Alumni + Giving
Powerful network
When you earn your degree from the College of Creative Arts, you join an exceptional group of more than 101,000 living alumni who proudly call Youngstown State University their alma mater. From Grammy and Emmy Award winners to Disney World Imagineering Executives to Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame members, College alumni continue to make a name for themselves.
Others of our highly accomplished alumni may be found in fulfilling and broadly diverse careers, including with the Metropolitan Opera, as Billboard chart-topping songwriters and producers, and in hundreds of university and school classrooms across the country. You are now a member of our expansive Penguin family.
Congratulations to our recent College alumni!
Earning your degree from YSU is an important achievement. Hats off to our Cliffe College of Creative Arts graduates – we’re proud of you!
Sculpture + Disney
Larry Davis (B.F.A., '76), Executive Creative Director Emeritus at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Bartók + Jazz + Hip-Hop
YSU alumnus Stephen P. Harvey (M.M., '16) is a saxophonist, vocalist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator. Since his musical background encompasses classical, jazz, popular, funk, Hip-Hop, rock, and gospel genres, it’s understandable that his performances, compositions, and teaching are firmly grounded in music eclecticism.
“Although I loved learning about The Art of the Fugueand reading Lendvai's treatise on Bartók, I’ve always seen equal value in experience of the music of the Americas. During my undergrad as a Music Education student (vocal emphasis), I loved exploring settings of spirituals just as much as Schumann song cycles and Fauré art songs.”
When Stephen subsequently discovered his love for composition and jazz, he was further able to integrate his eclectic approach into his graduate studies. With his thesis project, which infused the influence from modern Black American Music in compositional studies for his thesis project, he found the perfect vehicle for his passion of eclectic musicianship. Stephen has founded several diverse ensembles and in 2016 released his debut album as a composer and bandleader, Suite Childhood.
Stephen graduated from YSU in 2016 with his M.M. in Jazz Studies. Stephen is currently teaching at Wicomico High School in Maryland and is an adjunct professor at the Dana School of Music, where he teaches Survey of Hip-Hop and Music of African Americans.