Student retention at YSU key to future, Tressel says
YOUNGSTOWN— Some of the strongest supporters backing Jim Tressel’s appointment as Youngstown State University president lauded his fundraising skills as a way to address the university’s financial challenges, but the presidentdesignee said that’s not the most significant part of the solution.
“The biggest financial lever we have is student retention,” Tressel said during an interview on Friday.
Each percentage of students equals $1 million, he said of retention.
“At the University of Akron, I tell my staff, ‘Don’t look at retention as affecting the budget, look at it as what we’re supposed to do,’ ” said Tressel, a former Ohio State University football coach who has been an Akron adminstrator for the past two years.
Youngstown State’s enrollment has declined since 2011, and the university has been seeking ways to keep students in school.
Fall 2013 enrollment saw 13,395 students, compared with 13,813 students in fall 2012 and 14,540 in fall 2011. There were 15,194 students enrolled in fall 2010.
“Our financial lever is not development and it’s not state subsidy,” Tressel said. “Development is the second most-important thing to help with finances.”
Tressel takes office on July 1 as YSU’s ninth president. Trustees selected him after an accelerated search following the surprise resignation in March of Randy J. Dunn, who served as YSU president for eight months. Dunn left to become president of Southern Illinois University.
Soon after Dunn’s resignation, a group of business and community leaders mounted a campaign, urging trustees to name Tressel as YSU president.
Tressel, 61, took the Univeristy of Akron job after being forced out as Ohio State coach over a scandal in which players sold memorabilia for cash and tattoos. He had coached the Buckeyes from 2001 through the 2010 season, winning a national title in the 2002 season.
Tressel, who coached the Youngstown State football team from 1986 to 2000, shrugged off the idea circulating on social media and media websites that he will be a white knight for the community.
“Youngstown doesn’t need saved any more than it’s a confused world we live in,” he said.
Amid the scandal at Ohio State, Tressel was accused of withholding information from university officials and National Collegiate Athletic Association investigators.
He acknowledged that’s all part of his record but said he believes the media’s definition of him is less important than the definition of those with whom he’s worked.
“The most-important definition to me is the definition of the people I’ve spent time with, who I’ve worked directly with,” Tressel said. “Someone who is defining from afar — again I understand — but what’s important to me are those I have served with, worked with (and) tried to serve. I think that’s what’s important.”
He said he can’t do anything about the past except learn from it.
“I’ve never questioned my intentions,” Tressel said. “I’ve questioned my performance, of course.”
After making a mistake, a person can decide to go lie on a beach somewhere or he or she can decide to continue to serve, he said.
Tressel has served as executive vice president for student success at Akron. He also recently was a finalist for Akron’s presidency, but that school’s trustees ultimately chose a different candidate.
He’s happy to be returning to the city and university where he spent so much of his career.
“It’s been great,” Tressel said. “You ride around town, you think back to all the memories, the people, and then you run into people. ... (There are) not enough hours in the day, which is a problem for all of us, but it’s been fun.”