YSU senior golfer Ryan Stocke of Elida, Ohio, competes in the 2010 NCAA Men''s Golf Championships Thursday, Friday and Saturday, May 20, 21 and 22, at Warren Golf Course in Notre Dame, Ind. He is the first YSU men''s golfer to participate in an NCAA Division I championship. He earned an automatic spot in the tournament by winning the Horizon League Championship earlier this month. For more information, visit http://www.ysusports.com/golf/men/200910/stocke_und.htm.

Below are a variety of items about upcoming events and other news notes on the campus of Youngstown State University: 

• YSU earns presidential honor for community service
• YSU HHS recognizes distinguished alumni
• Engineering students place high in competition
• YSU student selected to attend symposium
• WWII massacre in Russia is topic of event
• Free business seminars next week at Metro College

Calendar
Wednesday, May 19, 6:30 p.m. The 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre, where more than 4,000 Polish service personnel were executed, is the topic of an event in DeBartolo Hall on the campus of YSU. See News Brief below.

Thursday, May 20, 3:30 to 6 p.m. The YSU History Department honors students who won awards at the annual History Day. The event will be at the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor on Wood Street.

Friday, May 21. The YSU Bitonte College of Health and Human Services will honor eight distinguished alumni during its first annual Alumni Recognition Dinner in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center. See News Brief below.

Saturday, May 22, 7:30 p.m. The Schwebel Family are honored at YSU's annual Friends of the University dinner in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus.

YSU earns presidential honor for community service
Youngstown State University has been named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service–learning and civic engagement.

"Congratulations to YSU and its students for their dedication to service and commitment to improving their local communities," said Patrick Corvington, chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which administers the annual Honor Roll award.

The Honor Roll, launched in 2006, annually recognizes institutions of higher education for their commitment to and achievement in community service. Honorees are chosen based on the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service–learning courses.

"We are proud of the service that our students, led by remarkably committed members of our faculty and staff, provide to the community," YSU President David C. Sweet said. "This is yet another recognition of how YSU is engaged in the community in which it serves."

More than 5,000 YSU students participate in community services of some kind, said Ron Shaklee, director of the YSU University Scholars and Honors Program. About 500 students participate in at least 20 hours of community service per semester. The total number of service hours engaged in by YSU students adds up to about 75,000, Shaklee said.

In the application for the award, Shaklee highlights the university's annual Shantytown homeless awareness project, developed by students in the Leslie H. Cochran University Scholars Program. The project, which includes about 110 students and 2,500 service hours per year, involves the construction of a cardboard box city near the Lyden and Cafaro house residence halls. Students stay in the temporary shelters for a weekend in November. Since its inception 12 years ago, the project has logged nearly 23,000 hours of volunteer time and raised nearly $36,000 in monetary, food, personal needs items and clothing donations for the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley, Salvation Army, Beatitude House, Second Harvest Foodbank, Habitat for Humanity and ReStore.

"Through the process, students learned valuable lessons related to the less fortunate, many of whom are located within a few blocks of the university," Shaklee said. "They learned equally valuable lessons related to team building and cooperative activities."

Amy Cossentino, assistant director of the Honors Program, said Shantytown "not only provides a way for these students to give back to the surrounding community, but it affords to them an opportunity to develop a strong bond and community within their classes, and solidifies their connection to YSU."

To see the full list of Honor Roll recipients, visit http://www.learnandserve.gov/about/programs/higher_ed_honorroll.asp.

YSU HHS recognizes distinguished alumni
The Bitonte College of Health and Human Services at Youngstown State University will honor eight distinguished alumni during its first annual Alumni Recognition Dinner Friday, May 21, in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center. 

Honorees represent each of the college's eight departments:

• Criminal Justice – Police Chief Jimmy Hughes, Youngstown Police Department.
• Health Professions – William E. Brown Jr., executive director, national Registry of EMTs.
• Human Ecology – Dr. Debra A. Filimon–Demyen, Mahoning County Educational Service Center.
• Human Performance and Exercise Science – Dr. Matthew C. Kostek, University of South Carolina.
• Military Science – Major  General Matthew L. Kambic, Ohio National Guard.
• Nursing – Sharon Hrina, MSN, vice president of operations, Akron ChildrenÕs Hospital, Mahoning Valley.
• Physical Therapy – Timothy B. Duble Jr.
• Social Work – Theresa Swindler, BSW internship coordinator, Youngstown State University.

Hors d''oeuvres will be served at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6 p.m. The cost is $18 per person or $35 per couple. Reservations are required. For more information, contact Tammy King, associate dean in the Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, at 330–941–3321.

Engineering students place high in competition

The Youngstown State University Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers placed in the top three in five competitions, including two first place finishes, at the annual ASCE Ohio Valley Student Conference at the University of Kentucky earlier this spring.

Twenty–two YSU engineering students competed, led by YSU ASCE faculty advisor, Scott Martin, and practitioner advisor, Adam DePizzo.

In all, 270 engineering students from 12 universities participated, including the University of Akron, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Cleveland State University, Ohio State University, Ohio University, University of Kentucky, University of Pittsburgh, Geneva College, University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University.

YSU teams competed and won awards in several civil engineering competitions, including first place finishes in the environmental design and concrete bowling categories. YSU also placed second in the steel bridge building competition and third in the concrete canoe and technical paper competitions.

The YSU Steel Bridge Building team qualified for the National Steel Bridge Building Competition for the eighth time in the last nine years. The team will travel to Purdue University on May 28 and 29 for the national event.

For more information, contact Martin at 330–941–3026.

YSU student selected to attend symposium
Nine undergraduate students from across the nation, including Lisa Curll of Youngstown State University, have been selected to receive a 2010 National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis/Undergraduate Biology and Mathematics award to attend a national symposium on quantitative biology undergraduate education.

The "Beyond BIO2010 Celebrations and Opportunities Symposium" is May 21 and 22 in Washington, D.C. ??The symposium focuses on initiatives underway at the nation's colleges and universities to transform the way biology is taught at the undergraduate level. ??The award covers transportation to and from the conference where students will present their research.

Curll is a double major in Applied Mathematics and Biology. Earlier this spring, she was selected as a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention. Curll's future plans include earning a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and integrate mathematics and biology in environmental research while also teaching at the college level.

All of the winners are students majoring in math, biology or related fields who conduct research as participants in the National Science Foundation's Undergraduate Biology and Mathematics (UBM) program, an interdisciplinary research and training program for undergraduates in mathematical biology.??

Other recipients include students from the University of Hawaii, the University of Houston, Murray State University, University of Nebraska, University of North Carolina A&T, Davidson College and Florida Tech.

For more information about other research and education opportunities at the interface of mathematics and biology, visit www.nimbios.org

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture,  with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

WWII massacre in Russia is topic of event

The 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre, where more than 4,000 Polish service personnel were executed, is the topic of an event 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 19, in DeBartolo Hall on the campus of Youngstown State University.

The event, presented by PolishYoungstown in collaboration with YSU's History Department and History Club, features Brian Bonhomme, YSU associate professor of Russian and Soviet history, and a screening of Andrzej Wajda's Academy Award–nominated film Katy?. 

The event is free and open to the public. 

The Katyn Forest is a wooded area near Gneizdovo village, a short distance from Smolensk in Russia, according to the website, www.katyn.org. In 1940, on Stalin''s orders, the Soviet secret police, NKVD, shot and buried over 4,000 Polish service personnel that had been taken prisoner when the Soviet Union invaded Poland during World War II in support of the Nazis.  The website says that in 1989, with the collapse of Soviet Union, Premier Gorbachev admitted that the NKVD had executed the Poles, and confirmed two other burial sites similar to the site at Katyn.

For more information, contact Aundrea Cika, director PolishYoungstown, at 330–646–4082,?aundrea@polishyoungstown.com or www.PolishYoungstown.com.

Free business seminars next week at Metro College
The Ohio Small Business Development Center at Youngstown State University and the YSU Williamson College of Business Administration will present three free seminars next week in recognition of Small Business Week.

The free seminars will be at the YSU Metro Campus, Room 228, in Southwoods Commons, 100 DeBartolo Place in Boardman:

• Tuesday, May 25, 9 to 11 a.m. "Business Succession Planning." Presenter:  Chris Cooper – Ohio Employees Ownership Center.

• Thursday, May 27, 9 to 11 a.m. "Buying and Selling a Business." Presenter:  Richard Sheridan – Small Business Management Inc.

• Friday, May 28, 9 to 11 a.m. "Nonconventional Financing For Your Business." Presenter:  Patrick Gaughan – Garden Club Angels

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

Reservations are required. Contact the SBDC at:  330–941–2140 or email rsulik@ysu.edu.

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