 public colleges and universities, thinking what would have been unthinkable in the not too distant past makes sense.

Youngstown State, an open-access urban university that serves northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, is facing an uncertain future as a result of declining enrollment, a reduction in state funding for higher education, and an operating budget deficit that is expected to keep growing.

Until last week, it appeared that the university was also going to suffer labor strife as a result of a strike-authorization vote taken by the faculty.

Today, however, a tentative agreement for a three-year labor contract is a hopeful sign for the future.

All the stakeholders on campus must join forces in taking on the challenges placed on higher education by decision-makers in Columbus — and by the national economic recession that hit the Valley particularly hard.