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YSU committees don’t support college merger
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Abraham
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Mosca
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
The idea of a merger of Youngstown State University colleges may be dead before it really got started.
Last fall, YSU’s administration began considering merging the Beeghly College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences or dividing CLASS departments between Beeghly and the College of Creative Arts and Communication.
Martin Abraham, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, asked for input and recommendations from two committees — one of department heads and the other primarily of faculty.
Neither committee supports a merger.
“We had a dialogue, and the synergies and relationships and good academic collaboration that currently exist between departments, across departments and across colleges can be maintained and enhanced without necessarily moving to reorganization,” said Joseph Mosca, dean of the Bitonte College of Health and Human Services and chairman of the faculty committee.
He said that would be included as part of a report the committee will deliver to Abraham, likely within a week.
The three colleges include 16 departments.
Charles Howell, dean of the Beeghly College of Education and a member of the department chairmen and women, said that committee concluded reorganization wouldn’t be productive at this time.
Abraham said he can’t see going forward with a concept that department chairmen and women and a majority of faculty in those departments don’t support.
“What I started was a dialogue,” he said.
That dialogue is about better ways to provide interdisciplinary opportunities and to help students, Abraham said.
Discussions of a merger began last fall, and the idea didn’t go over well with some faculty members who believed the process was rushed. The deans of both CLASS and CCAS have left YSU for other institutions, and interim deans were appointed.
Initially, the committees were to make their recommendations to Abraham by early March, but that was later moved up to the end of this month.
There has been talk of renaming CLASS the College of International and Public Affairs to reflect a new identity.
Howell said that although the committee recommended against a merger, the process was productive.
Each committee was asked as part of its charge to come up with a list of synergies between departments or colleges to help top-level administrators as well as committee members identify ways departments and colleges could work together, he said.
“We’re always looking for ways to partner together,” Howell said.
During the process, he talked with members of other departments and colleges that he hadn’t before.
“I discovered wonderful information about things they’re doing that could benefit our students and departments,” Howell said. “I’m going to follow up with that. It was a productive experience in that way. Even though we recommended against it, we got a lot out of it.”