Sunday, March 29, 2015
The fall semester will be a major test of Youngstown State University President James Tressel’s ability to address two problems that have plagued the urban institution: the decline in enrollment and the reduction in state funding for higher education.
When Tressel was hired last summer to fill the vacancy created by the sudden departure of Randy Dunn, he acknowledged that the four-year drop in student population and the funding formula used to allocate state dollars would be his top priorities.
Thus, in the nine months that he has led YSU, Tressel, with the support of the board of trustees, has pursued a couple of initiatives that are creative and seem to be showing positive results.
The first involves enrollment, which is under the direction of Gary D. Swegan, associate vice president for enrollment planning and management at YSU. Swegan was hired during Dunn’s presidency.
At a recent meeting of the board of trustees’ Academic Quality and Student Success Committee, Swegan said the number of prospective freshmen who have applied for the fall semester is more than double the number of freshmen applicants during the same time last year.
He also reported that the number of freshmen admitted thus far for the fall is more than 70 percent higher than last year.
The improved numbers are the result of Swegan and Tressel coming to the conclusion that YSU needed to expand its recruitment area. Thus, they visited schools in Cuyahoga, Ashtabula and other counties instead of focusing only on Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties in Ohio and Mercer and Lawrence counties in western Pennsylvania.
It does help that Tressel is known statewide and nationally as a football championship-winning coach at Ohio State University and Youngstown State. That reputation was one of the main arguments presented by his supporters for his presidency.
The other creative initiative is designed to meet the state’s student retention and graduation requirements by making sure freshmen are prepared for the academic rigors of a four-year institution of higher learning.
Courses for credit
YSU Jump Start is aimed at giving incoming students a chance to take up to two three-credit courses from June 15 through Aug. 7 at a tuition rate of $500 for each course, which is less than half the $1,011 regular rate.
“The initiative was created as a way to help students get a head start and reduce the amount of debt they have upon graduation and [to] get out sooner,” said Sharon Schroeder, assistant director of YSU’s Metro Credit Education Outreach. Among the course offerings are writing, math, reading and study skills.
The initiative is a response to the reality that many incoming freshmen are not academically prepared and, therefore, require remediation in the basic course work, especially math and English.
Gov. John Kasich, who has told Ohio’s public universities and colleges to find ways to cut costs and lower tuition, has said that students who cannot meet the standards of the four-year institutions should attend community colleges.
What YSU is aiming to do with its Jump Start program is to keep incoming freshmen from being discouraged when they begin their regular classes on campus.