Youngstown State University

Adaline Cook of Vandergrift, Pa., a Gerontology major at Youngstown State University, won the Ohio Association of Gerontology and Education Outstanding Undergraduate Paper in Gerontology Award.

YSU students received a variety of awards at the Virtual Greek Awards Ceremony earlier this spring. Awards were given to individuals as well as fraternities and sororities. The virtual ceremony can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here.

YSU senior Emily Henline of Austintown was named a scholar in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, considered to be one of the most widely recognized and prestigious scholarships in the world.

YSU junior Alexandra Ballow of Deshler, Ohio, was selected for the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a premiere national award for undergraduate students in the fields of mathematics, science and engineering.

Youngstown State University Chi Sigma Iota, the Counseling Academic and Professional Honor Society, has inducted 23 new Counseling graduate students into the society.

The following people recently were initiated into The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.

A group of YSU Honors College students in an Honors seminar called "Let's Talk" recently spent an evening practicing communication skills and enjoying the company of residents at three local long-term care facilities. Eleven students participated in casual conversations over ice cream and learned about the lives of those living at Marian Living Center and Assumption Village Skilled Nursing Home, both in North Lima, and Humility House in Austintown. The students were enrolled in the honors seminar, Let's Talk, which explores principles of interpersonal communication and provides practical strategies for having meaningful conversations. The seminar culminates in an opportunity to converse with older adults. Students in the Honors College collectively amass approximately 60,000 hours of volunteer service annually through a variety of projects which impact the campus and community.

The Youngstown State University Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma in the Williamson College of Business Administration inducted 49 business students during a ceremony earlier this spring. Beta Gamma Sigma is the world's premiere business honorary reserved exclusively for schools accredited by AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. BGS spans more than 190 countries. To be eligible, business students must be in the top 10 percent of the sophomore, junior or senior classes or the top 20 percent of the master's program.

Isabella Davis, a master's degree student in English, will have four opportunities to share her work with scholarly communities. The Sacramento, Calif., native who earned bachelor's degrees in Political Science and Spanish at YSU, has been accepted to present her research in linguistic anthropology at four academic conferences this year. Her work focuses on a recent grassroots proposal in Argentina and other southern cone countries of South America to use the letter "e" in Spanish for individuals who do not identify within the current binary system of gender (i.e. amige instead of amigo or amiga). Davis' research analyzes comments made on social media related to the "e" proposal. Davis said she next hopes to continue exploring the uses and effects of gender-inclusive language by speaking with members of the gender non-conforming community in Latin America.

Youngstown State University's Ethics Bowl team is #1 in the nation, winning the national Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl in Atlanta. The team of YSU students Samantha Fritz, Jacob Tomory, Moataz Abdelrasoul, Eva Lamberson and Michael Factor bested squads from universities and colleges across the country, including Stanford, Yale, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, Tufts, University of California Santa Barbara and the University of Central Florida. The team, coached by Alan Tomhave, associate professor and chair, and Mark Vopat, professor, both of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, brings to YSU two trophies - one that visits the winning school for the year and another that YSU gets to keep permanently.

Fifteen students and two faculty members from the Williamson College of Business Administration at YSU toured the Fushimi Inaris Shrine, Nanzeji Temple, Osaka Castle along with other landmarks and visited Japanese businesses during a Global Learning Experience program. The 10-day trip in January introduced YSU students to Japanese cultures, international businesses and explored resources available to startups in the global marketplace. Students attended meetings with executives of Japanese and American companies, including Morgan Stanley, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Abbott, Omron and Havas Japan. Students also met with trade officials from the U.S. Consulate in Osaka and visited the Entrepreneurial Museum of Challenge and Innovation. Tours of well-known landmarks in and around Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo, as well as cultural activities were also part of the trip that counts as an upper-division elective course.

Original works by 10 student choreographers were performed as part of the Youngstown State University Dance Ensemble concert in February. An additional company of students also had an opportunity to dance in the show. The performance was under the artistic direction of Theatre and Dance faculty member Amy A. Wright. Guest choreographer was Stephanie Frey Anderson, a professional dance artist in the Pittsburgh area and a resident artist at the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center.

YSU student John P. Anzevino has been named a Risk Management Association Scholar and awarded a $1500 scholarship from the RMA Foundation. Anzevino, a junior finance major in the Williamson College of Business Administration, is one of 114 students nationwide to receive this scholarship awarded to students with an interest in a career in the banking industry. Anzevino has a 3.9 GPA and has been on both the Dean's List and President's List. He is currently pursuing the Certified Financial Planner Track in the finance major.

Jenna Binsley, Sabrina Caruso, Alanis Chew, Roshan Chokshi, and Ryan Sheffield, business students in the Williamson College of Business Administration at Youngstown State University, have been selected as the John D. Beeghly Fellows for the 2020 Spring Semester. The program provides students with a paid fellowship working with the Ohio Small Business Development Center at YSU. Projects include financial analysis and sales forecasting, market research, export readiness studies, country research, business loan proposals, cash flow analysis and government contracting. Students gain valuable career-related work experience, and are able to position themselves to be competitive in the job market upon graduation.

Lynne Azar of Poland, Ohio, a master's degree student in the Gerontology program at Youngstown State University, is among only 10 students statewide named to the Ohio Scholars in Aging Class of 2020. The program, a partnership of the Ohio Department on Aging and the Ohio Association of Gerontology and Education, allows students to network with lawmakers, state officials and others and to learn about the state's policymaking process. Since 2013, more than 100 students from 15 colleges and universities have been selected for the program.

Emily Henline of Austintown, a senior at Youngstown State University, has been selected a semifinalist in the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program and hopes to go to South Korea to earn a master's degree. YSU's first semi-finalist since 2016, Henline's application is now under review by the Fulbright Commission, and she will be notified this spring if she is a finalist.

Ryan Sheffield, a junior Youngstown State University management major, has passed the Certified Global Business Professional (CGBP) exam. The certification issued by the National Association for Small Business International Trade Educators is a prestigious acknowledgment of international business expertise in management, marketing, supply-chain management and trade finance.

Youngstown State University students have been named to the Dean's List for Fall Semester 2019.

Youngstown State University students earning a perfect 4.0 grade point average have been named to the President's List.

The Honors College at Youngstown State University has recognized several students as part of the Honors Student of the Week initiative for the second half of the Fall 2019 semester. The college launched the program earlier this year to recognize academic excellence, community engagement and student success. The Honors Student of the Week is announced each Sunday in the college's weekly e-newsletter sent to Honors College students, staff and faculty and also posted on the YSU website. There are currently 1,266 students in the college.

Students Dustin Hudak, Kennedy Stanko, Daniel Raver and Anthony Nakley represented Youngstown State University at the Inaugural Ohio Collegiate Sales Competition at Cleveland State University. Cleveland State and Kent State students also participated in the event in which they developed, prepared and delivered sales call presentations acting as representatives of the Tom James Co., the world's largest provider of custom and bespoke clothing.

YSU STEM College has named Kalliope Zembillas, a senior Chemical Engineering major with a minor in Mathematics, the STEM Intern of the Year. The honor is given to a student who has shown a high quality of work, has demonstrated initiative, has completed presentations and has had impacted the company with whom they have worked. Kalliope's internship was at the Simon Roofing Research and Development Lab, starting in the Spring semester 2019. Her main responsibility was the formulating and testing of water-based roofing coatings. Other responsibilities included developing new testing methods, streamlining old ones, and data collection and analysis.

YSU student, Rochelle Richardson, was the student speaker for Fall Commencement 2019. She graduated Sunday with a master's degree in Counseling - Clinical Mental Health. Richardson is a licensed social worker and practicing clinician for the IFAST program at Psycare Inc. in Struthers. She assists family units with establishing order in the home and stabilizing problematic behaviors by utilizing Strategic Family Therapy.

Several Youngstown State University students earned honors at the Lake Erie International Model UN competition earlier this fall. The YSU contingent of 14 students competed against teams from 15 universities.

Three YSU students delivered presentations to the YSU Board of Trustees during their quarterly meetings, Dec. 4 and 5. Presenters include Carla J. Colantone, a senior in Dental Hygiene, who discussed the university's DH program, accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation, and Nadine P. Jones, a Political Science and Philosophy major, and Zachary W. Mayer, a History major and a minor in Judaic Studies, who together talked about their research on the holocaust, including a class/study trip to Czech Republic, Poland and Germany that featured visits to concentration camps.

Three members of the Youngstown State University Beta Gamma Sigma International Honor Society earned top prizes at the annual Global Leadership Summit in Chicago. The following students were on teams that won their case categories during the KPMG-sponsored Team Case Competition: Brooke Lissy, Amanda Paynter and Kelli Dougherty. In addition, Dougherty's team was declared the overall case competition winner.

Thirty-two students and two faculty members represented Youngstown State University at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine in Chicago earlier this fall. It was YSU's largest ever delegation to the conference. MWACSM is one of 12 regional chapters within the ACSM - the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. Three YSU students and one faculty member made presentations.

The work of Youngstown State University Art students is featured in two new exhibits at the McDonough Museum of Art on campus. The Fall Graduating BFA Exhibition and the MFA First Year and Collaborative Project Exhibition are on view in the McDonough galleries through Dec. 14.

Noor Khalayleh, senior Psychology major at Youngstown State University, placed first at the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference in New Orleans earlier this month. Khalayleh won the top award in the education and pedagogy category for her poster depicting her research project titled, "Assessing Life Experiences: Developing an Ecologically-Valid Measure of Critical Thinking," advised by Michael Raulin, YSU associate professor of Psychology.

A delegation of eight students from the Honors College represented YSU at the National Collegiate Honors Council conference earlier this month in New Orleans. Students presented original research, shared best practices in honors and returned with new ideas to share with the college. In the past decade, YSU students have received four top NCHC awards.