By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Patrick Nelson and Bowling Green State University’s Conference and Events Services staff didn’t get the usual break after graduation this year.
No sooner had the caps and gowns been packed away, then the university hosted three major events – Fire School, Alumni College, and the New Music Gathering. As Memorial Day approached, they did get something of a respite, but not for long – the BGSU campus will be a busy place this summer.
Nelson, who serves both as director if the Bowen Thompson Student Union and Conference and Events Services, said despite the loss of Buckeye Boys State, he expects the university will host as many visitors this year as last.
Nelson estimates campus will welcome about 5,000 guests. That, he noted, does not include those who come for weddings. This summer eight weddings are scheduled for campus, twice as many as last year.
This year the university is launching a Summer Academy program. These academies will bring high school age students to campus to experience some of the new programs the university offers.
Two will be offered in June – Forensic Science and Health Career Exploration – with two robotics camps – BGSU Robotics and Art and Robotics, a collaboration with the Toledo Museum of Art – offered in July. (See http://bgindependentmedia.org/bgsu-offers-range-of-summer-camps-in-science-the-arts/)
Assistant Vice Provost Andy Alt said: “These are exciting new programs we want to introduce to potential students locally and across the state.”
“The university has facilities and great faculty and experts around in the summer,” he said. This allows the university to extend its offerings beyond the usual degree-oriented programs.
Anytime pre-college students and their families come to campus, it’s a recruitment opportunity, he said.
The programs give students a chance to work directly with faculty. Jon Sprague, director of the Center for the Future of Forensic Science, for example, is involved in the forensic scince camp, Alt said.
Two of the programs are highly select. Only 10 students were accepted into the forensics camp, said Kari Storm, pre-college summer academic program coordinator.
That was necessitated by the desire to make sure students had the best experience possible, including a chance to solve a crime, practice investigative skills in the crime scene house, and work in the labs.
The forensics program is also the only one that’s a residential program. The other three are day camps.
Art and Robotics has a dozen students. That will be presented at the Toledo Museum of Arts with students visiting campus one day.
Both the art and robotics and forensics camps are full.
There’s still room in the health careers camp, an overview of eight health-related careers, and BGSU robotics, which is tied to the new mechatronics major.
Storm said the health careers camp will be taught by professionals and include as much lab time as can be fit into the schedule.
These, Alt and Storm said, are just the beginning.
Next year, Alt said, more residential camps will be added in order to attract students from across the state and out-of-state.
Still, Storm said, it’s important to balance residential camps that make the programs available to students from further afield with day camps that provide an affordable option for local students.
They expect next year the array of camps will expand significantly.
Depending on what happens in the health careers academy this summer, separate camps for different professions may be offered.
“A lot of faculty seeing the interest in these are more excited for the prospects next year,” Alt said.
He can envision as many as 15 academies attracting 30 to 50 students each eventually being offered. In the future some may even offer the chance to earn college credit.
“If we can help students make some informed career decisions earlier based on experiences they have here … that is really worthwhile for us,” he said.
Making early decisions on a major is becoming more pressing as an increased number of students are earning college credits in high school. That means they come in with many general education requirements out of the way and will need to start taking courses in their majors as soon as they arrive on campus.
The summer academies join a plethora of other offerings for pre-college students. There are STEM offerings, business camp aimed at young women, and finance education in the form of Falcon Millionaires.
Younger students are also welcome. Pathways to STEM for third through fifth graders will hold two one-week camps in July.
The Summer Music Institute is possibly the oldest academic camp, and a model from bringing prospective students onto campus and giving them the chance to work with university faculty.
The institute will be working out of the Wolfe Center for the Arts this summer because of extensive work being done on the Moore Musical Arts Center.
Nelson said the continuing work being done on campus including a major electrical upgrade that will take buildings off line for weeks at a time, has made scheduling a something of a puzzle.
The campus also has a dozen different residential and day sports camps, and the bands from Sylvania and Woodmore will hold their band camps at BGSU.
A variety groups, Seventh Day Adventists and African educators among them, will convene on campus.
In early August BGSU will host what is now the largest group of summer visitors, the national Sigma Chi fraternity. The fraternity brings members from around country, about 2,200, for its Balfour Leadership Institute. The institute uses 250 spaces on campus, and many of the attendees go off campus to eat. Handling this institute has also gotten the attention, Nelson said, of other national Greek groups.
Meanwhile, Nelson said, “we miss our Boys State group. We wish them only the best, and we hope they continue to think fondly of us.”
If the opportunity comes up to lure them back from Miami University, Nelson hopes that BGSU will be ready to make a bid to add Boys State back into the summer mix.
