The criminal justice program celebrated 50 years since their first class graduated with memories, campus tours, and food on Saturday.
The program had 53 students in its first graduating class from 1974 and has graduated around 8,000 students over the last 50 years. Of those 53, 10 attended the celebration, alongside alumni from other graduating criminal justice classes.
Dr. Terry Nerbonne was one of the founders of Ferris’s Criminal Justice Program. He had some concerns when the program was first taking off.
“I talked to the first class, and that was kind of strange and you’ll find out later, but we had a real progressive program here,” Nerbonne said. “The state was not used to this, and we wondered will they get jobs because they came from a university and then go through a police academy, and it’s the students truly the students have made this program. They’re the one out got the jobs worked in the field, and they did such a good job that we have recruiters come in here all the time to hire students.”
He then expressed that students have gotten jobs in places such as Texas, Florida, etc. As a result of their time at Ferris.
Nerbonne briefly spoke on how the classes have been getting smaller, and what he believes could be attributed to it.
“We have to turn away students, except lately here there’s not too many people going to be police officers, and it’s hard to harder and harder to get people to come in the program now starting to improve again, and I think with Covid,” Nerbonne said. “But it was a great program, and we put a lot of work into it. We’re known all over the United States. We’re known out of the United States. We have students scattered all over the United States, Sheriff departments, corrections departments, probation, parole, and I say we haven’t had any trouble getting jobs for these kids, because it’s well-known what kind of program we have.”
Many of the graduates gave recognition to Dr. Bob Parsons, who helped start the program, and has since passed away. Candy St. Denis recalled Parsons’ support of women being in the field.
“He supported women without realizing that to prepare to go out and work in an area where women were not at especially in law enforcement, [cause] who wants their husband to work with a woman in a patrol car by themselves,” St. Denis said. “I was all prepared. I got hired in at the Iosco County Sheriff’s Department and enjoyed that many other things in the last 50 years.”
When the program was initially started, Ferris was a transfer school. Alumnus Bob Walker met Alumnus Lance Weber through Delta college, and both attended Ferris.
“I originally from the Western UP, so I came 500 miles down to Paris after going to Delta College, and Lance and I had a room together at Delta for a year, and there weren’t very many universities to go to in the criminal justice program,” Walker said. “So, it was either I was looking at a place in Wisconsin, but then I decided to come down to Paris, which was absolutely a wonderful move, career move for me, and you know, there was a lot of unknowns for us in the law enforcement field, as Dr. Irving said today.”
Walker also expressed his gratitude to Parsons, and shared that the original graduating class had the opportunity to see Parsons’ family receive a crystal plaque for his contribution to the program.
President Dr. Bill Pink closed the celebration with the hope that all the alumni would be back for the homecoming game.
“When you have an opportunity to talk to our students who are in the grind right now on campus right now, when you have the chance just say hi to them and tell them your story, speak into our students today because you because of what you have done from this place forward will speak to their lives in a powerful way,” Pink said. “Those moments you spend with them, though, will be powerful to them and will speak to their lives as you speak into their lives. You will have an impact like none other. So, thank you for what you mean to this university.”