A Message from the Provost: The Path to Now
In June 2024, the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) began an ambitious effort to construct the first-ever Academic Master Plan (AMP) at Youngstown State University (YSU). This effort was initiated to better communicate the purpose and rationale behind actions and decisions made within our office. This plan underscores my belief in the importance of transparency, accountability, and collaborative action.
As such, the AMP is a strategic blueprint designed to keep the institution moving forward toward academic excellence, innovation, and sustainable growth by ensuring that all constituents have a full understanding of how and why decisions are being made. Because the AMP was developed through a collaborative effort, this document represents the input from stakeholders across campus who contributed on multiple occasions. The collaboration started in June 2024 when we held a visioning session with non-academic staff who support the academic core. To develop the heart of the plan, members of the OAA staff and I met with each academic department face-to-face (Fall 2024) and virtually (December 2024 and Spring 2025) to discuss pain and pride points, quantitative data, and qualitative data. We also collected feedback from surveys and town halls (Fall 2024). These valuable insights were central to the structure and content of the AMP.
Although the development of the AMP represents a critical milestone in our journey, it by no means represents a final document. The AMP will be a living document, changing continually as we envision new ways to improve student success and outcomes, advance research and scholarship within the disciplines we offer, and strengthen the community and region that we support and that support us. This inaugural version is structured to advance the institution to inspire individuals, enhance futures, and enrich lives. The first section contains relatively static content, detailing the foundational framework that guides how OAA will prioritize the actions outlined within the vision statement (section 1.1), determine the health of our academic programs (section 1.2), detail operating guidelines and policies (section 1.3), and define common terms used on our campus (section 1.4).
The second section represents the dynamic portion of the AMP as it contains the specific program goals, pitches, and action steps (GPAs) written by the faculty, chairs, and deans from each of our academic programs (section 2.2). The action steps—and possibly the goals themselves—will likely change annually as we accomplish each item. In addition to containing the program GPAs, section 2.1 also lists the OAA’s GPAs. Our office wrote these to align with the feedback provided during the face-to-face and virtual department meetings, town halls, and surveys from the past 12 months.
I believe this level of accountability, transparency, and collaboration will foster student success, empower faculty and staff, create mutually beneficial relationships between all employees, and build strong connections with the community and industry partners. Together we can better address the challenges of today and seize the opportunities of tomorrow as we become the transformative institution of the region.
Thank you for your trust, collaboration, and dedication as we bring this AMP to life together so everyone can “Know Y.”
Sincerely,
Jennifer Pintar, PhD, MPh