Excellence Through Education

A Center for Industry and Campus Collaborations

Even before the Mahoning Valley took a manufacturing hit last year, YSU was working on ways to provide more research and educational opportunities for its students; spur workforce development in the community; foster cross-collaborative interdisciplinary projects between STEM, business, healthcare, the arts and other fields; and stimulate the regional economy.

With its nine local partners in the Mahoning Valley Innovation and Commercialization Consortium, YSU soon will break ground on the Excellence Training Center, a hub of workforce innovation and commercialization. The ETC will be located at the former Mahoning County misdemeanant jail on Commerce Street and Fifth Avenue adjacent to campus.

The MVICC partners have been constructing a written consortium agreement to work through the logistics of shared use and space.

“We are working together to find ways to streamline and be more efficient in order to keep up with the speed of industry,” said David Sipusic, YSU associate general counsel for Research & EEO Compliance and executive director of the ETC. “The Center will be the home for not only YSU’s courses and equipment but also courses and equipment from the other consortium partners.”

The ETC will serve as an important part of the region’s education and manufacturing ecosystem and be a resource for people in all stages of their education or careers.

“The ETC will be a ‘teaching factory’ filled with outstanding, cutting edge technology with classroom, lecture, lab and research spaces,” said Sipusic. “Students will be learning on machines, real world advanced machines, that they won’t be able to get anywhere else. They will have the opportunity to learn beyond the theory, by actually getting to do.”

The ETC will also provide training and other opportunities for students and industry partners as well as workforce development and retraining and recertification for displaced workers.

Research is another major component of the initiative. YSU is one of only two universities worldwide to own all seven additive manufacturing technologys. On top of that, the YSU Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Research, which leads the university's efforts in developing advanced manufacturing technologies like 3-D printing, robotics and digital metrology, boasts some of the nation's top researchers. The Center of Excellence is transitioning to become the research arm of the ETC.

With a focus on advanced manufacturing, YSU is also actively engaging industry partners in collaborations and commercial projects.

Sipusic said conversations are occurring regularly between YSU’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and industry partners such as the U.S. Air Force, IBM and Siemens about ways to meet the needs of the companies through collaborations, whether it is providing students with internships or co-op opportunities, or how they can interface to bring projects into the ETC to support workforce development. At press time, YSU and IBM were preparing to announce a worforce development partnership to address the growing shortage of IT workers.

“We have the capabilities, with all of our equipment, to do very high-end, advanced manufacturing projects that industry partners are looking for,” he said. “We have some of the best and brightest faculty that are well respected around the world. People come to us, here in Youngstown, to help them solve problems in advanced manufacturing.”

Joining Sipusic on the organizational chart for the ETC is Darrell Wallace, professor and program coordinator for Manufacturing Engineering. Wallace has assumed the position of coordinator of External Projects.

The university has received $7 million in special state capital allocations, as well as $3 million in federal funding, to establish the MVICC. YSU owns the building and will manage and operate the ETC. Construction is projected to be finished in late Fall 2020 with the facility opening for classes for the Spring 2021 semester.