NEA grant awarded to YSU

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Youngstown State University a $100,000 grant for a public-art project.

It’s among the largest of NEA’s 64 Our Town grants. About 250 institutions applied.

It’s the largest NEA grant YSU has ever received.

The YSU project, which partners with arts, educational and philanthropic organizations throughout the region is called Innovative Plan Leveraging Arts Through Community Engagement.

“Receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts is like winning the top prize in a funding contest,” Mike Crist, interim dean of YSU’s College of Creative Arts and Communications and one of the grant application authors, said in a news release.

The grant will focus on themes that were prioritized for implementation during recent planning initiatives developed from collaborations between the city, YSU, Kent State University, the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, the Economic Action group and local community development organizations.

The themes include wayfinding, technology, parking, green infrastructure and lighting.

Changing Views | Designing Youngstown’s Future at the McDonough Museum of Art is an interactive public exhibition that offers attendees the opportunity to join the conversation and learn more about these revitalization themes.