By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The BGSU campus will be hopping this summer.
Patrick Nelson, director of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union and Conference and Event Services, expects about 10,000 overnight guests to stay on campus this year. That’s about a 40 percent increase from last year. That includes cheerleaders, Christian youth groups, marching bands, classical and jazz performers, soccer, hockey, and football players, Girl State delegates, and more. This does not include all the incoming students and their families who will be on campus for orientation or those in sports day camps.
Nelson has his finger on them as well. If they use campus facilities and eat in the campus dining halls, his office plays a part facilitating their visits.
At the May trustees meeting, Chief Financial Officer Sheri Stoll reported that the university is projected to bring in more than $4 million in revenue from summer activities. The stretch goal, she said, is $5 million. If BGSU does not make that this year, it will next.
That money is used to help pay for a variety of auxiliary services – the student union, hockey arena, recreation center, dining halls, and more. That’s less money that needs to come from students.
Nelson said this is not a bounce back from pre-COVID days. That was achieved and exceeded last summer. This is uncharted territory.
Stoll attributed the growth in part to other campuses closing to camps in 2020 during the early days of COVID restrictions. BGSU “did a certain amount of outdoor camps,” she said, and was willing to “work within the COVID restrictions.”
Nelson said the Christ In Youth conference was told late that their planned site in Michigan couldn’t take them. “We had been trying to build a relationship with them.” This was an opening. BGSU was able to accommodate them. They’ve brought their 1,500-person conference to BGSU each summer since, and three affiliated conferences are coming this summer.
“Once they’re here and know our goal is to take the best care of them and offer everything we can offer,” Nelson said, “it helps us grow it from there. It’s been a nice blessing for us.”
The conference and events services facilitate any camp on campus, whether a sports day camp run by a BGSU coach or an overnight camp involving hundreds of visitors.
“We manage the spaces,” he said. There are a lot of “puzzle pieces” to fit together including meeting spaces, recreation areas, dining halls, and classrooms. “It’s a lot of moving parts.”
Nelson said the office’s goal “is to be the one-stop shop for the client.”
The service extends to groups that may not fit onto a schedule. Nelson will help them find another location. Often, they end up at BGSU in later years.
Nelson is in his 12th year on campus, and 11th overseeing the Conference and Event Services Offices. He was here when Boys State announced it would be leaving campus. That was seen has a blow to campus. Now Girls State, which hasn’t convened at BGSU since 1997, is back.
The university is helping to develop a voting system for the civics education convention. Nelson said the intent is to develop a relationship, so Girls State returns annually.
It’s just one of seven groups of 500-plus participants that BGSU is hosting.
Girls State starts the second week in June. As the 700 Girls Staters check out, the 800 participants in the Ohio Soccer Association Olympic Development camp will be checking in.
The Summer Music Institute, which offers seven week-long camps, each focusing on different instruments and jazz, begins June 11 and concludes with the flute camp from July 23-28. The Summer Music Institute is a legacy summer camp and a model for using summer offerings as recruiting opportunities.
[RELATED: BGSU beat goes on throughout the summer with camps, academies and institutes]
Academic camps kick into high gear after July 4th, Nelson said. The later weeks welcome marching band camps.
Activity comes to a close with the annual leadership session of Sigma Chi, one of the largest gatherings on campus. They’ve met seven times at BGSU with two years off during the pandemic.
There’s a one-week break before university students start arriving. Nelson and other members of his team often reserve that for vacation.
Then, as kind of a coda to summer activities, campus will host the Bowling Green Fall Soccer Challenge bringing about 8,000 people to the intramural fields. It’s the “last hurrah” of summer.
All these activities expose students from throughout the state and beyond to BGSU.
Nelson made a rough guess that of the 10,000 overnight guests this summer, two-thirds are from outside Northwest Ohio.
That’s not lost on Cecilia Castellano, vice president for Enrollment Management. “Summer programming at Bowling Green State University provides an excellent opportunity for junior high and high school students and their families to experience our thriving campus community first-hand,” she said in a prepared statement. “BGSU works closely with event organizers to support the student and guest experience from start to finish. From faculty members to current students, every interaction with a potential student is an opportunity to have them positively remember BGSU and to consider the University for their college education.”
And while the university is exceeding its institutional best in summer performance, Nelson sees the potential for further growth.
In December, the BGSU Board of Trustees voted to spend $18 million to install air conditioning in McDonald and Kohl halls.
That will add more than 1,100 beds in air-conditioned residence halls, he said. That will allow for even more activity and visitors to campus in future years.
