BIG RAPIDS – Students involved in minority-based organizations from Ferris State University returned from a weekend-long excursion of touring southwest Michigan. The bus tour made stops at a number of high schools, including Muskegon, Muskegon Heights, Grand Rapids, Ottawa Hills, Kalamazoo Central and Benton Harbor.
Held in high school gymnasiums and auditoriums, student volunteers participating in the bus tour performed 10-minute presentations, skits, songs and steps about the different aspects of campus life at Ferris to 200-250 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Joyce Ryskamp, a Kalamazoo Central High School counselor, felt the tour was a huge success, noting comments such as “I never thought about Ferris before but now I’ll probably apply” were a common theme among the high school students. “They also felt reassured that there would be places where they could fit in on campus,” she said.
“Utilizing students in this type of capacity is different from anywhere else,” said Matt Chaney, director of Multicultural Student Services and creator of the Imagine More Student Life Bus Tour. “It is a lot of work, but a lot of fun.”
The Imagine More Student Life Bus Tour is a fairly new way of reaching out to minority students and is only in its second year of activity, Chaney said. After rave reviews from both years, the organizers have plans to continue the bus tour in the future.