MANSFIELD, Ohio –The Ohio State University President Dr. Michael Drake paid a visit to the university’s Mansfield campus Wednesday to share his mission for Ohio State and how regional campuses play into its success, among other topics.
Drake, who started his tenure on June 30, 2014, is Ohio State’s 15th president. It was his first visit to OSU Mansfield.
Of his many points regarding the significance of regional campuses, Drake said, firstly, they are important to their communities.
“They support the economy, and they support young people here who are getting the skills needed to advance us forward,” he said. “But economic development broadly has benefited by having a quality education institution locally.”
Another value of regional campuses, according to Drake, is accessibility, which he said is one of three things an “outstanding” public higher-education system should provide.
The other two: affordability and excellence in teaching and research.
“Several things are changing very positively,” Drake said of the Mansfield campus. “The curriculum is expanding, and I know we are ramping up engineering among other things.
“There’s new housing, which I am very excited about, and some other things happening to make this an easier place for students to have access to.”
Dr. Stephen Gavazzi, dean and director of The Ohio State University at Mansfield, agreed with Drake.
“His big themes are all about access, affordability, and excellence – and we have all three here,” Gavazzi said. “The fact that we’ve put $5 million into capital improvements – many of which you can see with all the orange barrels and all the construction going on – that’s a part of the excellence piece.”
With more off-campus housing in the works, Gavazzi added, OSU-M has a chance to have more than 600 residential students – more than half of its student population.
“When you go from mostly a commuter campus to a residential campus, you have to pay attention to a lot of other things that have to do with that excellence,” he said. “But in the meantime, it’s still a very affordable opportunity for students.”
The Mansfield campus, Gavazzi said, costs one-third less to attend than main campus.
“We also have the idea of access because we still are open-access,” said Gavazzi, adding that open-enrollment allows students to attend the local university no matter how well he or she did in high school.
“We can still give you an opportunity to thrive,” he added.
After being introduced by Gavazzi, Drake addressed faculty and staff during a forum in Conard Auditorium at Reidl Hall, during which he explained among other things why affordability, accessibility, and achievement must be done in unison.
“We can have more affordable by lowering prices or holding tuition down and things like that, but to do that at the expense of our excellence would really not help the value,” he said. “Sure, we want to be affordable – that’s really important to us – but we also want to make sure we push our excellence at the same time and do a better job of being our best selves.”
After the forum, Drake and OSU’s Vice President of Student Life Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston helped dedicate The Marketplace – the campus’ newly renovated dining area in Eisenhower Memorial Center.
The Mansfield campus cafeteria underwent a $1 million renovation over the summer to provide updated casual dining facilities and a new service area that has convenience store-style cases for take-out to dorms, according to OSU-M’s website.
Simonson Construction of Ashland was in charge of the renovation.
There was a campus and community reception afterward in the Anne and Boyd Epperson Grand Atrium of Riedl Hall, where Drake again addressed the role of the regional campuses in the overall university mission, as well as the connection between campus and community.
