Accomplishments of last 31 months are 'extraordinary,Tressel tells YSU community

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State University made seating room in Kilcawley Center Thursday afternoon for nearly 300 additional people to hear President Jim Tressel give his State of the University Address.

“What you’ve accomplished in the last 31 months is extraordinary and we can’t thank you enough,” Tressel said to students, staff and community members about the length of his tenure.

Some of the problems YSU faced and continues to face are state funding cuts, tuition freezes and being “asked to do more with less people,” he said during the 90-minute address.

Another problem, he said, was decreased enrollment. YSU’s 2016 fall enrollment was 12,756, which is higher than 2015 by a few hundred students but lower than the 2010 enrollment of 15,194 students.

“What’s been exciting to me – and a wonderful thing to observe – is like we do in the Mahoning Valley, we rolled up or sleeves and decided we understood the challenges and went to work on the challenges,” Tressel said. “We just had so much work put in by so many people.”

Read more about the address in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.