Ferris State University
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Former names
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Big Rapids Industrial School Ferris Industrial School Ferris Institute Ferris State College |
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| Type | Public |
| Established | September 1, 1884 |
| Endowment | $40.2 million (2013) |
| President | David L. Eisler |
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Academic staff
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584 |
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Administrative staff
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927 |
| Students | 14,707 |
| Undergraduates | 13,469 |
| Postgraduates | 1,179 |
| 59 | |
| Location |
Big Rapids & Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States 43°41′51″N 85°29′02″W / 43.69739°N 85.4839°WCoordinates: 43°41′51″N 85°29′02″W / 43.69739°N 85.4839°W |
| Campus | Main campus: Rural, 880 acres (360 ha) Grand Rapids: urban |
| Colors | Crimson and Gold |
| Athletics |
NCAA: Division II: GLIAC Division I: WCHA |
| Nickname | Bulldogs |
| Mascot | Brutus the Bulldog |
| Affiliations | AASCU |
| Website | www |
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Ferris State University (FSU, Ferris) is an American public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1884 as the Big Rapids Industrial School by Woodbridge Nathan Ferris, an educator from Tioga County, New York, who later served as governor of the State of Michigan and finally in the US Senate where he remained until his death in 1928. The school was noteworthy at its time for accepting female students beginning with its first graduating class. It is also the only public university in Michigan to be founded by an individual.
Today Ferris is the ninth-largest university in the state with 14,560 students studying on its main campus, at one of the 19 off-campus locations across the state, or online. Two- and four-year degrees are offered through eight academic colleges and graduate degrees from six. Ferris grants professional doctorate degrees via its optometry and pharmacy colleges and a multidisciplinary doctorate of education in community college leadership through the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education and Human Services. The school is known for having a faculty–student ratio of 1:16, and classes that are taught by professional instructors, not graduate assistants.
Woodbridge Nathan Ferris was born January 6, 1853 in a log cabin near Spencer, Tioga County, New York, the son of John Ferris, Jr. and Stella Reed Ferris.
As a child, Woodbridge attended a rural public school, which he claimed, was the horror of his life. He did learn to read fairly well there, however, and by the age of 10 was reading the Civil War news to his father. His father was slightly deaf, and Ferris had to learn to speak clearly in order for his father to hear, because his father objected to the practice of merely reading loudly. The practice of clear enunciation, learned at an early age, was a great help to Ferris in his later life as a speechmaker.
When he was 14 years old, Ferris entered the academy at Spencer, NY, where he spent nine months. At the age of 16, Ferris attended his first teaching institute at Waverly, NY, and shortly afterwards began his first teaching job. Later, in early spring of 1871, Ferris entered the Oswego Normal and Training School at Oswego, NY. At Oswego (now the State University of New York at Oswego) Ferris came under the tutelage of Hermann Krusi, instructor of drawing and geometry. Krusi was the son of the chief assistant to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi at Pestalozzi's school in Switzerland.
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Wikipedia