The last time I walked the Adrian College campus was probably April 30, 1990, the day after I graduated. I returned after 36 years+ when we spent the night in Adrian on our way from Freeland to our home in Caspian, Michigan. The NCAA Division III private, liberal arts college is located in the southeastern corner of state. It was about as far away as I could get from my hometown and still be in the state of Michigan. I chose Adrian College over St. Norbert College and the University of Michigan because I wanted to play on the basketball team. I also wanted a smaller school (in the late 1980s, Adrian College I remember had an enrollment around 1,200 students) and somewhere that no one from my high school graduating class attended. I guess I wanted a fresh start!
It was a good decision for me looking back. I received individual attention from my professors, was able to do a lot of activities, including play basketball, commentate the football games for the college radio station, radio track Red-tailed Hawks, complete my student teaching at Columbia Central High School, etc. I was immature and didn’t take full advantage of all that it had to offer, but overall, it helped me on my journey and get my first teaching job that started my career in education.
It was such a long time ago and I was trying to recall the buildings that I frequented all those years ago. I remember living on the second floor of Stevens Hall (see photo above) in the quad. The campus felt smaller to me. I walked to the cafeteria and remembered that was where I first saw Kate Abbot, my first serious girlfriend. I also spent a year in either Jarvis or Estes Hall, I couldn’t remember which one. I don’t think I could have found the locations of my off-campus housing. We nicknamed them “The Dawg House” (after the Adrian College nickname, the Bulldogs) and the Maumee Mansion (after Maumee Street). I stopped by two of the fraternity houses I used to frequent and they were still there. The Phi Kappa House moved to another house near the campus.
I was pleased that Adrian College is thriving! Demographics in Michigan and the USA are not favorable for universities. There are less 18 year olds graduating from high school and a significant number of universities are in financial trouble. I read a bit about the demographics impacting university enrollment and it cleared a couple of misconceptions I had. My graduating class of 1985 (~100,000 graduates in Michigan) was on the downslope from the Baby Boom, the post World War II effect of people having more children, which peaked in 1980 (~125,000 graduates). Following that was an “echo boom” in 2008, peaking at ~117,000 graduates. Since 2008, the number of graduates has decreased to ~99,000 graduates in the Class of 2023. Unlike 1985 however, the decline will not rebound and persistent declines will continue through at least 2050. Some universities expanded around that 2008 boom and are not able to adjust to declining enrollment in recent years. Several universities closed, including Siena Heights (Catholic university in Adrian) and Finlandia University (former Soumi College in Hancock). The hardest-hit public universities are the mid-tier regional campuses. Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Ferris State, Saginaw Valley State, Northern Michigan, and Lake Superior State have all lost 25% or more of their enrollment since their peaks. These institutions are not closing — they have public funding — but they are cutting programs, laying off faculty, and in some cases consolidating departments to survive on smaller student bodies. The universities that are growing are University of Michigan, which is trendy now, and Grand Valley State. Michigan Tech and Michigan State are holding steady.
Adrian College invested a lot into infrastructure since I left. They started an ice hockey program and built an ice arena. They put in an artificial turf football stadium on campus. When I was at the school, they used the Adrian Maples High School field. They also put in an indoor football field/track in a bubble dome structure, renovated the athletics track, added really nice tennis courts, an on-campus baseball/softball field to round off the improvements. In my final year, the college opened the Merillat Sports Center with a basketball arena. The old Ridge Gymnasium was converted to a student center. The Phi Kappa house was torn down and moved to a different house. Everything looked well taken care of, and I imagine the college is doing fine.
It was a trip down nostalgia lane for me and I loved it. We drove the long 8-hour drive to the Western Upper Peninsula later that morning. With better roads and a higher speed limit, the trip has been reduced by almost 2 hours since I used to drive that in the late 1980s.
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