
Celebrating YSU’s New English Major: Reflections from a New Department Chair
Welcome Back to Campus As the new chair for English and World Languages, I want to welcome you back to school and share some updates

Welcome Back to Campus As the new chair for English and World Languages, I want to welcome you back to school and share some updates

From your first semester through graduation, academic advising is an important part of your experience at YSU. At the Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, advisors are here to help you navigate your degree, make informed decisions, and stay on track toward

YSU’s Radiologic Technology program is a 22-month, on-campus program that combines classroom learning, hands-on lab training, and clinical experience to prepare students for careers in

When you think of the library, opossum puppets, botany board games, and flash cards may not be the first things to come to mind, but they are the most circulated items in the Wilcox Curriculum Resource Center (CRC).
When India Gatts applied for an internship at the Trumbull County Historical Society (TCHS) as a junior history and English double major, she just thought it would be good work experience. She then turned it into a two-year project on the Old Mahoning Ave. “Pioneer” Cemetery of cataloging, digitizing, mapping, and creating indexes.
Gatts landed the internship with TCHS through effective preparation from her history courses, specifically History Practicum which she took with Dr. Amy Fluker where they completed work on a cemetery project. This gave Gatts the background knowledge and experience to undertake the larger project of cataloging the Pioneer Cemetery.
“This internship allowed me to perfectly combine my two fields of study to complete the project. With the aid of 21st century technology, the project provides a historical database current and future generations can utilize. It also honors long buried, and sometimes forgotten, generations from the 18th and 19th centuries,” she stated.
She further brought the project to life through her graduate English course, Studies in Film, where she created a documentary film on the cemetery that is now included in the final project.
Gatts was able to dedicate the time needed to the project as she continued her studies at YSU through the English M.A. program as a graduate assistant. She is expected to complete her master’s in the spring 2027 semester.
The project involved many steps including:
She was able to collaborate with many YSU faculty on the project. John Bralich, a geography professor, assisted in mapping the cemetery. Dr. Matt O’Mansky, anthropology professor, provided and helped with the ground penetrating radar. Kate Pfouts, archivist at TCHS and anthropology graduate, collaborated as a part of the Pioneer team.
The final project can be found here.