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

Calendar
Tuesday, Sept. 30, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 90 employer organizations and more than 500 students and recent alumni are expected to attend the YSU Office of Career and Counseling Services’ Fall Job Expo in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center. The annual Job Expo provides employers an excellent opportunity to showcase their organization and to make connections with students and recent alumni.

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 12:15 p.m. YSU Dana Choral Ensembles are featured in a Music at Noon concert in the Butler Institute of American Art. Free.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2 — 5. Shakespearean scholars from across the world present their research and discuss the works and impact of the Bard as YSU hosts the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference in Kilcawley Center. Nearly 50 professors, graduate and undergraduate students from as far away as England, California and Arizona will attend. The conference web site is http://www.marietta.edu/~engl/OVSC/index.html. 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2 — 5. University Theater presents “How His Bride Came to Abraham.” See News Brief below for more details.

Friday, Oct. 3, 7 p.m. The Poetry Center kicks off its 2008–09 Reading Series in Bresnahan Rooms 1 and 2 in Kilcawley Center. See News Brief below for more details.

YSU signs partnership with university in India

Faculty at YSU and Aligarh Muslim University in India will partner on research projects under a new agreement signed last month.

The memorandum of understanding signed by YSU President David C. Sweet and P.K. Abdul Azis, AMU vice chancellor, is YSU’s first such agreement with a university in India.

“Faculty and deans are enthusiastic,” said Annette El–Hayek, YSU’s coordinator of international programs. “Dr. Azis and his university are looking to expand their horizons with the top universities in the U.S.”

Azis, who essentially acts as the president of AMU, visited YSU in August and signed the agreement. Shakir Husain, professor of civil/environmental and chemical engineering at YSU, is a graduate of AMU and helped coordinate Azis’ visit to YSU, said Jef Davis, director of the YSU Center for International Studies and Programs.

“This is the first real step for both universities,” he said. “We plan to look into cooperative research before expanding to faculty exchange, joint programs and eventually student exchange.”

AMU, founded in 1875 and located in Aligarh in northern India, enrolls nearly 30,000 students and employs more than 2,000 faculty members. AMU also has agreements with the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University, Georgia State University, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

YSU’s agreement with AMU is part of the university’s Academic Strategic Plan. The plan calls for promoting the internationalization of the YSU student experience through curricular revision and study–abroad experiences and increasing international student enrollment on campus.

This is YSU’s fourth international agreement since 2006. Other institutions signing agreements with the university include Lunghwa University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, Yeditepe University in Turkey and Beijing Technical Business University in China.

University Theater examines Israeli–Arab conflict

“How His Bride Came to Abraham,” a drama about the romance between an Israeli soldier and an Arab woman in southern Lebanon, will be performed by University Theater at Youngstown State University Oct. 2–5 and 10–12.

Curtain time for the play in Spotlight Arena Theatre in Bliss Hall is 7:30 p.m. for Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances, while Sunday matinee performances start at 3 p.m. Seating in the theater is limited to 90 people. Tickets are available at the University Theater Box Office in Bliss Hall at 330–941–3105. Ticket are $10 for adults, and $5 for senior citizens, YSU faculty and staff and high school and college students from other universities, Penguin Club members and YSU alumni. Tickets are free for YSU students.

An opening night dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2 in Winslow’s Caf￩ at the Butler Institute of American Art. Reservations and payment are required prior to the event.

The play, written by Karen Sunde, is set in the stormy Israel–occupied zone of southern Lebanon, just north of Israel, and centers on the romance between young people on warring sides, an Israeli soldier and an Arab woman.

The audience is invited to remain after the play to participate in a symposium discussion led by campus and community members. Playwright Karen Sunde will participate in the symposium on opening night, Thursday, Oct. 2, and on Friday, Oct. 3. Each symposium will last approximately 40 minutes.

Sunde is an actor turned playwright, having performed some 60 roles off– Broadway. Her plays have been performed in the United States, and abroad in 10 countries and seven languages. “Abraham is for us all; it is about going so deep into the heart of our enemy that we have no choice but to embrace him, and in that embrace is the answer to everything,” Sunde said.

Dennis Henneman, professor of theater and dance and the play’s director, assembled the panels for the post–play discussions. Henneman is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Religion and Theatre, which aims to provide descriptive and analytical articles examining the spirituality of world cultures in all disciplines of the theatre.

Symposium participants:

Thursday, Oct. 2
Ms. Karen Sunde, playwright
Dr. David Porter, YSU Department of Political Science
Rev. Peg Welch, Boardman United Methodist Church
Mr. Raymond Nakley Jr., Arab–American Community Center 

Friday, Oct. 3
Ms. Karen Sunde, playwright
Dr. Gabriel Palmer–Fernandez, YSU, director of Dale Ethics Center
Fr. George Balasko, St. Ann Church, East Liverpool, Ohio

Saturday, Oct. 4 
Dr. L. J. Tessier, YSU, Dept. of Philosophy & Religious Studies
Mr. Maher Ramahi, Arab–American Community Center

Sunday, Oct. 5
Dr. Sharon Stringer, YSU, Dept. of Psychology
Mr. Bruce Lev, Jewish Community Relations Council 

Friday, Oct. 10 
Dr. Deborah Mower, YSU, Dept. of Philosophy & Religious Studies
Rev. Jim Ray, Retired Presbyterian Clergy
Mr. Amer Adi, Arab–American Community Center

Saturday, Oct. 11
Mr. Mousa Kassis, Palestinian perspective
Dr. Helene Sinnreich, YSU, Director of Judaic & Holocaust Studies 

Sunday, Oct. 12 
Rabbi Joel Berman, Ohev Tzedek Congregation, Boardman, Ohio
Dr. Victor Wan–Tatah, YSU, Director of Africana Studies 

YSU hoops hosts ‘Cancer Walk’ on Saturday
Youngstown State University men’s basketball program, in conjunction with the American Cancer Society, is hosting the inaugural “Coaches vs. Cancer Walk” on Saturday, Oct. 4 at the YSU track.

Registration begins at 9 a.m., with the three–mile walk starting at 10 a.m. The fee is $10 per participant, with discounted prices for YSU students. T–shirts, door prizes and a 50/50 raffle will be held.

The walk is designed to raise cancer awareness in Youngstown and to raise money for cancer research.

For more information, contact YSUwalk@yahoo.com or 330–941–3004. 

YSU Poetry Center Reading Series starts this week
The Youngstown State University Poetry Center this week kicks off its 2008–09 Reading Series. Here is the schedule:

• Friday, Oct. 3, 7 p.m., Bresnahan rooms 1 and 2, Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus – Gary Gildner, a nationally recognized poet and writer, whose books include Somewhere Geese are Flying, Blue Like the Heavens, The Second Bridge, and The Warsaw Sparks. He has received the National Magazine Award for Fiction, a Pushcart Prize, the William Carlos Williams and Theodore Roethke poetry prizes. A Senior Fulbright Lecturer to both Poland and Czechoslovakia, he lives in Idaho’s Clearwater Mountains. And William Greenway, a YSU professor of English whose poems have appeared in hundreds of national journals Greenway’s ninth full–length collection is Everywhere at Once, from the University of Akron, which also published his seventh collection, Ascending Order (2003), winner of the 2004 Ohioana Poetry Book of the Year Award. His many awards include the Ohioana Poetry Award, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, and Georgia Author of the Year.

• Monday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m. Jones Room, Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus – Alexis Stamatis has been called “one of the most gifted writers of his generation.” He is the author of eight novels and novellas as well as six collections of poetry. He has worked as a journalist, literary critic, and as an architect and has been steadily achieving an international presence. Stamatis’ novel, American Fugue, is the winner of the first international translation award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which is co–sponsoring his national American tour along with Etruscan Press and the NEOMFA. Co–sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts and Etruscan Press.

• Thursday, Nov. 6, 4 p.m. Gallery in Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus – Phillip Lopate is the editor of the bestsellers, The Art of the Personal Essay and Writing New York. Currently professor of English at Hofstra University, he is the author of five works of nonfiction, two novels, and two books of poems. This fall, he is a distinguished visitor to the NEOMFA.

• Thursday, March 26, 2009, 7 p.m. Gallery in Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus – Roberto Manzano’s work has won some of the most distinguished awards in the world of Cuban letters. In 1995, he received the Emilio Ballagas Prize for his essay "Mito y texto de Jos Mart" ("Myth and Text of Jos Mart"). Born in Ciego de Avila in 1949, Manzano spent much of his life in Camagey and now resides in Havana. A teacher and critic as well as a poet, Manzano is the founder of Los Talleres Literarios (the Literary Workshops) and is a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. The first American translation of Manzano''s poetry is Synergos: Selected Poems, translated by Steven Reese (Etruscan, 2008). And Steve Reese, whose poems and translations have appeared in such journals as Poetry Northwest, Southern Humanities Review, West Branch, and Artful Dodge. Cleveland State University Press published his collection of poems, Enough Light to Steer By in 1997. He has produced three CD''s of original music. His most recent book is a translation of Roberto Manzano''s Selected Poems, (Etruscan, 2008). Co–sponsored by the Bates–Manzano Fund and Etruscan Press.

• Thursday, April 23, 2009, 7 p.m. Gallery in Kilcawley Center on the YSU campus – A celebration of the 2009 Penguin Review ﾠand new books by YSU faculty – This year’s Penguin Review is edited by Jessica Troy and staff. Philip Brady is the author of three collections of poems and two books of creative non–fiction, most recently, By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard (University of Tennessee, 2008). His work has received the 2008 Ohioana Award, five Ohio Arts Council Fellowships, and the Snyder Prize. He was awarded a Thayer Fellowship, and writers'' residencies at Yaddo, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and colonies in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and the Czech Republic, as well as two distinguished professorships from YSU. Brady directs Etruscan Press and the YSU Poetry Center, and advises the Penguin Review. Christopher Barzak''s short stories have appeared in a many venues, including Nerve, Descant, The Vestal Review, Salon Fantastique, Interfictions, and Lady Churchill''s Rosebud Wristlet.ﾠ Published by Bantam Books in 2007, his first novel, One for Sorrow, has won the Crawford Award for Best First Novel, and is a finalist for The Great Lakes Book Award. His second novel is The Love We Share Without Knowing, (Bantamﾠ 2008). He teaches fiction writing at YSU.

Music at Noon concerts continue at Butler Institute
Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music continues to present Music at Noon performances this fall.

The fall schedule runs through Nov. 26.ﾠ Performances are every Wednesday at 12:15 p.m. in the Butler Institute of American Art. Concerts are free and open to the public, and parking is free at the Butler.

Performances in October are as follows:

• Oct. 1 — YSU Dana Choral Ensembles.
• Oct. 8 — New Music.
• Oct. 15 — YSU Percussion Ensemble.
• Oct. 22 — YSU Jazz Combos.
• Oct. 29 — Chamber Winds.

For more information, call the Dana School of Music at 330–941–3636. 

‘Art and Advertising’ featured in McDonough exhibit

The McDonough Museum of Art on the campus of Youngstown State University opens its 2008–2009 season with the provocative exhibit, AGENCY: Art and Advertising.

The exhibition runs through Nov. 8. The museum, which is free and open to the public, is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays.

The exhibit features works in advertising media by artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons. The exhibit explores artists’ use of advertising media as sites for works of art (as opposed to the more conventional use of advertising for the promotion of work) as well as its subject. The exhibition focuses on works of art in and about advertising media from the 1960s to the present.

Artists’ billboards by Geoffrey Hendricks, Marilyn Minter, Yoko Ono, and Felix Gonzalez–Torres will be featured throughout the Youngstown metropolitan area as part of the exhibition.

Accounting prof receives faculty advisor award

Raymond Shaffer of Sharpsville, Pa., professor of accounting and finance in the Williamson College of Business Administration at Youngstown State University, was named Outstanding Faculty Advisor for Beta Alpha Psi, a national honorary organization for financial information students and professionals.

This year, six individual faculty advisors were chosen from 275 Beta Alpha Psi chapters for their countless hours of commitment and contributions to the growth and development of students and the overall success of the chapter.

Outstanding faculty advisors are determined by years of service as a faculty advisor or co–advisor, chapter activities and awards received during the faculty member’s tenure, and other outstanding service or program initiatives within the community. Shaffer joins 198 of his colleagues recognized by Beta Alpha Psi since the award was started in 1969. Shaffer received a plaque and a cash award in recognition of his service at the national Beta Alpha Psi meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

“I cannot think of a more deserving and dedicated faculty advisor than Dr. Shaffer,” said Joseph Antenucci, professor and chair of the Department of Accounting and Finance at YSU. “He has not only instituted the Beta Alpha Psi chapter here at YSU but also has guided the chapter to superior status for four straight years. To receive such recognition pays tribute to his diligent efforts.”

The primary objective of Beta Alpha Psi is to encourage and give recognition to scholastic and professional excellence in the business information field, including promoting the study and practice of accounting, finance and information systems; providing opportunities for self–development, service and association among members and practicing professionals, and encouraging a sense of ethical, social, and public responsibility.

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