YSU extends Tressel one more year, approves Penguin Tuition Promise

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel will be with the university for another year.

The YSU Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday to extend Tressel’s contract to June 30, 2019. Tressel’s annual salary is $300,000.

Leonard Schiavone, board president, said the extension is an acknowledgement of the progress Tressel has made over the past four years.

Under Tressel’s leadership, YSU’s freshmen enrollment increased 25 percent; the most recent freshmen class has the highest standardized-test scores and grade-point averages in the university’s history; residence halls are at capacity; one privately financed student apartment complex has opened and is at capacity, and a second is now under construction; a new Barnes & Noble student bookstore also has opened on the west side of campus; and the university approved its first operating budget in five years without a deficit.

“We have previously spoken about extending the term longer, but the president made his commitment to the university on a yearly basis. We [trustees] want to make sure, as best we can, that the things [Tressel] set in motion will be brought to fruition,” Schiavone said.

Some of those things include the $100 million “We See Tomorrow” capital campaign and the creation of the Mahoning Valley Innovation and Commercialization Center.

The MVIC facility will be at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Commerce Street and will be a collaboratively used manufacturing lab.

Trustees also approved the Penguin Tuition Promise, a program locking in a student’s tuition rates for four years, pending the state chancellor’s approval.