Various com­mit­tees and depart­ments from around cam­pus plan to make 125 anniver­sary a spe­cial one

Ferris State University cel­e­brates 125 years with numer­ous events, speak­ers, activ­i­ties and history.

Beginning in September, stu­dents, fac­ulty, staff, alumni and the com­mu­nity will cel­e­brate 125 years of mile­stones and achieve­ments Ferris has com­pleted. There will be activ­i­ties and events all peo­ple of the Ferris com­mu­nity and beyond can participate.

Mary Kay MacIver and Miles Postema, Vice President and General Counsel of Governmental Relations and General Counsel are co-chairs of the History Task Force/125th Anniversary Committee. They plan to kick off the cel­e­bra­tion on Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 8 a.m. with the release of Ferris State University: The First 125 Years cof­fee table book.

“We’d like stu­dents to treat it like a year­book and get auto­graphs in it,” said MacIver.

She has three FSU alumni who appear in the book lined up to sign auto­graphs. Jim Place, a for­mer foot­ball player of FSU who is in the Hall of Fame, will be present; Bob Barnum, Artist-in-Residence, whose murals and sculp­tures are dis­played around cam­pus and Bob Andrews, the only stu­dent who sur­vived the Old Main Building fire and a for­mer mem­ber of the Football team, will be present along with his wife Marilyn.

A Historical Trivia Contest will be held for fac­ulty, staff, stu­dents, alumni and com­mu­nity members.

“We always try to do fun stuff for the stu­dents,” said MacIver. Prizes will be given away at the con­test. “For stu­dents, we’re giv­ing out free music down­loads as prizes, and for alumni, staff and fac­ulty we’re giv­ing out the cof­fee table books.”

The 125th Time Capsule Project Launch will begin at 8 a.m. as well. Items will be col­lected through­out the year for the cap­sule, which is not yet com­plete, accord­ing to Melinda McMartin Isler. The day’s events will con­clude with the lay­ing of the wreath at the Ferris mau­soleum at Highland View Cemetery.

“We’ll honor their mem­ory with a wreath,” said MacIver.

Founders’ Day, on Wednesday, Sept. 3, will begin with a keynote speaker, who has not yet been announced, at William’s Auditorium at 10 a.m.. The United States Postal Service Special Cancellation Event is set to begin at 11 a.m. in the Campus Quad.

“At the Special Cancellation Event, a stu­dent can mail a post­card, they can mail it to their par­ents with a spe­cial can­cel­la­tion let­ter that has an FSU seal on it, and the stamp will be can­celled. It will be a collector’s item,” explained MacIver.

Also set to begin at 11 a.m. is a wel­come back pic­nic for employ­ees, which is located at the Campus Quad. The Ferris History Panel event will take place in the Dome Room at 1:30 p.m. MacIver men­tioned a Maritime Professor is com­ing in to talk about the his­tory of FSU. More Founders’ Day events include a Community Ice Cream Social begin­ning at 3 p.m.

“This will be our third year; we decided to be more old fash­ioned and have an ice cream social,” said co-chair Miles Postema. “We wanted to come up with an event that will bring together the com­mu­nity, stu­dents and faculty.”

He explained the goal is to bring in the broader com­mu­nity to “see more of Ferris.”

Jones Ice Cream will be fea­tured again this year. A tent will be set up with celebrity servers.

“We’ve invited a num­ber of peo­ple,” said Geri Johnson, who is orga­niz­ing the event. The President, Vice President, Board of Trustees, Downtown Business Association, the Mayor, city offi­cials, the Big Rapids Public Schools Administration and Board President, local leg­is­la­tors and local judges are to be present as the celebrity servers. “Just a whole plethora of folks.”

The 125th birth­day cake will con­sist of cup­cakes. An eti­mated 3,000 peo­ple are expected to show up. There will also be a Vintage Photo Event and the History Trivia Contest win­ners will be announced.

“We ordered 3,000 cup­cakes, so we expect stu­dents to show up and do their duties,” said MacIver. The din­ing cen­ters will be closed on Founders’ Day, all stu­dents will have to come to the quad, she mentioned.

“Unsolved History: The Burning of Old Main” will take place at 6 p.m. “We’re going to repeat the ses­sion and exam­ine the evi­dence again to learn why it burned down,” said MacIver. She said the build­ing mys­te­ri­ously burned down on Feb. 21, 1950, and the cause is still unknown. The loca­tion is yet to be determined.

Many of the fun activ­i­ties for stu­dents will take place at the Student Recreation Center from 3–7 p.m. “All of our offices will have some nov­el­ties, bon­sai bikes, rocket slide, obsta­cle courses, air­brush tat­toos, car­i­ca­ture artists,” explained Teresa Fogel of the Welcome Week Committee. “We plan to have some of our vol­un­teer agen­cies there, so stu­dents can see what types of vol­un­teer work­ers we need”, said Fogel. Fogel also said there would be live music, the Pride Committee’s t-shirt exchange and free spe­cial 125 anniver­sary note­books would be available.

Groundbreaking for Helen’s Garden will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 11 a.m. at the cor­ner of Oak and Ives, between Prakken and Alumni build­ings. This spe­cial gar­den that will honor the mem­ory of Helen Gillespie Ferris will be designed by stu­dents from the Ornamental Horticulture Program. “It’s really neat we can involve stu­dents with that,” said MacIver. A Victorian Tea Style theme is planned.

A Historical Aerial Photo dis­play is planned to begin on Thursday, Sept. 10 from 5–7 p.m. at the Rankin Art Gallery. There will be live music and hors d’oeuvres. The dis­play will con­tain pho­tos of Ferris through­out the years and the changes the Institution has endured, includ­ing pho­tos of the 1950 Old Main build­ing fire, and aer­ial views of the University’s changes over 125 years. The pho­tos will be on dis­play from Sept.1–30.

“We have lots of peo­ple that are help­ing out, they’ve been work­ing hard,” said MacIver of the com­mit­tees’ and many other vol­un­teers’ efforts in mak­ing Ferris State University’s 125th Anniversary Celebration fun and mem­o­rable for every­one in the Ferris and Big Rapids com­mu­nity. “It’s going to be a riot,” she said.

FSU’s Information Technology Services (ITS) presents Geocaching

Ferris cel­e­brates its 125th birth­day with lots of events, includ­ing a trea­sure hunt.

Geocaching is an activ­ity done by peo­ple all over the world. A geo­cache is hid­den some­where, any­where, and its seek­ers use a GPS to help them locate the geo­cache, or treasure.

The hunt will begin on Thursday, Sept. 3 at 3 p.m. and con­tain mul­ti­ple dif­fer­ent geocaches.

Jody Gardei, Team Central Coordinator for the Computer Technology Services, said the stu­dents will have instruc­tions that give them details on what to look for, which is avail­able at the Founder’s Day kick­off and at local busi­nesses around Big Rapids.

The infor­ma­tion will also be avail­able on geo​caching​.com and fer​ris​.edu/​1​2​5​/​c​a​c​h​ing.

In order to find the trea­sure you need a GPS though, cor­rect? Yes. GPS receivers will be avail­able for check­out in FLITE. “I think it will give them a chance to try some­thing new and pos­si­bly get hooked on Geocaching,” said Gardei.

According to Gardei, eight Ferris colleges/departments are already plan­ning on par­tic­i­pat­ing in this event. Each depart­ment will be respon­si­ble for a Geocache. Gardei said the caches will be stocked with “swag,” or trea­sure, stu­dents can take for participating.

Not only will the stu­dents enjoy that “loot” but should also be inter­ested in the prize for com­plet­ing the trea­sure hunt. Students will be entered into a monthly draw­ing to win a Limited Edition FSU 125th Anniversary coin, said Gardei.

When asked what she thought about Founders’ Week and this event, Gardei said, “This is a great way to learn more about the his­tory of Ferris and see where Ferris is going in the future. They will prob­a­bly go to places around cam­pus that they didn’t know existed before.”

Woodbridge and Helen Ferris started a school in 1884 that would become an insti­tute, a col­lege and even­tu­ally a state university.

Woodbridge Ferris vis­ited many sites for his prospec­tive school, but decided on Big Rapids, Mich., a small com­mu­nity known for its place in the log­ging indus­try, rather than education.

Though his efforts to develop and expand his school were great and suc­cess­ful, Mr. Ferris would also run and be twice elected to the gov­er­nor­ship of Michigan. Later, he would run and win elec­tion to the United States Senate where he served until his death on March 23, 1928.

When a dev­as­tat­ing fire in February of 1950 destroyed Old Main and the Pharmacy build­ing, the future of the school, which was recently given to the state, was in ques­tion. In the sub­se­quent decades the cam­pus has been rebuilt and con­tin­ued to grow. In 1963 the school would be renamed Ferris State College and new build­ings pop­u­lated the increas­ing cam­pus area as well as larger num­ber of stu­dents. In 1987 the uni­ver­sity would change its name again to the cur­rent, Ferris State University.

Numbering over 13,500 stu­dents today and degrees rang­ing from asso­ciates to doc­toral, the school that Ferris built has expe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant amount of change.

It is now 125 years after the doors were first opened. The class­rooms are larger and the build­ings are big­ger. There are more stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff, but as Woodbridge and Helen began their task a cen­tury and a quar­ter ago, and as the of the decades have tried and tested the Ferris’ school, the flame
con­tin­ues to burn as a bea­con from the past illu­mi­nat­ing our future.

High tuition costs do not adver­tise the idea of oppor­tu­nity to me

Being seeped in deal­ings with the university’s 125 anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion has helped to famil­iar­ize me with the ideals that FSU was founded upon. I think that one quote by our founder does a par­tic­u­larly good job of encas­ing these ideals.

“My plea in Michigan — and it will be my plea to the last breath I draw, and the last word I speak –is edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren, all men, and all women of Michigan, all the peo­ple in all our states all the time.”

Woodbridge N. Ferris founded FSU with the inten­tion of mak­ing edu­ca­tion avail­able to all. “Opportunity” is one of the core val­ues of the uni­ver­sity, both his­tor­i­cally and in pol­icy – but is it being upheld in practice?

As an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent with my eyes on a seat at the Michigan College of Optometry (MCO), I was pre­pared for a high tuition cost. I knew that school was going to be expen­sive no mat­ter where I chose to go but MCO was my first choice regard­less of tuition costs.

After get­ting my tuition bill, I was a lit­tle shocked. Wasn’t Ferris State University founded on the idea that every­one deserves edu­ca­tion? According to the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry’s web­site, “Annual tuition and fees at pub­lic schools and col­leges of optom­e­try range from approx­i­mately $12,000 to $20,130 for residents.”

My tuition bill exceeds the upper bound for this range. I can­not help but feel that though this money is well spent and I know MCO is the best school for me, that the fact that the cost is above aver­age goes against the core idea of opportunity.

I need not point the fin­ger of blame on any one pro­gram how­ever, since even the tuition cost for under­grad­u­ate stud­ies lies above the national average.

According to College Board’s Web site, “aver­age pub­lished tuition and fees for in-state stu­dents at pub­lic four-year col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in 2008-09 are $6,585.” This is $2,895 less than FSU’s esti­mated aver­age tuition cost pro­vided by the col­lege online.

The seem­ingly yearly hike in tuition prices to an amount greater than the national aver­age does not rein­force the ideals that this col­lege was founded on – specif­i­cally that of “opportunity.”

Another point that is worth con­sid­er­ing is the university’s admis­sion stan­dards for its under­grad­u­ate pro­grams. In 2002 the min­i­mum GPA for admis­sion was changed from 2.00 to 2.25 and the min­i­mum ACT from 13 to 15 (cer­tain pro­grams hav­ing dif­fer­ent program-specific requirements).

It was con­sid­ered at the time of the change, though how this might con­flict with the founder’s ideas. And venues for stu­dents falling below these new stan­dards were put into place. I am not sure how well these options are pro­moted or how vis­i­ble they are as it has been quite some time since my fresh­men ori­en­ta­tion. I do hope though that prospec­tive stu­dents that might oth­er­wise be deterred from apply­ing can eas­ily learn and access these options.

Ferris State University was founded by a great man who believed that edu­ca­tion was the right of any man or woman who sought it. I do not think that higher than aver­age tuition costs as well as the recent raise in admis­sions stan­dards reflects this principle.

Ferris State will be look­ing to ride the momen­tum from their week one win against Tiffin as they host the nationally-ranked Ashland Eagles at Top Taggart Field.

The Bulldogs will be hop­ing for a sim­i­lar result from last year as they blocked a game win­ning field goal attempt as time expired which pre­served a 25–24 win. The Bulldogs are 9–12 all-time against the Eagles, 10 of those games were at Top Taggart Field but the Bulldogs have man­aged just three wins. They will have a chance to improve that mark with their week two match-up which kicks off Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.

The defense will have to rise to the chal­lenge as they face a very tal­ented Ashland offen­sive attack. In their first game, the Bulldog defense dis­played a lot of speed and play mak­ing abil­ity as they held the Dragons to only 64 first half yards.

Junior out­side line­backer Kyle Fitzpatrick knows the defense is tough dep­site their youth.

“We’re young, but were fast, excit­ing, and will make a lot of plays this year,” said Kyle Fitzpatrick.

They will need to dis­play that speed and play­mak­ing abil­ity as they attempt to shut down Ashland, which aver­aged 34.8 ppg last year. During week one they were able to force four turnovers, one of which Fitzpatrick returned for a touch­down. Ferris will be look­ing to keep up their aggres­sive­ness and force some more big plays on the defen­sive side of the ball.

On the offen­sive side of the ball the Bulldogs showed that their run­ning attack is a force to be reck­oned with. The offen­sive line paved the way in their first game as they were able to rack up 258 yards on the ground. Sophomore tail­back, D.J. Freeman led the rush­ing attack with 89 yards on 13 carries.

“The O-line was very good, open­ing a lot of holes for us all night,” said Freeman.

While the run­ning game flour­ished the pass­ing game strug­gled as quar­ter­back Kyle Parrish went 9-of-26 passes for 64 yards and one inter­cep­tion. With those strug­gles through the air it raises the ques­tion if we will see Tom Schneider at all as they take on Ashland.

Ferris has a lot of play­ers that can step into dif­fer­ent roles and con­tribute. This is also a team that has a tremen­dous amount of speed at a lot of posi­tions in which they dis­played in week one. The Bulldogs will need that ver­sa­til­ity and team speed as they look to upset Ashland for the sec­ond year in a row. The Eagles offen­sive line allowed six sacks in their week one loss.

“This group def­i­nitely does not lack any con­fi­dence and they always have the atti­tude that they will win no mat­ter what hap­pens” said Coach Pierce.

With the cur­rent state deficit around the $1.8 bil­lion mark, some of the fund­ing sug­gested to be cut is $140 mil­lion for the Michigan Merit award, Michigan Competitive Scholarship and Michigan Promise scholarship.

It’s ironic, to say the least, that as we cel­e­brate the suc­cess of the school that Woodbridge and Helen Ferris built, we should be con­cerned with how stu­dents are meant to afford their edu­ca­tion. As a two term gov­er­nor, one term sen­a­tor and life­long states­men, Woodbridge Ferris would likely abhor the idea that stu­dents from his insti­tute and more impor­tantly the entire state could be forced to cut short their edu­ca­tion due to the lack of appro­pri­a­tion of cer­tain funds labeled as a “promise” to the stu­dents of the state of Michigan.

We see embla­zoned upon the University’s seal “Opportunity-Industry”, cor­ner stones of a Ferris edu­ca­tion, but with­out the bud­get to sup­port the recip­i­ents of that edu­ca­tion, the flame of the dream that Mr. and Mrs. Ferris shared dimin­ishes to barely an ember.

Perhaps even more tragic is the poten­tial for long term dam­age in not re-newing the “Michigan” schol­ar­ships. In this econ­omy, the mat­ter of a cou­ple hun­dred dol­lars per semes­ter may be the dif­fer­ence between a diploma and an early depar­ture. Those stu­dents who are not able to object to the lat­ter will find them­selves qual­i­fied but with­out cre­den­tials and search­ing for a job to main­tain good stand­ing on other loans or finan­cial aid that they have accrued. Worse still is that the already soured job mar­ket would be impacted by a high influx of young peo­ple need­ing work and not find­ing it. People who need work but can’t find it resort to social pro­grams, again, funded by state and fed­eral tax dollars.

So, who would the absence of pay­ment for the “Michigan” awards really impact? Allowing $140 mil­lion to bet­ter the work on the $1.8 bil­lion bud­get prob­lem or dis­grac­ing a gen­er­a­tion to an unfin­ished edu­ca­tion and finan­cial decrepi­tude already expected to shoul­der the bur­den of failed finan­cial pol­icy from pre­ced­ing generations.

Woodbridge Ferris believed 125 years ago that edu­ca­tion was meant for all. He and his wife built their school so that stu­dents would have the oppor­tu­nity to learn and indus­try to ben­e­fit. Scratching pay­ment on Michigan’s “promise” to her stu­dents is forc­ing the torch­bear­ers of the Ferris legacy to extin­guish their flames.

September 2, 2009 News Briefs

Dr. David Pilgrim

Today at 6 p.m. in the Rankin Center Dome Room, Ferris’ Chief Diversity Officer David Pilgrim will present his talk enti­tled “Stories of Tolerance, Intolerance and Inclusion.” The event is free and is hosted by the Welcome Week Committee. For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Sherry Hayes at hayess@ferris.edu or call 231−591−2612.

“Keepin’ it Country”

This Michigan group, who formed in November 2005, will play on today at 7 p.m. under the Big Rapids Band Shell on the Riverwalk. The group fea­tures a vari­ety of instru­ments and are described as coun­try musi­cians com­ing together to play clas­sic coun­try music. For more infor­ma­tion, call 231−592−4036.

Ice Cream Social

As part of the Founder’s Day Celebration, free ice cream will be served on the Campus quad Thursday, Sept. 3, from 3 to 7 p.m. The event is held in con­junc­tion with Bulldog Beginnings and FSU’s 125th anniver­sary activ­i­ties and will fea­ture celebrity servers that include well-known fig­ures from around Big Rapids. Contact Gerri Johnson at johnsong@ferris.edu or call 231−591−3600.

Pool Party

The Fourth annual “First Dip Pool Party” will be held on September 3 from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Rec Center. The event costs one dol­lar which will go toward build­ing water tow­ers in Africa. It is spon­sored by the Delta Sigma Theta soror­ity. For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Callie Thomas at callie_9112002@yahoo.com or call 313−363−4764.

Indoor Disc Golf

On Sept. 4 from 2 to 4 p.m. in FLITE, the first ever indoor disc golf tour­na­ment will be held. Entries are lim­ited to the first 50 teams. Sign up will begin at 1:30 p.m. on the day of the event. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact David Scott at scottd@ferris.edu.

Used Book Sale

This annual event will take place out­side the Big Rapids Community Library on Sept. 4 from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on September 5 from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The event is hosted by the Friends of the Big Rapids Community Library. For more infor­ma­tion, call 231−796−5234.

Labor Day Yard Sale

On Sept. 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. the Old Jail will host its annual Labor Day yard sale. Gently used house­hold goods will be avail­able and prof­its will help sup­port the Old Jail and other local his­tor­i­cal sites. For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Anne Hogenson at hoge2@ferris.edu or call 231−796−9507.

Arts and Crafts

The 41st annual Labor Day Arts and Crafts sale will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 7 at Hemlock Park. For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Brian Thompson at 231−796−7649.

The Final Destination is an R-rated movie about a new group of adults who try to escape death.

The movie starts right off with the first big inci­dent and chaos occurs after. Our main char­ac­ter doesn’t look at pic­tures for the clues, doesn’t “feel” the pain that will hap­pen to the next per­son who dies, and doesn’t see what’s going to hap­pen next; he only sees clues. He gets visions of the pos­si­ble weapons, places, and things around the soon-to-be-crime scene and has an eerie “feel­ing” about things to lead him to the next per­son on death’s list.

This new install­ment of the series didn’t quite cut my expec­ta­tions as I thought it would. The 3D ver­sion of the movie helps, but the sto­ry­line was a bit boring.

Yes, I already knew the basic sto­ry­line so how can that change, but every­thing just hap­pened too quickly.

Maybe it was the mod­er­ate act­ing, maybe it was the gore, maybe it was the “oh how can that hap­pen” type of think­ing, but over­all it was just okay to me.

If I had to give it any­thing, I’d rate it a 2.5 out of 5.

The graph­ics, gore, and sto­ry­line are good; act­ing is mediocre, but if you liked the pre­vi­ous three movies, like I did, if you own the pre­vi­ous three movies, like I do, then it just may be worth your money to see.

Movie Trivia Question

“Inglourious Basterds” star Brad Pitt is also well-known for play­ing a “soap sales­man” in what 1999 Oscar nom­i­nated block-buster hit? Contact torch@ferris.edu with the answer!

Big Rapids History has played an impor­tant role in shap­ing FSU

As the uni­ver­sity cel­e­brates its 125th anniver­sary, the Ferris com­mu­nity reflects upon its his­tory. Many events will be tak­ing place through­out the year to honor the school’s roots and the peo­ple, events, and places on cam­pus that have helped to mold FSU into what it has become today.

Entwined with that his­tory, but per­haps not so heav­ily stressed, is the story of the city of Big Rapids itself. The city has a unique and inter­est­ing story to tell and has changed and grown along­side the uni­ver­sity dur­ing these 125 years.

The exact “found­ing date” of the City of Big Rapids is a lit­tle con­fus­ing, as the area was orig­i­nally called Leonard. The name change occurred in 1859 but, name aside, the first set­tlers came to the area in 1851. The area’s offi­cial incor­po­ra­tion as “The City of Big Rapids” took place in 1869.

During the roughly 15 years between the estab­lish­ment of the city and the found­ing of Ferris College, the city grew con­sid­er­ably in size due to the boom­ing log­ging indus­try. This occurred despite a huge fire in April of 1869 that burned down a large por­tion town.

Many sites within the city proper, and town­ship of, Big Rapids are reg­is­tered his­toric sites with the Michigan History Division of the State of Michigan.

One of these sites is the Old Mecosta County Jail located on Stewart Street. The jail was built in 1893, just nine short years after the found­ing of Ferris State College. According to the State of Michigan’s web­site, the build­ing is “the old­est pub­lic struc­ture in the orig­i­nal plat of the vil­lage of Big Rapids,” and was used as the county jail and sher­iffs res­i­dence until 1965. Each year around Halloween, the Jail is trans­formed into a “Haunted Jail.” Many Ferris Students are involved in the process as well as local busi­nesses and organizations.

A trip to down­town Big Rapids will lead you to a few more reg­is­tered his­toric sites. The Nisbett Building, which houses the large clock tower, began con­struc­tion in 1885. Daniel F. Comstock, who orig­i­nally financed the huge project, went bank­rupt soon after. The build­ing remained half-finished until in 1900 when William P. Nisbett bought it from the Michigan Trust Company of Grand Rapids.

The Nisbett build­ing is one of the more notice­able down town build­ings due to its clock tower and large gran­ite pillars.

Located diag­o­nally from the Nisbett Building on the cor­ner of Maple and Michigan, lies the orig­i­nal site of the first per­ma­nent site of the uni­ver­sity, the Northern Bank Building. Now the site of Fifth Third Bank, this build­ing and many oth­ers in the down town area, were used by the col­lege in its infancy as class­room space.

As the University has grown it has drawn stu­dents, fac­ulty, and other mem­bers of the Ferris com­mu­nity from all through­out the state of Michigan and beyond. Though the asso­ci­a­tion to Ferris is easy enough for these new mem­bers to make, it may be less sim­ple to draw a last­ing tie to the com­mu­nity sur­round­ing it.

It may help to remem­ber that Ferris State University was orig­i­nally to pro­vide the peo­ple of the area with the oppor­tu­nity to learn and grow. It has a rich his­tory that is directly con­nected to that of the city of Big Rapids. The ties between the school and the local com­mu­nity, past and present, are impor­tant, rel­e­vant and interesting.

If you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about local his­tory you can visit the Mecosta County Historical Society museum located at 129 N Stewart Ave.

Ferris Alumnus, Shawn Christian, on “Days of Our Lives”

Shawn Christian is famous for act­ing in mul­ti­ple tele­vi­sion shows, includ­ing “As the World Turns,” the short-lived “Summerland,” and cur­rently “Days of Our Lives.”

Christian, born in Grand Rapids, Mich., grad­u­ated from Rogers High School in Wyoming, Mich., where he was voted as hav­ing the “Hottest Student Body” by his high school class­mates. He then went on to obtain a degree in Marketing from Ferris State University in 1989 before mov­ing to Chicago after graduation.

He first landed a spot with the com­pany “Improv Olympic,” where he honed his act­ing skills.

While audi­tion­ing for a print ad in Chicago, he met his soon-to-be-wife, Deborah Quinn. Both were mod­els then. They now have a son together named Kameron who was born in July of 2000.

Christian has always been a help to the com­mu­nity; he received the Congressional Medal of Merit in the early 90s.

Christian started to hit it big in 1994 when he landed his first role in the hit TV show “As the World Turns.” He stayed on the show for three years before mov­ing to L.A. to act on shows like “Charmed” and “Crossing Jordan.”

He was also the first ever male spokesmodel to appear on the TV show “Star Search” back in 1994.

While act­ing in “As the World Turns,” he was nom­i­nated for “Hottest Male Star” by Soap Opera Digest mag­a­zine in 1995.

As he began to gain sta­tus, he climbed the act­ing chain and proved him­self for roles in famous shows like “Ellen,” “Step by Step,” “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Friends,” “The Drew Carey Show,” “Las Vegas,” and more.

He’s also acted in a cou­ple of movies, but for now he’s stick­ing with play­ing Dr. Daniel Jonas in “Days of Our Lives.”

Some inter­est­ing facts about Christian are: he acted with his step-daughter, Taylor Cole, in Summerland, he shares the same birth­day with Brad Pitt, and is also on the ros­ter of an NBAE (National Basketball Association Entertainment) team. For the 2007/2008 sea­son he played for the Miami Heat with team­mates Jay Harrington and Taye Diggs.

For this infor­ma­tion and more, visit imdb​.com and NBC​.com.