Planting seeds for the future through Campus Beautification Fund

Drs. James and Ann Chapman founded the Campus Beautification Fund in 1998.

“When you think about campus and what it does for a university, you want it to be inviting,” says Dr. James Chapman, former Shawnee State University President. “It's a place of interaction, reflection and debate, and you want it to be a nice place where people feel comfortable, either sitting by themselves, or sitting with someone else, or walking around. You want it to be attractive. You want it to be a restful place. You want to make it a place where the people in Portsmouth will come here and be comfortable and want their children to go here.” 

Transforming a college campus into a place full of natural beauty is not an overnight, inexpensive process. In 1998, at the start of his three-year term as Shawnee State’s president, Dr. Chapman, along with his wife, Dr. Ann Chapman, established the Campus Beautification Fund within the Shawnee State Development Foundation. 

“I’ve always considered a university as a forever thing,” he explains. “Shawnee State serves the area in many ways, but it will always be a gateway into Portsmouth, into Scioto County, and into Ohio. You can’t just have a field. You have to have trees that provide shade, that provide beauty. We wanted to help make it a welcoming place and that’s what this fund was created to do.” 

Over the last two decades, donations to the Campus Beautification Fund have been used to plant dozens of trees all over Shawnee State’s growing campus. The fund has also been used to support landscape designs, equipment, and memorial signage throughout the university grounds. Without question, Shawnee State’s campus would not be the beautiful place it is today without the foresight, funding, and commitment from the Chapmans. 

Dr. Chapman was also instrumental in the growth of Shawnee State as an institution of higher learning. During his term as Shawnee State’s fourth president (1998 to 2001), the Clark Planetarium opened to the public, the Children’s Learning Center was dedicated, the university established its first Master’s degree, and the first student-housing facilities were constructed on campus. But for anyone who knows the Chapmans, this kind of selfless service is hardly a surprise. 

“That whole idea of service and what we try to do in universities and as human beings, and as parents, is you try to help others to reach their potential. That's why I liked being in administration, because my job was to help others to do their job. My approach was not to be the boss of anybody. We had certain duties, they had certain duties. How do we work together to get them done? How do I help them to get their job done? All of those things are service and investment. That's the approach we take in life. At the end of life, you want to say, okay, I made a little difference.” 

Together since their college years at Indiana University, the Chapmans have spent their lives devoted to higher education, service, and each other. A Vietnam veteran with a PhD in Higher Education, Dr. James Chapman served for 27 years at the University of Kentucky in a number of positions, including seven as assistant chancellor for the Lexington Campus. Along with his term as President of Shawnee State, he has also served as provost of the University of Alaska-Anchorage and interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Eastern Kentucky University. Dr. Ann Chapman served as faculty of Educational Psychology for 22 years at Eastern Kentucky University before retiring in 2010. With such lengthy and distinguished careers, the Chapmans have seen nearly everything in the world of higher education, and they remain optimistic about its future.  

“There are certainly more and more people who are in need of a college education, but you have to look at who your students are and where they come from,” explains Dr. Ann Chapman. “When I was at Eastern Kentucky, a lot of my students were the absolute first in their families to go beyond high school. That is something that is common here at Shawnee as well. Our whole society has moved toward a higher level of science, engineering and other advanced technologies that are now just part of everyday life, but we also must include doing things that will help people, help students, and help the community.”

Now retired and living in Lexington, Kentucky, the Chapmans still travel back to Portsmouth for university events whenever possible. They remain deeply connected to Shawnee State through their Campus Beautification Fund, their administrative legacy, and through the many friendships and relationships they forged in their time here. 

“The people and all the faculty and staff I worked with here at Shawnee State, they were just great people, “ said Dr. James Chapman with a smile. “They had a service orientation, and you knew they were going to make a difference and that they were going to impact others for a long time. I also really liked working with the community, I liked finding out what the community needed, and then trying to deliver on it. What I really wanted to do was to help Portsmouth grow.”

To make a contribution to the Campus Beautification Fund, click here or the button below.