K-12 students visit, explore GVSU

On a beautiful spring day, Frederik Meijer Honors College resident Rachel Maude led a group of students from Kentwood’s Endeavor Elementary on a campus tour. Maude’s group was one of several this morning, criss-crossing the grounds and listening to Honors College students lead the expeditions.

As they approached one of GVSU’s landmarks, the Transformational Link, Maude issued a warning to the group that’s ingrained into every GVSU student. “If you walk under it, you won’t graduate,” Maude said.

Most of the group heeded her caution, but one student made a break for it, jogging underneath the massive sculpture while sporting a sly grin and earning the shock and admonishment of his classmates.

Hosted by the Meijer Honors College and Office of Multicultural Affairs, the students experienced a morning of exploration and discovery on the Allendale Campus, which included stations of activities headed by geology professor Peter Wampler. Inviting students from Endeavor was a strategic decision, said Roger Gilles, director of the Honors College.

“We're happy that they can come, and we can introduce them to college life,” said Roger Gilles, director of the Honors College. “Most of the students have parents that moved here, so they’re first-generation Americans, or they were born in other countries. A lot of these kids could be first-generation college students.” 

After the tour of campus, students headed to the Padnos Hall of Science to hear more about the Earth’s geology from Wampler. Students learned about fossils, saw a 3-billion-year-old chunk of meteorite and marveled at the massive display depicting Earth’s history that stretches along a hallway on Padnos’ second floor. 

“What we want them to see is that campuses are big, but they’re also friendly and beautiful and welcoming,” Gilles said. “And there’s learning like this, that’s really fun.

“Just for them to feel like they have been on a college campus, I think is really important because they're used to just their one school, and they may never have been on a college campus.”