YSUpdate Profile of Robert Ciotola (plaintext)
Title: Math man: Ciotola leads Center more than 20 years
By KELLY NOYES
Pythagoras, Archimedes and Newton are a few of the famous mathematicians whose pictures decorate the walls of the Mathematics Assistance Center in Cushwa Hall.
Robert Ciotola, director of the center for more than 20 years, may deserve a place on the wall himself.
“My picture will go right here,” said Ciotola, 64, laughing and pointing to an empty space next to 19th century mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky.
For 22 years, Ciotola has helped thousands of YSU students succeed in college math classes, finding them help when they felt most helpless.
“Math isn't easy, but it's not impossible,” said Ciotola of Hubbard.
The MAC has been an academic support service to YSU students for more than 25 years. Through a system of approximately 15 student tutors, the center helps students strengthen their fundamental math skills and provides resource materials for independent study.
In fall 2004 and spring 2005, nearly 900 students made about 4,000 visits to the center.
“Weʼve had students coming in for the same problems since the MAC started because many of them are unprepared when they come to college,” Ciotola said.
A native of Farrell, Pa., Ciotola's first love was music. He once was the drummer for The Newports, a local jazz cover band. But he was always around math. “My father was a self-taught accountant who did accounting for small businesses in the area, and my brother, Frank, was an associate professor of math here at YSU for 20 years,” he said.
After graduating from Sharon High School, Ciotola came to YSU and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1963. He spent the next 19 years teaching math at Brookfield and Sharon high schools. In 1982, he returned to YSU to coordinate the MAC.
Has the center been a success?
“I would consider it successful if we didn't need this place anymore,” Ciotola said. “But, really, we've been very successful. Even if it's only one person out of 100, we've helped that one person.”
Ciotola said the center, part of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, wants to help students to learn how to work on their own and succeed in their math classes.
“There are some students who go to the MAC thinking that the tutors will do all of the work for them, but that isn't the case,” he said. “We want students to be self sufficient. We want to provide students with the opportunity to develop skills and confidence to do math successfully.”
More information on the center