From Woody's Couch

Third in our series on the regional campuses of Ohio State is OSU Mansfield, the third branch campus to be established after the first two, Marion and Newark.

Approved in March of 1958, the Mansfield branch soon after began to offer classes in a local high school to allow students to complete their first two years of college coursework. This first year, Mansfield opened with a total of 145 students. This number more than doubled by 1963, when they had 381 students. Soon after, Mansfield opened its first building, Ovalwood Hall, in 1966.

Today, Mansfield offers ten different Bachelor’s programs along with plenty of general education requirements that students can complete before transitioning to the Columbus campus.

Fun facts: in 1965, Mansfield began to construct a geodetic baseline device that would provide the most precise distance measurements in North America upon its completion. A nationally-recognized Frisbee team came to perform on campus on May 8, 1978, during the campus’s May Week activities. In 1989, Mansfield added a new WOSU station, becoming the first place to add a new station for WOSU in 40 years. This station played classical music 24/7 and was approved after the FCC relaxed its regulations regarding overcrowding on public broadcasting frequencies in 1985.

Written by Hannah Nelson.

Continuing our series on the regional campuses, we now head west to The Ohio State University at Newark. Newark was established alongside Marion in 1957, and it operated in much the same manner in its first decade. The campus’s first classes occurred at Newark High School in the evenings and consisted of 80 students and 8 faculty members. Classes continued to take place in Newark High School until early January of 1969, when its first building, Founders’ Hall, was dedicated.

The campus remained primarily a commuter campus until 1984, when Newark approved the construction of two residence halls which would allow students of the branch to live on campus. Alongside this construction project, while trying to clear new land for an accompanying parking lot, the construction company uncovered several archaeological sites dating back to the Middle Woodland period—about 1,400-2,000 years ago. In 2006, the Newark Earthworks Center was established to conduct research and increase the understanding of “American Indian cultures that produced the monumental Midwestern earthen architecture in order to advance understanding of the cultural and scientific achievements of American Indians to the world.”[1]

Nowadays, the Newark campus has 11 buildings, which include two residence halls and a recreation center, and it offers six complete Bachelor’s degree programs as well as two Master’s programs in Social Work and Teaching and Learning.

Fun fact: in May 1990, Newark hosted “Clown Town ‘90” which was a three-day convention targeted toward both beginning and experienced clowns that offered seminars and instructional workshops on a range of topics from make-up techniques to balloon making.

Written by Hannah Nelson.

[1] Newark Earthworks Center: https://newark.osu.edu/initiatives/newark-earthworks-center.html

To kick off our series on Ohio State’s regional campuses, we’ll take a brief look at one of the first regional campuses to be created: Marion. Along with Newark, the Marion campus was approved for establishment by the Board of Trustees in 1957. The decision to establish these campuses came as a result of the growing number of people in Ohio and the need to provide access to higher education for those who didn’t have the means to leave their home area.

When the Marion branch first opened in 1957, it operated out of Marion Harding High School. The campus offered nighttime courses to high school students and other members of the community. In 1965, the land on which the Marion campus would sit was donated to the university. Governor Rhodes and University President Fawcett were present at the groundbreaking in 1966. The first building on the campus opened two years later in 1968. Eventually that building was renamed James Lewis Morrill Hall in honor of the former vice president of Ohio State. Today, Marion has 8 buildings that sit on 186 acres, a campus which also encompasses an 11-acre reconstructed prairie with trails that are used for biology courses and open to the general public for hiking.

The Ohio State regional campuses were originally intended for students in their first two years of study towards a Bachelor’s degree. in 1978, the Ohio Board of Regents approved the Associate of Arts degree to mark the completion of two years of study. Marion awarded its first Associate of Arts degrees to a group of 14 students in 1981, and since has awarded degrees to hundreds more.

Fun fact: in 1994, Marion hosted Springfest, which was an outdoor activities festival that included roller-skating, Twister, sailing, a student versus staff volleyball game, sumo wrestling, human bowling, Velcro wall jumping, and a battle of the bands.

Written by Hannah Nelson.