By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When Geoffrey Radbill arrived on the Bowling Green State University campus he was, in his own words, “a very immature high school graduate from Philadelphia.”
The 1968 alumnus of BGSU said, “when I got here, I felt totally lost.”
Then he found guides to help him. Tim Smith, an assistant dean for fraternity life, connected him with Greek life. Radbill ended up being treasurer and then president of Zeta Beta Tau.
“That gave me my home,” Radbill said. “If that had not happened, I would not have ever graduated Bowling Green.”
And he connected with a faculty advisor “who worked with me because what I thought I wanted to do when I came here and what I ended up doing were two different things.”
His mother wanted him to be a lawyer; his father wanted him to be a certified public accountant.
He ended up with a degree in finance, and after graduation got a job with a global financial services company. “My fellow workers,” he recalled, “didn’t feel like they got much at all out of college to prepare them for what they were feeling. Bowling Green gave me those experiences.
His success gave him the financial resources to help his alma mater make sure every student who comes to BGSU has the same kind support that he benefited from that allowed him to succeed in life and in his career.
On Thursday, BGSU dedicated the Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design. Radbill and his life partner Jan Kohn provided the major donation to create the center on the third floor of the Math Science building.
The center is home to the life design program launched by BGSU in 2020.
The aim is to help guide students as they start their academic careers.
It’s a place where they can come for counseling, to collaborate with other students, for study groups, or maybe just assemble a puzzle. All with the intent to piece together their college careers and lives beyond.
“It is about providing the opportunities and support for our students to have a transformative experience,” said Adrienne L. Ausdenmoore, executive director of College and Life Design. “It’s about empowering them to discover who they want to be and to design their future one step at a time. It is about building the network of faculty and staff who believe that every student has the potential to succeed. We are here to encourage those students when they encounter obstacles big or small.”
For sophomore Devin Darr one of those obstacles was realizing he didn’t have the math background to complete his physics major in four years.
But he was able to reach out to his Life Design coach who helped him find solutions the problem.
One of those was encouraging him to apply for a Thompson Working Families Achievement Scholarship. The coach also reassured him that the feelings he had about being “an imposter” were common among students, especially those like himself who were in the first generation of their families to attend college.
Using a life design principles, he reframed the problem of spending a fifth year at BGSU. Instead of it being a negative, Darr now thought of it as affording him a greater opportunity to work with faculty and to network.
This wasn’t his first encounter with the program, though. A life design coach contacted before he even showed up on campus, and then he took the introductory BGSU 1910 course.
Now as a Life Design student ambassador, Darr helps other students gain their footing on campus.
This kind of help is important as BGSU attracts more first-generation college students and others from disadvantaged social backgrounds, Radbill said.
For those students, arriving on campus can be daunting, President Rodney Rogers said. And those students have not had the same success as those from more privileged backgrounds.
“Students are trying to figure out how to best leverage all these resources and opportunities that exist right here at Bowling Green State University to help prepare them for their future.”
Board of Trustees chair Marilyn Eisele noted that BGSU is the first university with such an extensive life design program. The Radbill Center focuses on students in their first two years. Both centers work with academic counseling.
Other colleges and universities are looking at BGSU is doing. “This is a giant leap not just for BGSU, but all of higher education,” she said. “It will truly redefine student success.”
In May, the university will hold another dedication ceremony for the Michael and Sara Kuhlin Hub for Career Design and Connections. This will help students launch their careers by connecting them with alumni and industry leaders in their fields of interest to find mentors before they graduate, Rogers said.
“The question for higher education that we should be asking ourselves is: How do we educate, prepare, and empower students for a world that will become even more complex? BGSU has a responsibility to answer that question. Our response is life design.”
