Youngstown State University opens the 2015-16 academic year with Penguin Paradise Welcome Week, featuring 18 days of activities ranging from outdoor movies and caricature artists to puppies and karaoke.

Welcome Week events run Saturday, Aug. 15 to Tuesday, Sept. 1. Fall semester classes begin Wednesday, Aug. 19.

One of the major events is the 9^th annual Block Party at Kilcawley Center, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, in the Chestnut Room. Last year’s event attracted 1,500 students. This year’s party, with the theme “Aloha Welcome!”, features 40 informational booths about student services on campus and free food from Chartwells Dining, AVI Food Services, and Pepsi. A live karaoke band will perform. For more information, call 330-941-3571.

Full list of activities.

Among other events:

Monday, Aug. 17, Outdoor Summer Movie Series: Unbroken, 8:30 p.m. at the Covelli Centre Front Lawn.

Thursday, Aug. 20, Student Organizational Fair, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Campus Core. For more information, contact Student Activities at 330-941-3575.

Friday, Aug. 21, Xtreme Trampoline X2, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., next to University Plaza, between Sweeney Hall and Kilcawley House. For more information, contact Housing & Residence Life at 330-941-3547.

Monday, Aug. 24, Puppy Palooza, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Andrews Student Recreation and Wellness Center. Studies have shown that petting dogs can reduce stress. For more information, contact Anna Pompeo at avpompeo@student.ysu.edu.

Thursday, Aug. 27, #YSU Downtown, All Day!, in downtown Youngstown. Activities include the B&O Night Market from 5 to 8 p.m., walking tour, student discounts at Joe Maxx, Avalon Downtown, One Hot Cookie, Martini Brothers Burger Bar, or O’Donold’s. Zella Day performs in the evening at Suzie’s Dogs & Drafts.

Sunday, Aug. 30, Panerathon, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Covelli Centre. The 10K / 2 Mile Walk / Run benefits the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center. For more information, visit www.panerathon.org.

Monday, Aug. 31. Harry Potters World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Kilcawley Center. The exhibit from the National Library of Medicine incorporates the work of several 15th and 16th century thinkers and examines important ethical topics such as the desire for knowledge, the effects of prejudice, and the responsibility that comes with power. For more information, call 330-941-3487.

Tuesday, Sept. 1, YSU Day, 1 to 2 p.m., Campus Core. The university officially joined the Ohio system of higher education as Youngstown State University on September 1, 1967. Wear YSU attire and show Penguin pride. Post pictures of your favorite Penguin on campus using the hashtag #YSUDay2k15 to be entered into drawings for prize giveaways. Free pizza for anyone in YSU attire.

Deborah Mower

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $155,747 grant to establish a summer institute on moral psychology, co-directed and managed by Deborah Mower, professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University.

“This is a tremendous example of the kind of collaborative research being done here at YSU by our faculty,” said Martin Abraham, YSU provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. “The NEH is a prestigious federal source of funding for scholars in the humanities, and this recognition speaks volumes about the quality of our faculty.”

Bruce Waller, chair of the YSU Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, said the grant is a significant accomplishment. “For a YSU faculty member to be selected as the co-director of such an Institute is a remarkable accomplishment, and a very clear indication of the very high status that Deborah has achieved in our profession,” he said.

The grant was among several announced earlier this summer by the NEH. “These grant projects represent the very best of humanities scholarship and programming,” NEH Chairman William Adams said.

The four-week long Summer Institute for College and University Teachers on “Moral Psychology and Education” will give 25 scholars from around the nation the opportunity to study the moral psychology behind effective moral education with 17 internationally recognized faculty.

Mower will co-direct the institute with Phyllis Vandenberg, professor of Philosophy at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. The institute will be held in June 2016 at Grand Valley State University.

In addition to co-directing the Institute and managing the grant project, Mower is also one of the faculty experts for her work in ethics and moral psychology. As the current president of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum, Mower works with directors of ethics centers nationally and internationally to integrate ethics within courses and university curricula.

“A degree is a consequence, but not the purpose of a university education, which is to prepare students to become responsible professionals in their fields,” Mower said. “A crucial part of developing our students into the next generation of professionals is their ethical development and capacity for leadership. This Institute is an exciting opportunity for scholars to expand our knowledge on the psychology behind moral development and the effective teaching and learning of ethics.”

The focus of the Institute is on moral psychology—an interdisciplinary field that studies the psychological processes behind the development of moral skills and reasoning—and moral education, which integrates the best practices of educational theory with the study of ethics. Mower and Vandenberg designed the Institute to examine how specific areas of the humanities can enhance the development of moral skills and reasoning, an approach that is highly interdisciplinary and innovative.

Saturday, Aug. 15 to Tuesday, Sept. 1. YSU opens the 2015-16 academic year with Penguin Paradise Welcome Week, featuring 18 days of activities ranging from outdoor movies and caricature artists to puppies and karaoke. Full list of activities.

Monday, Aug. 17, 1 to 9:30 p.m., and Tuesday, Aug. 18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. YSU’s first IGNITE, a two-day experience designed to help incoming students get acclimated to the campus.

Tuesday, Aug. 18, 9 a.m. President Tressel presents the 2015 State of the University address in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center. Light refreshments and coffee will be available at 8 a.m.

Wednesday, Aug. 19. Fall semester classes start.

Get in the Penguin spirit at the annual “Meet the Marching Pride” celebration 7:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, in Stambaugh Stadium on the campus of Youngstown State University.

The event that features performances by the YSU Marking Pride band is free and open to the public, although a free-will donation to support the band will be accepted and band tee shirts will also be for sale.

The Marching Pride will preview the music it will perform during Penguin football games this fall.

“The Marching Pride welcomes over 160 members to campus this fall,” said Brandt Payne, director of Athletic Bands. “We’re excited to host Penguin fans for ‘Meet the Marching Pride’ to get a head start on the Penguin football season.”

For more information, call 330-941-1834.

Soledad O’Brien

Soledad O’Brien, award-winning journalist, documentarian, news anchor and producer, lectures 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Stambaugh Auditorium as part of the Centofanti Symposium at Youngstown State University.

The symposium is free and open to the public, but tickets are mandatory for admission. Tickets are available 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays at the Stambaugh Auditorium box office on Fifth Avenue. There is a limit of four tickets per person.

The Centofanti Symposium was established at YSU to bring outstanding speakers to the university and the community, with the goal of raising consciousness about the challenges facing vulnerable groups in society. YSU created the James and Coralie Centofanti Center of Health and Welfare for Vulnerable Populations in 2012 under a $1 million gift from the James and Coralie Centofanti Charitable Foundation. James Centofanti of Canfield, a successful business owner, philanthropist and horseman, died in 2010. His wife, Coralie, died in 1999. Centofanti was a long-time member of the Board of Directors of Farmers National Bank in Canfield, a generous supporter of numerous educational and community-based activities in and around the Canfield area, and the recipient of numerous awards for his humanitarian efforts.

O’Brien was the originator of the highly successful documentary series for CNN titled “Black in America and Latino in America.” In June 2013 she launched Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform media production and distribution company dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories that take a challenging look at the often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, poverty and opportunity, through personal stories. Also, in June 2013, O’Brien joined HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel as a correspondent, and joined the Harvard University Graduate School of Education as a visiting fellow for the 2013-14 school year. In 2010, she wrote a critically-acclaimed memoir, The Next Big Story: My Journey through the Land of Possibilities, which chronicles her biggest reporting moments and how her upbringing and background have influenced these experiences.

O’Brien joined CNN in 2003, where she was the face of CNN’s morning news shows for many years, and in 2011 won an Emmy for “Crisis in Haiti Report” on Haitian orphanages, following the massive earthquake. In 2013 she won 2 Emmy awards for reporting on “Kids and Race” and for the networks reporting of the 2012 Presidential election. Her coverage of Hurricane Katrina earned her and CNN a George Foster Peabody award. She also received another Peabody award for her coverage of the BP Gulf coast Oil Spill. Her reporting on the Southeast Asia tsunami garnered CNN an Alfred I DuPont award. In 2013, “Latino in America 2,” the story of a Latina boxer who dreams of Olympic glory, won the celebrated Cine Award for documentaries. Her documentaries “Gay in America: Gary and Tony have a baby,” and “Unwelcome, the Muslims Next Door” also won numerous journalism awards. O’Brien was named journalist of the year by the National Association of Black Journalists and one of Newsweek magazines “10 People who Make America Great”.

O’Brien came to CNN from NBC News, where she anchored the network’s Weekend Today and contributed segments on The Today Show and Nightly News. O’Brien is a graduate of Harvard University and currently lives with her husband and four children in Manhattan.

No one is perfect, except for Youngstown State University physical therapy graduates.

All 23 students who received the Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from YSU in May 2015 passed the National Physical Therapy Examination on the first attempt.

Nancy Landgraff, professor and chair of Physical Therapy at YSU, said the national first-time pass rate for the board exams is less than 88 percent. This year’s 100 percent pass rate is the first for YSU.

“This has been very hard-working, professionally involved group of students, committed to the profession,” she said. “They will represent YSU well as alumnae in the medical profession.”

The exam must be passed before physical therapists can practice in the United States.

Participants in the 2015 MathFest are: Front Row, Crystal Mackey, Josiah Banks, Eric Shehadi, Emily Hoopes, Gabrielle Van Scoy, Jenna Wise and Monica Busser. Back row, Dr. Jacek Fabrykowski, Michael Baker, Megan Chambers, Richard Elrod, Dr. Angela Spalsbury, Dr. Tom Wakefield, Eric Stone, Zack While and Dr. George Yates.

Youngstown State University’s MathFest team continued its torrid pace of success, earning five awards for excellence at the competition earlier this month in Washington D.C.

“This is a remarkable achievement of our students,” said Tom Wakefield, associate professor, Mathematics and Statistics. “They continue to win more awards than any other school and provide the leadership to inspire others and be national examples as students from YSU, the STEM College and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.”

MathFest is the annual summer meeting of the Mathematical Association of America and Pi Mu Epsilon. In all, 12 YSU students attended and gave oral presentations of their research projects. Five students won awards, the most from any university at the competition.

The YSU team has historically been one of the most successful at the annual event. YSU won its first award in 1989 and has won at least one award every year since, except in 1992 and 1994. YSU students won a record number of awards in 2013 with six. The team won five awards in 2005, 2006 and again this year.

Since 2000, YSU students have averaged 3.5 awards per year. No other school has won more than three awards in any one year.

The five students winning awards for excellence in student exposition and research this year are:

• Monica E. Busser of Hubbard, Ohio. Applied Algebraic Geometry.
• Megan Chambers of Boardman, Ohio. An agent-based model of Eleutherodactylus coqui in Hawaii.
• Gabrielle K Van Scoy of Lisbon, Ohio. Mathematical Models of Bone Metabolism. Winner of the Janet L. Andersen Award for Outstanding Student Exposition or Research in Mathematical or Computational Biology.
• Eric A. Shehadi of McDonald Ohio. Cellular Automata and Shrinking Cities. Winner of the SIAM Award for Outstanding Student Exposition or Research in Applied Mathematics.
• Zack While of Austintown, Ohio. Futurama’s Mind-Swapping Dilemma.

Also presenting were:

• Eric Stone of Newton Falls, Ohio. Neurons as Dynamical Systems.
• Emily A. Hoopes of Warren, Ohio. Developing an Educational Sudoku Application.
• Crystal D. Mackey of Bristolville, Ohio. Spread of an Infectious Disease in a Semi-closed Environment.
• Josiah M. Banks of Campbell, Ohio. Properties of the First Hurwitz Equation.
• Jenna L. Wise of Hubbard, Ohio. Local-Global Property of Quadratic Residues.
• Richard B Elrod of Austintown, Ohio. Topology in Floating-Point Arithmetic.
• Michael A. Baker of Bristolville, Ohio. Optimization of a Nonlinear PID Loop.

Jenna Wise and Eric Shehadi also represented YSU at a special session for students in applied mathematics. They presented a poster of their collaborative project with the Youngstown Police Department to examine the workload among the police beats in the city of Youngstown. This work was conducted through a Preparing for Industrial Careers in Mathematics grant under the direction of Tom Wakefield.

Attending MathFest with the students was Wakefield; Angela Spalsbury, professor and chair; Jacek Fabrykowski, professor; George Yates, professor; and Thomas Madsen, assistant professor. Faculty who advised students on their projects included Wakefield; Fabrykowski; Stephen Rodabaugh, professor; Michael Crescimanno, professor; Alicia Prieto Langarica, assistant professor; Jozsi Jalics, associate professor; Paddy Taylor, associate professor; Marnie Saunders, associate professor, University of Akron; Luis Garcia-Puente, associate professor, Sam Houston State University and Rebecca Garcia, associate professor, Sam Houston State University.

Yates said MathFest is about more than winning awards, but it’s about “the lessons learned through the hard work needed to do a research project and in presenting the results in a clear and informative talk at a national meeting of mathematicians.”

“Many of our alumni have told us that this was one of the most useful experiences they had as an undergraduate at YSU, and this is our biggest reward,” he added.

Youngstown State University today welcomed a freshman class that’s significantly larger in number and more diverse than last year and the strongest academically in the 107-year history of the university.

In addition, the university reported that residence halls are at capacity and that the number of Honor College students has also increased by nearly 70 percent.

“We have made tremendous strides in the past year to recruit students with increased academic credentials and from an expanded geographic region,” President Jim Tressel said. “The challenge now is to ensure that these freshmen are given the resources to be successful and graduate in a timely fashion.”

The 2015 freshman class by the numbers:

• 2,125 freshmen enrolled, up 17 percent from last fall and the largest since 2012.
• Average ACT test score of 21.15 and high school grade point average of 3.14, both new highs for the university.
• 79 freshmen with ACT scores above 30, up 52 percent from last year, and 645 with high school grade point averages of 3.5 and above, an increase of 31 percent from last year.
• 497 multicultural students, up 47 percent from last year, and 344 out-of-state students, an increase of 62 percent.
• Freshmen from 423 high schools, up 40 percent, and 53 Ohio counties, an increase of 43 percent.

In addition, the university reported that enrollment in the Honors College has increased from 96 to 162 students in the past year, and the university’s residence halls are at capacity at 1,343. Last year, the residence halls housed 1,183 students.

Official student counts, including overall enrollment, will be recorded on the 15^th day of the semester.

Last year, overall enrollment decreased 6.3 percent, the fourth consecutive annual enrollment decline. While this year’s numbers will not be known for two weeks, the university anticipates overall enrollment will stabilize this year.

The Youngstown State University Board of Trustees conducts its next set of quarterly meetings on the following schedule. All meetings are in the Board of Trustees Meeting Room on the first floor of Tod Hall, unless otherwise noted:

Thursday, Sept. 3
11:45 a.m. Board Lunch, Manchester Room
12:30 p.m. Investment Subcommittee
1:30 p.m. Audit Subcommittee
2:30 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee
3:30 p.m. Trusteeship Committee
4:30 p.m. Executive Committee

Tuesday, Sept. 8
11:45 a.m. Board Lunch, Manchester Room
12:30 p.m. Academic Quality and Student Success Committee
1:30 p.m. Collective Bargaining and Negotiations Subcommittee
2:30 p.m. Intercollegiate Athletics Subcommittee
3 p.m. University Affairs Committee
4 p.m. Institutional Engagement Committee

Thursday, Sept. 24
3 p.m. Board Meeting

Alice Wang

The Dana Faculty Trio, featuring Dana School of Music faculty members Joseph Kromholz on violin, Alice Wang on clarinet and Cicilia Yudha on piano, performs two free concerts this week on the campus of Youngstown State University.

The trio opens the Fall semester’s Music at Noon concert series 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 26 at the Butler Institute of American Art. A second concert is set for 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 28 in Bliss Recital Hall on the YSU campus.

The Dana School of Music and the Butler Institute of American Art have partnered on the Music at Noon series since the early 1990,s enabling more than a dozen Dana student and faculty groups to perform noontime concerts each semester.

“The Dana School of Music is proud to have this continuous and positive relationship with the Butler, allowing so many of our student and faculty groups to perform in their beautiful space,” said Wang, acting director of the Dana School of Music. “We look forward to many long years of collaboration.”

The repertoire for both concerts includes selections from Max Bruch’s Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola & Piano, Op. 83, featuring Joseph Kromholz on the viola; Béla Bartók’s Contrasts, as well as the World Premiere of YSU faculty member Dave Morgan’s piece specifically commissioned for this concert, Towards a New Day. Both the Bartok and Morgan pieces were written for violin, clarinet, and piano.

For more information, call the Office of Community Engagement and Events at 330-941-2307.

Stephen Gage

The Youngstown Sate University Wind Ensemble performs a “Strike Up the Band 2015” concert 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2, on Harrison Common Field on Walnut Street on the YSU campus.

The free concert has a distinctly Americana repertoire, including Strike Up The Band, arranged by Warren Barker; The Star Spangled Banner: A Love Song for Our Country, arranged by Jack Stamp; The Sound of Music arranged by Robert Russell Bennett; Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa; and much more.

“Harrison Common is an outstanding venue for this music and the YSU Wind Ensemble is enthusiastically looking forward to performing under the open sky in our first concert of the semester,” said Stephen L. Gage, conductor.

Patrons are invited to bring lawn chairs and snacks. Alcohol is prohibited. In the event of inclement weather, the rain location is the Recital Hall in Bliss Hall.

Parking is available for a nominal fee in the Wick Avenue deck, accessible from Walnut Street, or in the surface lot next to Harrison Common.

For more information, call the Office of Community Engagement and Events at 330-941-2307.

Nancy Wagner

The Ohio Board of Nursing has awarded $182,984 to Youngstown State University’s Department of Nursing to expand and increase enrollment in the department’s online Registered Nurse-Bachelor of Science in Nursing Completion Program.

“These grant funds will help us maintain high quality education for our students as we increase class size,” said Nancy Wagner, YSU chair of Nursing.

Wagner said the award from the Nurse Education Grant Program allows YSU to create a fulltime position to work with the RN-BSN faculty coordinator for recruitment and student support, assisting with the admission process and program progression. Additional funds will be used for promotion of the program and educational supplies.

She also said the YSU is partnering with Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Youngstown to provide YSU completion program students with clinical experiences.

The YSU RN-BSN program recently transitioned from a combination on-campus/online program to a fully online version to better accommodate working registered nurses.

The Nurse Education Grant Program is part of the Ohio Board of Nursing’s effort to address the state’s nursing shortage by increasing the enrollment capacity of nurse education programs.

In 2010, in the Institute of Medicine called for increasing the number of baccalaureate-prepared nurses to better meet the changing needs of patients. Locally and nationally, hospitals are requiring nurses prepared at the diploma or associate degree levels to complete the requirements for the BSN within five years. In Ohio, there are approximately 160,000 registered nurses; about half are currently prepared at the bachelor’s degree level.

For more information, contact Wagner at 330-941-1449 or nhwagner@ysu.edu, or Molly Roche, assistant professor and RN-BSN coordinator, at 330-941-7299 or mdroche@ysu.edu.

Tuesday, Sept. 1, 1 to 2 p.m. Welcome Week activities conclude with YSU Day on the campus core. YSU joined the Ohio system of higher education on Sept. 1, 1967 and officially became known as Youngstown State University.

Tuesday, Sept. 1, 7 p.m. The Penguins volleyball squad takes on St. Francis (Pa.) in Beeghly Center. The team is also in action against Colgate 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5.

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 7 p.m. The YSU Wind Ensemble performs a free “Strike Up the Band 2015” concert 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2, on Harrison Common Field on Walnut Street on the YSU campus. For more information, call the Office of Community Engagement and Events at 330-941-2307.

Thursday, Sept. 3. The YSU Board of Trustees meets in the Trustees Meeting Room on the first floor of Tod Hall on the following schedule: 11:45 a.m. Board Lunch, Manchester Room; 12:30 p.m. Investment Subcommittee; 1:30 p.m. Audit Subcommittee; 2:30 p.m. Finance and Facilities Committee; 3:30 p.m. Trusteeship Committee; 4:30 p.m. Executive Committee.

Friday, Sept. 4, 7 p.m. The Penguins soccer team plays Central Michigan at Farmers National Bank Field on Fifth Avenue on campus. The squad is also in action against Robert Morris 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6.

Saturday, Sept. 5, 1 p.m. The 2015 YSU Penguins football team opens the season in Heinz Field against the University of Pittsburgh.

Check out the campus calendar for a full listing of events.

Youngstown State University has made SuperScholar.org’s list of top online master’s programs in Early Childhood Education.

The YSU program is ranked 37^th in the nation. SuperScholar, an independent college search and rankings website, developed the list based on publicly available information on affordability, starting salaries of recent grads, market reputation, awards and recognition, and flexibility.

For the full listing, visit here.

The online master’s in teacher education, early childhood education program at YSU prepares teachers for advanced employment or education. For more information on the program, visit here.

The Office of Distance Education at YSU offers accredited online degree programs for both bachelor’s and master’s students in fully online, convenient formats. Undergraduate degree programs include the Bachelor of Science in Applied Science, Allied Health, Bachelor of Science in Applied Science, Public Health, Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN-BSN Completion Program) and Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care (Completion Program).

Online graduate degrees include the Master of Arts in Financial Economics, Master of Business Administration, Master of Health and Human Services, Master of Respiratory Care, Master of Science in Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Management and Program Planning, Master of Science in Engineering, Management option and the Master of Science in Teacher Education, Early Childhood Education

For more information on YSU’s online degree programs, visit here.

Youngstown State University’s Dana School of Music, in collaboration with the Butler Institute of American Art, again presents free Music at Noon concerts this semester.

Performances are Wednesdays at 12:15 p.m. at The Butler. The free concerts are open to the public; parking is free at The Butler. The concerts conclude Dec. 2 but will resume again in January 2016.

Performances for September:

Sept. 2, Dave Morgan and Friends

Sept. 9,Dana Brass Quintet

Sept. 16, Flute Studio Recital

Sept. 23, Voice Department Recital

Sept. 30, Musical Theater

From left to right: Julie A. Peters, PricewaterhouseCoopers, sponsor of the AAA Outstanding Accounting Educator Award; William (Bill) F. Messier, Jr., University of Nevada, Las Vegas; David E. Stout, Youngstown State University; and, Professor Sue Haka, Michigan State University (past president, American Accounting Association, and past recipient, AAA Outstanding Accounting Educator Award). Professor Messier was also a recipient of the 2015 AAA Outstanding Educator Award.

David E. Stout., the John S. and Doris M. Andrews Chair in Accounting in the Williamson College of Business Administration at Youngstown State University, has received the 2015 Outstanding Accounting Educator Award from the American Accounting Association and sponsored by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Foundation.

The award was presented at the 2015 AAA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

“This is an exceptional honor for David Stout and recognizes his exceptional career in accounting education,” said Betty Jo Licata, dean of the Williamson College of Business Administration.

“He has demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and service to his profession. We are fortunate to have such a uniquely talented individual on the faculty of the Williamson College of Business Administration. Our accounting majors and MBA students are the beneficiaries of his dedication to the teaching-learning process.”

The general criteria for the AAA Outstanding Accounting Educator Award are based on contributions to accounting education from scholarly endeavors in teaching and research over a sustained period of time.

Stout has published 100 articles in various professional and academic journals. He is a co-author of Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis, 6th edition (McGraw-Hill, 2013). He has served as editor of Issues in Accounting Education and as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Accounting Education. Stout is past president of the AAA Ohio Region, the AAA Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Section and the Academy of Business Education. He recently completed a three-year term as a member of the AAA Board of Directors.

Stout also received the 2007 Brummet Award from the IMA, the 2007 Ohio Outstanding Accounting Educator Award, and the 2008 AICPA Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award. In 2008, he was inducted into the TLC Section’s Hall of Honor.

Stout joined the faculty of the Lariccia School of Accounting and Finance at YSU in 2003. He regularly teaches undergraduate and MBA-level courses in cost and managerial accounting.

Of the many comments written in support of his nomination for this year’s award, Dr. Stout points to the following as the one for which he is most proud: “perhaps his strongest quality is that with all of his accomplishments, he has never lost focus on the interests of his students.”

Additional information about the award, including a listing of previous winners, here.

John Granger, who TIME magazine calls the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars,” presents a free lecture 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29th in DeBartolo Hall on the campus of Youngstown State University.

The lecture is being held in conjunction with an exhibit on display at YSU through Oct. 9 that explores the connections between Harry Potter and real life Renaissance science.

The six-banner exhibit from the National Library of Medicine is titled “Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic and Medicine.” The schedule for the exhibit:

• Through Friday, Sept. 11, on the second floor lobby of Kilcawley Center.
• Monday, Sept. 14 to Friday, Sept. 25, Youngstown Public Library Main Branch on Wick Avenue.
• Monday, Sept. 28 to Friday, Oct. 9, Debartolo Hall.

“Although a fantasy story, the magic in the Harry Potter books is partially based on Renaissance traditions that played an important role in the development of Western science, including alchemy, astrology, and natural philosophy,” says the NLM website. “Incorporating the work of several 15th- and 16th-century thinkers, the (exhibit) examines important ethical topics such as the desire for knowledge, the effects of prejudice, and the responsibility that comes with power.”

More information on the exhibit here.

John Granger

Granger is the author of several books on Harry Potter, including How Harry Cast His Spell, Hidden Key to Harry Potter, Unlocking Harry Potter: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader and Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures.

He has been a featured and keynote speaker at Harry Potter conferences in Boston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Toronto, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Illinois, San Francisco and Ottawa. He also has spoken at several universities, including Princeton, Pepperdine, Washington & Lee, La Salle, Cornell, Penn, Yale and the University of Chicago, as well as the New York C. S. Lewis Society and the New York Public Library. He has given more than 100 radio, newspaper, and television interviews.

More information on Granger here.

For more information on the lecture and the exhibit, contact Cassie Nespor, curator of the Melnick Medical Museum and University Archives, at 330-941-3487.

YSU resident assistants undergo active shooter training at Cafaro House residence hall.

Resident Assistants in the Cafaro House resident hall underwent training before the start of the Fall semester to learn how to respond to active shooter situations.

The training by the YSU Police Department included a drill that involved officers from other area law enforcement agencies and staff from the YSU Office of Housing and Residence Life.

The training led by YSU Officer Don Cox was held in conjunction with the ALICE Training Institute. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.

Robby Wells in Kilcawley Center.

The parade of presidential candidates to YSU started in August with…Robby Wells.

Wells, former head football coach at Savannah State University in Georgia, visited Kilcawley Center for a rally and town hall meeting.

Ohio, and Youngstown in particular, could once again be a hotbed of activity during the primary and general elections for president. In 2008, candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain held rallies at YSU. Also visiting were several celebrities as part of Rock the Vote. Beeghly Center played host to Good Morning America.

Wells, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., ran for president as an Independent in 2012 and announced in September 2013 that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 2016.