YSU’s 7th President Asks Community to ‘Stop and Reflect’

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The seventh president of Youngstown State University is asking the campus and community to consider the area without YSU.

Cynthia Anderson served as YSU president from 2010 to 2013, but her association with the institution started 50 years ago when she was a student.

In a letter – which follows those from two of her predecessors, Leslie Cochran and David Sweet – Anderson doesn’t take a direct position about the YSU trustees’ selection of U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson as the university’s 10th president.

“It is not the intent of this letter to review, critique, or repeat what has already been said by so many regarding current events at the university,” she wrote. 

Instead, she asks those reading the letter to “stop and reflect.”

“Think about a Youngstown, Ohio without a Youngstown State University. What would our city be like without ‘our’ institution?”

The community has made it through a lot, she wrote.

“But, would we recover if YSU were to cease to exist?” she asked in the letter. “Our community relies on our university. Our prospective students rely on our university. And our future relies on our university.”

Her full letter, which was sent to The Business Journal on Wednesday, can be viewed below.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.