When Adam and Kristen Ferguson visited the Ohio State Lima campus with their children so many things had changed. All the labs that Adam Ferguson had worked in on the third floor of Galvin Hall had moved to a whole new building. Kristen Ferguson was delighted to see a free-standing fitness center with lots of light and choice.
But the really important things that made their two years on campus stellar still remained and they can see them shining through with son Riley’s experience as a freshman in the engineering technology program.
Both elder Fergusons had people at Ohio State Lima that helped propel them forward when they needed it.
Kristen was accepted to Ohio State Columbus, but her world shifted when her parents divorced her senior year of high school. The first-generation college student wasn’t sure where to turn. She had met Adam a few weeks before the start of school and heard about his choice to begin at Ohio State Lima.
“I met Adam at a football game. He was talking to me about Ohio State Lima and he was getting ready to start there. I went over and they were awesome. Seriously, awesome,” she said. “Between Gary Weaver in financial aid and Jim Miller in admissions, they got me signed up. For me not having a clue how to do it, they did it. They got me where I needed to be.”
Adam Ferguson had his own group of supportive faculty who helped him on his path to veterinary college. Their names will be very familiar to many of the alumni who passed through the Ohio State Lima campus in the past several decades – Eric Juterbock, Charles Good, Harry McSweeney and Charles Moseley.
Both Fergusons are delighted that their son has a similar support system forming at both his workstudy job in the Phillip A. Heath Learning Center and in the labs and classrooms at the Engineering Education and Manufacturing Center where most of his major classes are held.
The elder Fergusons had to transition to the Columbus campus for their majors, but Riley Ferguson will get to stay all four years. He chose the Lima campus for the engineering technology program and its ties to local manufacturing, but it has been fun for him to see how much his campus means to his parents.
“The fact that my parents went to Ohio State Lima didn’t influence me to choose Lima, but it made me more excited when I found out how much they loved it,” he said. “I know it's where my parents met some of their lifelong friends, and I have heard some stories from those friends of the things they were involved in such as basketball games and euchre tournaments.”
His parents hope he’ll also have fond memories far beyond his classrooms. For them, the Lima Campus Library was the place that sticks with them both.
“My favorite part of our experience was finding a little, quiet nook to ourselves usually far back in the library in one of those big windows by the woods. That's where we would do homework. I remember just sitting back there for hours reading,” Adam Ferguson said. “I remember those things -- the little hidden nooks that you could find to bury yourself away but still be part of the campus life.”
