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  When Don Green, Vice Chancellor and Dean of Ferris State University-Grand Rapids and the College of Professional and Technological Studies, says that many FSU-GR students already have associate degrees, a busy life outside the classroom and want knowledge they can use immediately in the workplace, he could have Trina Lickley (AH’02) in mind.
  “I had my associate degree and was looking at different colleges for my Nursing degree,” Lickley says. “Ferris accepted my credits and worked very hard to accommodate me and the goals I had.”
   For many students, studying at FSU-GR lets them balance the pursuit of a degree with the demands of both work and home.
   “I’m nurse manager of a unit at Metropolitan Hospital,” says Lickley. “Pursuing the degree fit into my career plans very well. The goal of Ferris has always been to accommodate students. I work 10 to 12 hours a day and need some flexibility. Ferris did everything they could to help me reach my goal.”

The “Ah-Ha!” Factor
   Not long after the 2004 commencement ceremonies, several FSU-GR graduates and current students stopped back by the Applied Technology Center to talk about their experiences.
   Oh yeah, and get their picture taken with Jack the Bulldog.
   It becomes clear while talking to these students that they don’t see the Grand Rapids campus as separate from the rest of Ferris. In fact, it’s common to find students who have a degree from each campus or who started at one campus and finished on the other.
   Such as Kelly Krause (AH’97), a CT Technologist at Spectrum Health, who has an associate degree in Radiology she completed at the Big Rapids campus, and is working on her bachelor’s in Grand Rapids.
   Or teachers Jeff VanHuis (EHS’03) and Liz Murawski (EHS’03) who completed their coursework in Big Rapids, but did their student teaching through FSU-GR.
   Or Matt Alles (EHS’02) who earned his bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice at FSU-GR and his master’s at the Big Rapids campus.
   Or Dave Spykerman, (T’97) a chief engineer at Johnson Controls who earned an associate in technical illustration in 1986 in Big Rapids, then received a bachelor’s in Product Design Engineering Technology from FSU-GR. Spykerman also exemplifies the desire of students in Grand Rapids to take what they learn directly into the workplace.
   “A number of times I went to work the next day after learning something and applied it immediately,” Spykerman says. “That was one of the best things about taking classes while you’re working. When you’re going to school full time, you have to try to picture how you think you’re going to use what you’re learning instead of going, ‘Ah-ha! I know how I can use that!’”

North to South, South to North
    Green tries hard to dispel the misperception that FSU-GR is simply an annex to the campus to the north.
   “A lot of people assume that if you attend FSU-GR that you’re going to have to attend Ferris-Big Rapids,” says Green. “One of the things that we make very clear is that we won’t offer a program unless we can offer it in its entirety. Some people fail to contact us because they believe that their study will require travel to Big Rapids, which is not the case.”
   Although that’s not to say that the two campuses are mutually exclusive.
   “We have a very aggressive student population,” notes Green. “It’s not unusual for our students to get to their senior year and start perusing the catalog for Big Rapids to find out what courses they can get up there. They want to knock that degree out and get it done.”
   Over the years, the opposite has also been true; students from the Big Rapids campus have traveled to FSU-GR to accelerate their studies. Now, with one of Ferris’ hottest new degree programs, Digital Animation and Game Design, being offered in Grand Rapids, more and more students from the Big Rapids campus are heading south.
 “With Digital Animation and Game Design, we’re finding there are students who want the on-campus experience, but they are very willing to travel down here,” says Green. “We’re starting to see commuting going both ways.”

A Holistic Approach
  Pamela Chapman (AH’01) commuted to study at FSU-GR, but from the south rather than the north.
   Chapman, a manager in the Cardiac Care Center at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo, is one of those students who found herself having to balance her life outside the classroom with the pursuit of her degree.
   “I came up here for an introductory session, signed up, and started the program in ’94. Right after I got into the program, my father was diagnosed with cancer.” Chapman took time off to tend to her father and then came back. She persevered through her father’s illness and received her degree in 2001.
   “I weighed all of my options, and coming from Kalamazoo, it was very, very accessible. I came here and had a wonderful academic experience. I absolutely love Ferris State University!”
   Students such as Chapman who have had a chance to experience something of the world outside a college campus are perhaps in a better position to absorb some of the concepts they’ve learned in the classroom. For someone in the middle of juggling study with caring for a sick father, for example, a holistic approach to patient care makes both intellectual and emotional sense.
   “The Nursing program at Ferris teaches you to look at the big picture. I’ve been in other programs, and that’s not what I got out of them,” says Chapman. “Anybody can do a task, punch buttons and calculate things, but connecting with a patient is much harder.”
   It’s for the latter task that Chapman says her studies at FSU-GR helped her prepare.
   “I had a young woman who was a drug addict with heart valve disease, and she was very difficult to communicate with,” recalls Chapman. “At first, she wouldn’t talk to me. But because I know the dialect, I broke it down for her and talked to her on her level. I’m not sure I would have been comfortable doing that had I continued in other programs. And sure enough, she said, ‘OK, now you can talk to me.’
“I’m happy I’m a Ferris graduate. I believe that this is the best University.”

Let the Big Dog Bark
  The Grand Rapids area has seen dramatic growth over the past several years, which applies to higher education opportunities as well as population and business growth. Green sees FSU-GR as an essential part of the higher-ed mix in Michigan’s second-largest urban area.
   “For many, many years, there were no large state or public universities in Grand Rapids, but now this is a competitive environment,” says Green. “I think alums like the fact that we’re here going toe-to-toe with other institutions. They’re excited to hear that we’re growing at a 15-16 percent rate every year.”
  Green also notes the physical growth of FSU-GR, as well as its enrollment numbers.
   “We’re scheduled to acquire the historic Federal Building, which has been home to the Grand Rapids Art Museum. With that acquisition plus our share of the Applied Technology Center, the Kendall Building and our partnership with Rockford Construction to renovate the Commerce Building for student apartments, we’ll have a very nice urban campus.”
   Also growing is FSU-GR’s alumni base, an important asset in terms of getting the word out about what the University has to offer West Michigan residents.
   “I’m a really big advertisement for Ferris,” says Lickley. “I’m hoping my kids will go here. I said, you know, there’s not a school on the earth that will help you more than Ferris.”