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YSU union seeks review before cuts

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University’s faculty union is asking the university’s Board of Trustees to fully assess all non-academic units before reducing or eliminating any academic programs.

The YSU-Ohio Education Association’s move calls for the board to authorize a letter Chet Cooper, chairman of the Academic Senate, sent April 30 to the administration asking it to make “data-informed decisions about all of our academic programs,” in response to a projected decrease in enrollment applications.

The correspondence quotes Brien N. Smith, provost and vice president for academic affairs, as saying, “The number of high school graduates is trending downward for the foreseeable future, and institutions of higher education can expect lower enrollments as a result.”

The situation has been exacerbated largely by a declining population base in the Mahoning Valley, leading to a smaller pool of high school graduates, Mark Vopat, union spokesman, has said.

The university also hired Concord, Mass.-based Gray Associates Inc. to assist with the effort.

In a memo to Cooper last week, Smith and YSU President Jim Tressel said that the board will consider the letter at its meeting next month while also looking at recommendations associated with the Academic Program Enhancement and Effectiveness Initiative, which is the university’s academic program review.

The APEEI also is a required component of the university’s accreditation process, the memo states.

In addition, the YSU-OEA took issue with the university’s recent announcement of a voluntary separation or retirement buyout program to reduce the number of faculty beginning in June, coupled with its decision to post an internal announcement seeking applicants for a new nonteaching, administrator position. The assistant provost of strategy and engagement position carries a potential $130,000 annual salary, a YSU-OEA news release states.

“Students come to YSU for our programs and our professors, not our provosts,” Susan Clutter, union president, said in a statement.

The YSU-OEA also contends that changes to the region’s demographics and other factors in the wake of the pandemic will necessitate YSU needing to make certain adjustments to remain solvent.

Nevertheless, such adjustments have so far focused on academic programs only “while adjustments to the rest of the university or potential revisions to its pre-pandemic strategic-actions plan are unclear,” the union said.

“Administration owes it to our faculty, our students and our community to reflect on what such actions say about its sense of post-pandemic ‘fiscal responsibility’ and where the university’s focus on its future truly lies,” the YSU-OEA added.

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