It’s the building Jimmy Ferguson dreamed of when he was on staff at Arkansas Tech University.
Thirty years later, he, his wife Cindi and their family are helping make it possible.
The new student union and recreation center at Arkansas Tech University will be known as the Ferguson Student Union as a result of the Ferguson family’s lead gift in support of the facility.
“What we hope, and what we know is going to happen, is the new student union is going to belong to the students and the place where they will feel the most comfortable as a part of this university,” said Mr. Ferguson. “We want it to be the living room of their college life. This is where they can connect with their friends, resources they need and their organizations. We will be at the top of the hospitality world for the students. They will get the best experience from their facility. We want it to be a comfort for the students.”
A native of Virginia, Ferguson attended Northwestern State University (La.) with four friends from his home region. It was during his undergraduate experience in Natchitoches that Ferguson came to understand the value of friendships created during college.
“In my sophomore, junior and senior years, I was pretty heavily involved in the activities organization at the college,” said Ferguson. “I realized that I had learned so much about life being a part of a group where we had the same purpose. We all worked together to reach the goals we had.”
Along the way, Ferguson adopted Fred Bosarge, NSU dean of students, as his mentor. Upon Ferguson’s graduation, Bosarge offered him a graduate assistantship to study college student personnel at the master’s degree level and serve as assistant to the dean of students. Ferguson accepted that opportunity and completed his master’s degree at Northwestern State in May 1975.
It turns out that one of Bosarge’s closest professional friends was none other than Travis Adams, who oversaw student affairs at Arkansas Tech. Ferguson interviewed with Adams the same month he received his master’s degree from Northwestern State. Three months later, Ferguson began his career at Arkansas Tech.
“There were a little over 3,000 in the student body here and it was very family oriented,” said Ferguson when asked to recall the Tech campus he joined in August 1975. “The environment and culture of this institution…you knew right away from the president to the custodial workers there was a passion that individuals had for Arkansas Tech, its history and its students.”
Ferguson’s 19 years at Arkansas Tech were marked by multiple innovations.
One was the development and establishment of the student activities fee, which allowed the university to create the ATU Student Activities Board. A half-century later, that organization still makes a significant annual contribution to campus life at Arkansas Tech.
“It was the students…once they were educated and they had the information about what could be…they voted to create the student activities fee in addition to tuition,” said Ferguson. “We provided them with the resources and the data that they needed to make their own decisions. It was approved by the student body overwhelmingly and the Board of Trustees approved it. Since that time, many other institutions in this state and elsewhere have created the same type of model.”
In the early 1980s, Ferguson was part of developing a leadership program that identified 20 of the most outstanding high school seniors in Arkansas each year and recruited them to Arkansas Tech. When Ferguson and his colleagues in student affairs took the idea to the presidential level, they were met with unwavering support.
“Kenneth Kersh always had an open door,” said Ferguson. “As we developed programs, it always involved the betterment of students. That was our goal. We went to Dr. Kersh and he was very open. It didn’t matter if the ideas were very different than what we were used to. If it affected students in a positive way, he did everything he could to try to help out.
“At that time, coming up with 20 scholarships was really hard…really hard with the funding,” continued Ferguson. “(Kersh) found it and made it part of his budget to award those 20 scholarships every single year. We received hundreds of applications, went through interviews and brought in 20 students who we felt like could make a tremendous impact in our state.”
Dr. Sheila Jacobs, ATU-Ozark Campus chancellor, and Jim Smith, member of the ATU Board of Trustees, are among those who came through the program.
“Our curriculum wasn’t just a traditional leadership program,” said Ferguson. “We went in-depth with internships in the different academic areas. They understood how this university worked…what the process was, how to make decisions and how to get things accomplished. Every year, we went to the capitol. At that time, Bill Clinton was the governor and he always opened his office to us. He shared from his perspective, not only about leadership but also about the impact our students could have in the future.”
Decision making, communication and organization were among the skills that Ferguson sought to develop in his Arkansas Tech students. Those skills were sharpened through the daily management of facilities such as the W.O. Young Student Center and Witherspoon Auditorium as well as special projects such as freshman orientation.
“It’s like growing a tree,” said Ferguson. “The orientation program was one of our responsibilities. Each one of the new students had a mentor. We identified upperclassmen every spring who could be orientation advisors. We selected them, we trained them and for at least the first semester, they had responsibility for 20 students and making sure they integrated into this college world. We saw their development academically, as an individual and as a person who could make a contribution to this state and this country.”
Looking back, Ferguson realizes that the students were not the only ones learning as he developed and implemented those programs at Arkansas Tech.
After Mr. Ferguson left the ATU staff in 1994, he and Mrs. Ferguson went on to become the owners of more than 30 McDonald’s restaurants in central Texas.
“Whatever success that Cindi and I have as entrepreneurs and business owners, so much of that came from my experience here (at Arkansas Tech),” said Ferguson. “I learned what makes a system work…what makes people come together, be aligned, have the same purpose and mission and believe we can do it together. Our students from 1975-94 were always willing to try something new. We encouraged them to accept a challenge and to challenge each other.”
ATU has long sought and strived to respond to its campus life facility challenges. During Ferguson’s 19 years at Arkansas Tech, he would often visit other campuses and observe the facilities advantages they had, particularly as it related to student unions.
That disadvantage will disappear when Ferguson Student Union opens at ATU in 2026.
The 68,000-square foot building will include student meeting spaces, lounge spaces for students to enjoy during their free time, fast casual dining, an e-sports gaming lab, basketball courts, a location to check out outdoor recreation gear and workout areas for cardiovascular and strength fitness training.
Ferguson Student Union will sit on the same parcel of land where the W.O. Young Student Center stood. Ferguson and his lifelong friend, the late Steve Lawrence, spent countless hours in that location…creating opportunities for their students and making memories with them.
Among other features, Ferguson Student Union will include the Travis Adams Leadership Center and the Steve Lawrence Involvement Center.
For Cindi Ferguson, the opportunity to support the new student union and recreation center at Arkansas Tech was ideal from a philanthropic standpoint.
“We’ve been greatly blessed,” said Mrs. Ferguson. “We wanted to do something to show our grandchildren, great-grandchildren and everyone coming up a legacy of education. That’s what is important. Some people take for granted they can get an education. Education has always been very, very important to us. Jimmy was very instrumental in a lot of programs that Tech didn’t previously have, and I wanted the grandkids and great-grandkids to understand while we’re still here what we want. We want the grandchildren to be able to run our foundations after our kids, and to do that they need to see what we want. They need to understand what it means, and this is a very visible demonstration of that.”
What does it mean to Mr. Ferguson that the new building will bear his family’s name?
“That thought process hasn’t occurred to me too much,” said Ferguson. “What was important are the thousands and thousands of experiences and relationships the facility will bring from now to the future for all the students who will go through it. That’s what is most important. I can feel really great satisfaction that’s going to happen more than anything else.”
Learn more about the Ferguson Student Union and see a preview video at www.atu.edu/studentunion/future.php.
