Trustees of Youngstown State,
Hello. My name is Joseph Kempe, but everyone calls me Joey. I’m writing to you to let you know of my feelings toward Youngstown State University in hopes some positive change can come out of it in the future.
To begin this letter, I must inform you about myself. I am currently a junior geography major on a Geographic Information Science track. My minor was going to be French until the cuts in 2021 prohibited me from pursuing that minor. I hope to be a GIS analyst after graduation.
With that said, my degree will not be from Youngstown State. The cuts made by YSU have caused my opinions of the university to turn completely sour. When I began my degree here, I truly believed YSU was the best choice for me. When the university cut the French program, my love of this university started to diminish.
Now, with the announcement of possible cuts in the Beeghly College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Education, my fear for the geography major is at an all-time high. It has raised my fears so high that I started looking at other universities.
I found an online school with great benefits and roughly the same cost as YSU. This school offers an accelerated master’s degree; something YSU does not. Given all of these positives, I will be transferring to this school, hopefully after this current semester.
Youngstown State University has let me down and I am tired of being treated like a number. The people in charge of this university do not care about students’ successes, they care about the students’ money. We are nothing but a number.
With that said, the professors I’ve had are some of the best people for me. They actually care about their students’ success. They have gone out of their way to give me opportunities to succeed both as a student and as a person. The staff and students of Youngstown deserve better — end of story.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope the best for this department and for all departments at risk of being done away with.
Best regards,
Joey Kempe, soon-to-be ex-Penguin.