YSU freshmen Honors College enrollment hits all-time high

This year’s freshman class in Youngstown State University’s Honors College is the largest in university history.

The Honor College’s 337 freshmen enrolled this Fall semester tops the previous high of 328 freshmen in Fall 2017. There are currently a total of 1,277 students in the Honors College.

“Here we sit with a freshman class that is larger than the entire university Honors College was six years ago,” YSU President Jim Tressel told the incoming class during a welcoming ceremony last week.

The YSU Honors College, located in Fok Hall on campus, offers learning experiences in small classes and experiential seminars, living-learning communities, leadership and engagement activities, service-learning and volunteer initiatives, interdisciplinary projects and research opportunities.

“This class has already been through so much having their senior year (of high school) cut short,” said Amy Cossentino, Honors College dean. “We wanted to take a moment to honor their achievements thus far and set them on a path towards future success.”

The welcoming ceremony included the music of three honors students, Nick Grabigel, Lucas Cielsielski and Mason Ciesielski, featured student speaker Elsa Khan, and also included surprise video messages of encouragement from nearly 50 freshmen parents. “My hope is that our class will leave YSU a better place than when we started,” said Grabigel, a Music Performance Jazz Track major who spent hours recording himself and fellow Big Blitz Band members performing a variety of upbeat tunes and producing a video to open the ceremony.