Hello, I am currently a senior as well as a student employee here at Youngstown State University. I am writing this letter to you over my concern about your decisions to restructure the already limited area of Meshel Hall that is used for CSIS students in the S.T.E.M. college.
I have been attending Y.S.U. since 2009 in attempts to receive my bachelors’ degree, and for the last three to four years, I have been majoring in Information Technology B., which is a CSIS based major. I must assure you that our department is severely lacking in structure and space, as nothing has been done in order to give it structure. Every “attempt” that was supposedly made was consistently pushed to the back burner, as other department’s orders of business were apparently more important than our own.
I am not entirely sure if you understand the way the world is turning, but if you must know, technology has become quite a prominent aspect of all individuals lives, and most of these technologies would not be available to this day if it weren’t for computing devices; devices that were developed, programmed, tested, and then installed into these technological devices by those who majored in technological sciences, A.K.A. CSIS majors.
While it may be true that our bottom floor isn’t utilized as much as it should be, this is mostly due to the sheer lack of coursework available for use students to choose from. While some majors have dozens of classes to choose from in terms of choosing required classes to fill up upper division courses, we have maybe ten or so, no thanks in part to the lack of structure and lack of full time staff our department has. I could possibly count the amount of full time professors and doctors on two hands for our department, as either part time faculty, or graduate assistants teach most of our department.
I understand that its difficult to hire full time staff, but more than half of my courses have been taught by incompetent graduate students that cannot teach students in a manner that they can memorize the material, but rather to a point where they can essentially regurgitate the information, and then immediately forget what they learned (unless it was pounded into our memories) a semester later. This is not to talk down upon graduate assistants, as some have managed to make the coursework memorable, but the fact remains that our department is severely lacking in terms of functionality.
Had we more courses to choose from and if our department were to get the attention we desperately need, then maybe those “barren classrooms on the first floor” wouldn’t be so barren as you claim them to be, which, by the way, is an inaccurate statement, as these labs provide ample space and area for us students to grow our knowledge through the utilization of technology that simply cannot be brought into a traditional classroom environment, such as routers, F.R.E.D. boxes, secure work stations, and spare P.C.s that are used in disassembling and reassembling labs.
During my last past six years at Youngstown State University, I have seen this school being run more like a business than a state funded University. As I can see it now, students, which are supposed to be the lifeblood of a state UNIVERSITY, are seemingly second in priority, whereas the first priority is notoriety. The fact that I, as a student to a state university, feel as such shows that we are not being treated as we should, or could. The fact remains that our department is not being treated as fairly as others are (after all, there are already other departments that already use our classrooms for courses on all of the academic floors of Meshel Hall).
Now I may be graduating this semester, but the fact remains that I do not want to see my department fade away, or become nothing more than a joke to fellow alumni because we lack what they are provided. I understand that students from other departments need more space in order to further their education as well, but how you are approaching this issue can be done in a much more efficient and beneficial way to all students and departments. After all, each building on campus has rooms that aren’t used as often as they could be. I feel that by taking our first floor labs is the first step into ousting what will become an essential department for this college in the future.
I do not ask much of you, but I do ask that you reconsider your decision, and think about the consequences that this may have on the CSIS department as a whole. I know that Trustee Harry Meshel feel the same way as I do, and possibly even more so, considering that the building was named after his sake. Please, make your decision one that will benefit many, not the few.
Sincerely,
A senior at YSU
