‘Ohio University’ Articles at Everyday People

Stand Up and Cheer !!

I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I’m a fiercely proud alumni of Ohio University !! It’s a phenomenal university that is tucked in the hills of southeast Ohio along the banks of the Hocking River. It has the distinction of being the first university in the State. Those that have attended OU will make sure to let you know that they are NOT from that school in Columbus, Ohio which shall not be named.

I cherish every time I get the chance to visit the campus. It still has the vibe of being a welcoming home for all that pass through. The students oddly look much younger than I remember looking when I attended, but that’s to be expected. After graduating and starting my own career and family, I never thought that either of my kids would attend my alma mater. When it came time to make college visits, I told them both that they would visit OU even if they didn’t attend. My daughter visited first and liked the campus, but didn’t feel the same pull I did when I attended. She attended the University of Indianapolis and earned her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy. She did fine !!

When my son was about to graduate high school, we took the trek across the State to visit OU one more time. I made sure to visit the Bagel Street Deli to make sure he had the experience just in case I never would get to again. Josh surprised me by deciding he would attend Ohio University !! To say I was geeked would not cover how I felt.

That was four quick years ago. This weekend I had the distinct pleasure to see my son graduate as an OU Bobcat. I sat in the same gymnasium 33 years earlier wondering what would happen next. As soon as I walked into the Convocation Center, tears streamed down my face. The reason for that had little to do with my alma mater and everything to do with my amazing son.

You see, I hoped that he would have an incredible time like I did when I went to OU. His experience was his own and had its various ups and downs as it should. I didn’t want him to mimic what I did. I just wanted his college experience to be memorable. It was. Josh was not a big fan of high school. He did well but he couldn’t wait to get out. He didn’t enjoy many classes and I was wondering how his next academic adventure would go. I had nothing to be concerned about. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and embraced all facets of learning.

After the graduation ceremony, my wife and I spent the entire day with Josh enjoying every moment. We made one last stroll up and down Court Street and made sure to buy one more batch of OU apparel. As the rain started to come, we stopped off at Donkey Coffee and Espresso (the coolest coffee house I’ve ever been to !!) It was so cool to sit and talk with the young man who started as an unsure teenager four years earlier. We talked about life, politics, his college memories, and it was obvious that he was ready to step out into the next phase of his life.

The fight song for Ohio University starts out with the lyrics “Stand up and cheer, Cheer loud and long for old Ohio . . .” Today I stand up and cheer for my fellow alum, my fellow Bobcat, my son.

It wouldn’t be an OU post without the Marching 110 – the most exciting band in the land !! Bobcat proud. Bobcat for life !!

#7Songs – Not Bad at All !!

College is a time when you “grow up.” It was my first time away from home for any extended period of time and I was the only person from my town to attend Ohio University. I went there not knowing a single person. Now, you need to know that I graduated in a high school class of 73 people, and just joined a university that had 17,000 people attending at that time !! I suffered a major culture shock, but fell in love with everything the school had to offer.

My sophomore year, I became a Resident Assistant (an RA). I was practicing HR even back then but didn’t know it. As an RA, you get a single room which meant you had a room that normally held two students all to yourself. I saved up money and purchased a JC Penney MCS Stereo System !!

It “looked” cool, but it wasn’t. Several students in the dorm had massive stereo systems with components, equalizers, woofers, etc. They could shake the building when they were turned on. Almost every day you could hear the low hum of systems just waiting to blast out music.

I started my album collection in college and EVERY Friday I would come back from classes and a full week and pull out an EP to play this song . . .

#2 – Bad (Live) by U2 from Wide Awake in America

Almost everyone has a band that they can say defined their generation and U2 is that band for me. I know that they are a group that people either adore or don’t. There really isn’t a middle ground.

I saw this song performed on a HBO special in the dorm late one night from one of their concerts and I was transfixed. I had never seen someone sing so passionately. Bono was dripping in sweat and the crowd hung on every word he sang. The Edge played the guitar in a way I had never heard before and Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton provided the solid drums and bass to keep things incredibly tight.

After a full week it felt cleansing to pull this EP out of it’s sleeve and gently put the vinyl on my stereo. I played it so incredibly loud that I could hear nothing else. As the RA, I was supposed to keep things “in line”, but I wasn’t much of a rule follower even back then. I saw U2 as a group that was changing music and I saw myself in them because I too was changing and wanted to see things change even more.

I would absolutely love to meet the band someday (another bucket list item). I continue to love everything they do, and my interest in them only grew from the time I had this EP. After I served as the chair of the Ohio SHRM State Conference, the committee was gracious enough to get me a signed copy of their Joshua Tree album. I’d like to think that I’d thank them for providing that release every Friday.

In fact, I think I’ll go dust off that EP and slap it on my turntable once again . . .

Time . . . flowing like a river

Growing up I distinctly remember Alan Parsons Project and their classic ballad Time. The lyrics that start the song say:

“Time flowing like a river, Time beckoning me; Who knows when we shall meet again, if ever; But time keeps flowing like a river to the sea.”

I was reminded of this ballad this weekend when I went on a college visit with my amazing daughter to my Alma Mater, the wonderful Ohio University. To say I was geeked would not be a good enough word !! I wanted to show her everything that I remembered. The classrooms, College Green, West Green, the Convocation Center – just everything. As I pulled in I was captured in my memories, but some things looked different. I shouldn’t have been surprised having graduated back in 1986, things would have to change, but it still surprised me.

The architecture was the same. The beauty of the mature trees was still there, but there were new things. Really cool things like the amazing Baker University Center. The new features on campus really did make it better and, even though is altered my memory of the past, I liked the new additions and even wished that some of them had been around when I went to OU.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of work places today and how HR likes to hold onto the past. We are notorious for it. We come up with an amazing Performance Review system that we did back in 1986 and we wonder why people think it’s stale today. You can pick almost any area of HR and it seems that practitioners lag in moving things forward. What we don’t realize is that the business environment will change around us whether we want it to or not.

So, we can embrace the new environment, or better yet, we can stay on the leading edge and create it !! Time will keep flowing either way.

This college visit opened my eyes to two things – (1) My family gets to enter a new and exciting stage with our oldest child entering a new phase of her own and (2) the past is great, but the future is so much brighter !!

She hasn’t chosen her college yet, but she has enough Bobcat paraphernalia to give her a daily hint . . . Oh, yes, one other thing. I did manage to pick up some new tye-dye because some things from my OU past still are current !!