A team of marketing students in YSU's Williamson College of Business Administration recently helped the Cafaro Co. with a marketing study for a shopping mall in Michigan. See News Brief below. From the left, students Jason Green and Anthony Allen and Assistant Professor Peter Reday are thanked by Joe Bell, director of corporate communications, and Michael Ferguson, regional marketing director, both of the Warner Management Co., for the outstanding service provided by the YSU student marketing team. Team members not pictured are Amber Gallagher, Shawn Butson and Sabreena Shrader.

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Tuesday, July 28, 5 p.m. The YSU Presidential Search Advisory Committee holds its first meeting in Bresnahan 1 and 2 in Kilcawley Center. The 22–member committee, appointed by the YSU Board of Trustees and chaired by Board Chair Scott R. Schulick, will assist in identifying a new president for the university. President David C. Sweet has announced that he will retire June 30, 2010.

ROTC appoints new Officer in Charge at YSU

  Maj. Patrick Williams

Williams replaced Major Michael C. Stull earlier this summer. Stull, who was at YSU since January 2007, has been re–assigned to Hunter Army Air Field in Savannah, Ga.

Williams is a 1987 graduate of Beaver Local High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1992 from Kent State University. Williams is no stranger to the YSU campus. He attended YSU for two years in the late 1990s, studying pre–physical therapy. He also worked as an admissions coordinator from 2000 to 2003 in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. In his current position at YSU, he carries the title of assistant professor of military science.           

YSU’s ROTC program, which has 35 cadets, is operated in partnership with KSU. A proposal for the YSU program to receive host battalion status and operate independently from KSU has been submitted to the Department of the Army. That proposal, however, has been put on hold due to funding shortfalls.

Williams said YSU’s goal is to grow the program to such an extent that it is granted “host” status. “YSU''s proud ROTC alumni base remains resolute and active in this endeavor,” he said.

For more information on the program, contact the ROTC office in the Department of Military Science at 330–941–3205 or visit http://rotc.ysu.edu/.

Marketing students helps Cafaro Co. with mall research
A team of marketing students in the Williamson College of Business Administration at Youngstown State University recently helped the Cafaro Co. with a marketing study for a shopping mall in Michigan.

Students Jason Green of Salem, Shawn Butson of Mineral Ridge, Sabreena Shrader of Waynesburg, and Anthony Allen and Amber Gallagher, both of Youngstown, conducted a marketing research program for Warner Management Co., a subsidiary of the Cafaro Co. The Cafaro Co. was planning extensive renovations at a shopping mall in Monroe, Michigan. The students are members of the American Marketing Association on campus.

The research performed by the student team involved four steps:

• A thorough search of academic literature on shopping malls

• Consultations with Cafaro regarding the development of a survey.

•  Mailing 1,000 surveys to a random sample of people in Michigan.
• And, conducting 200 mall intercepts and three focus groups on site at the Michigan mall.

Although the survey results revealed only a few surprises for Cafaro management, the objectives of the research were met, said Peter Reday, assistant professor of marketing for the WCBA. Reday said a fundamental marketing principle is that a good marketing organization must know its markets and its needs.

Reday coordinates projects with businesses to engage students in economic research with an ongoing emphasis of applying theoretical marketing principles to businesses in the Youngstown area and beyond.

Hispanic Heritage Celebration set for Sept. 25 on campus

  Andres Gonzalez

The event, which is free and open to the public, is being held in conjunction with the national observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, which is traditionally observed September 15 to October 15.

Mistress of ceremonies for the annual event will be Mirta Reyes–Chapman, program manager at Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.ﾠ Reyes–Chapman is also a member of the University Diversity Council at YSU.

This year’s keynote speaker, Andres Gonzalez, has worked in the non–profit sector for more than 14 years and has been instrumental in creating culturally and linguistically competent programs for Hispanic/Latino–serving agencies. Gonzalez spent 10 years with the Hispanic Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program in Cuyahoga County, serving as a program director, associate director and transitioning to executive director. He then served as executive director of El Barrio, a workforce development agency that serves the Hispanic/Latino community on the near west side of Cleveland. Currently, Gonzalez serves as the director for the Office of Diversity at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is responsible for overseeing cultural competence and diversity training for the 37,000 employees that make up the Cleveland Clinic Health System. He is also responsible for supervision of the Hispanic/Latino–specific initiatives that include Hispanic/Latino talent acquisition, and he works closely with the Community Outreach Department to identify new creative ways of providing services and resources to the community.

In addition to the keynote speaker, the celebration will include a flag ceremony featuring flags from 21 Latino countries, display tables, and live entertainment.

For more information on the celebration, contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at 330–941–3370.

YSU faculty/staff honors, presentations, publications
Gabriel Palmer–Fernandez, director, Dr. James Dale Ethics Center, and professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, published the chapter “Moral Cosmopolitanism” in Morality and Justice, and he was appointed to the Nominating Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and to the Board of Editors of the journal Teaching Ethics. 

Daniel J. Van Dussen, assistant professor, Sociology and Anthropology, organized a symposium entitled “Who will Provide Services and Care to Older Adults? Education, Jobs and Underserved Elders,” and he gave a presentation entitled “Perceived Emotional 
Relationship Quality, Self–rated Health, Physical Health and Psychological Well–Being Using Structural Equations Modeling” at the 61^st Annual Gerontological Association of America meetings in Washington, D.C. He was also appointed to the board of the Ohio Association of Gerontology and Education and named chair of the Policy
Committee.

Carmella Hill, instructor; Victoria Kress, associate professor; Don Martin, professor; and Jake Protivnak, assistant professor, Counseling, presented papers at the 25^th annual All Ohio Counselors Conference in Columbus. Hill’s presentation was entitled “The Missing Links in Professional Identity: Promoting Connectivity and Collaboration Among Professional Counselors,” and Kress’s presentation was entitled “Ethical DSM Diagnosis: Practice Considerations for Professional Counselors.” Martin’s presentation was “Counseling Male Delinquents,” and Protivnak’s presentations were “Failing Students’ Reflections on Participating in School Counseling,” “School Counselors Addressing Abusive Partner Relationships,” and a post–conference presentation entitled “Evaluating and Reporting the Effectiveness of Your School Counseling Program.” 

Center for Urban and Regional Studies staff Frank Akpadock, senior research associate/regional scientist; John Bralich, Research Associate II, senior GIS analyst, data services manager; and Thomas Finnerty, associate director, have contributed a chapter to a report entitled “The Role of Northeast Ohio Central Cities in the Regional Economy, 2000–2007,” which was prepared by members of the Ohio Urban University Program under the auspices of the Northeast Ohio Research Consortium. 

Gary Salvner, professor and chair, English, presented a session entitled “Young Adult Verse Novels” at the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention in San Antonio.

Kelly Bancroft, coordinator, SMARTS, won both the first– and second–place awards for nonfiction with “Singer Sewing Machine No. 66 [With Attachments, For Family Use]” and “Crazy Horses,” respectively, in the first MUSE Literary Competition, which was held by Cleveland’s Literary Center (The LIT). MUSE is the quarterly journal of The LIT, a literary organization that promotes writers and their work throughout northern Ohio.

Zbigniew Piotrowski, professor, Mathematics and Statistics delivered an invited address “An extension of the Closed Graph Theorem for separately continuous functions” at the Special Session on Set–Theoretic Topology at the meeting of the American Mathematical Society in Huntsville, Ala.

Don Martin, professor, Counseling and Special Education, received the OCA Research and Writing Award at the All Ohio Counselors Conference. The award is given to an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary research and writing ability as evidenced by journal publications for the counseling profession.

Jake Protivnak, assistant professor, Counseling and Special Education, received the OCA Herman J. Peters Award at the All Ohio Counselors Conference. The award is given to an individual who promotes innovative ideas and theories in the counseling field and has significant impact on future trends.

Anwarul Islam, assistant professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, had a journal article entitled “Effective Methods of Using CFRP Bars in Shear Strengthening of Concrete Girders” published in Engineering Structures of Elsevier. This experimental research, which proposed a new formula for attaching carbon fiber polymer bars for strengthening concrete members in shear, was funded through a URC grant in 2006–2007. The author will also present the outcomes of this research in the Structures Congress in Austin, Texas, in April, and in the Fifth International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference in Las Vegas in September.

Zara Rowlands, assistant professor, Human Ecology, will present a paper entitled “The Challenges of an Asynchronous, Multi–Disciplinary, Multi–Instructor Online Course” at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) 2009, 20^th International Conference in Charleston, S.C. 

Sylvia J. Imler and Sally A. Lewis, assistant professors, Counseling and Special Education, presented “Collaboration Between P–16 Schools to Achieve Academic and Behavior Supports: One Year Later” at the 7^th Annual Hawaii International Conference in Education, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu. The presentation came from the 1^st Annual Northeast Ohio OISM Consortium which was funded by a grant entitled “Reducing the Achievement Gap in Ohio: Implementing OISM to Prepare Graduates of Youngstown State University to Meet the Needs of All Students,” Phase II of which Imler is the principal investigator.

Alice D. Guerra, professor, Health Professions, served as a member of the board of directors for the Mahoning Valley Hospital and was a member of its executive committee since 2004. Guerra received the Dr. John Politis Outstanding Service Award in December 2008 from the Mahoning Valley Hospital.

Steven Brown, professor, English, served on the National Screening Committee for the 2009–10 Student Fulbright Program.

Bradley Shellito, associate professor, Geography, co–authored an essay entitled “Celebrate with SATELLITES — An International Polar Year Partnership to Study Earth’s Materials,” which was published in The Science Teacher. Shellito’s co–authors were Mikell Hedley, Kevin Czajkowski, Janet Struble, Terri Benko, Scott Sheridan and Mandy Munro–Stasiuk.

Zbigniew Piotrowski, professor, Mathematics and Statistics, was chosen to serve on the Board of External Examiners at M. Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, India. 

Frank X. Li, assistant professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, presented "Joint Position Sense Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Nodes," at the 2009 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium in San Diego in January. The co–authors for this article are Kenneth Learman and Weiqing Ge, assistant professors in the Department of Physical Therapy. This research was funded through a University Research Council grant award in 2008.

Brian K. Brennan, Librarian 2–Technical Services, Maag Library, had an article entitled “Being Through Doing” published in The Won–Buddhist Magazine.

(Note: The above Faculty/Staff items previously appeared in the YSUpdate.)