Mabel G. Freeman
Dan L. Heinlen Award
B.S. Education, 1966
M.A. Education, 1975
Ph.D. Education, 1988
For Mabel G. Freeman, Ohio State University is more than the school where she earned three academic degrees and has risen to become an assistant vice president.
“Ohio State has been my extended family for some of the most joyous times in my life, for some of the country’s most challenging times, and it supported me through one of the most difficult personal times when my husband died at the James Cancer Hospital,” says Freeman. The joyous moments include meeting her husband on campus, developing lifelong friends, and watching her two children graduate from Ohio State.
And she counts among those challenging moments the assassination of President John F. Kennedy during her sophomore year; the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger during her graduate studies; and the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attack while she was an administrator.
“I found myself trying to reassure students and staff as each time we asked, ‘Why?’ A university is a place where one tries to solve or prevent such tragedies. Ohio State has been the place where we have had to comfort each other and learn with each other in some of these most challenging moments,” says Freeman.
As assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions and First Year Experience, Freeman directs the recruitment, admission, and enrollment process for all new freshmen and transfer students. She also helped create and implement—and continues to lead—the First Year Experience initiative, a collaborative effort to benefit all new students. Her goal is to ensure each student’s successful transition into the university through a first year of academic and co-curricular experiences that personalize the university, resulting in higher retention and graduation rates. U.S. News & World Report named Ohio State’s First Year Experience an exemplar program in the nation.
Freeman has been an adjunct professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology and is a former director of the University Honors and Scholars Center. She is involved in numerous Ohio State, professional, civic, and community activities and associations, including serving on the boards of directors of the Bexley Education Foundation and the I KNOW I CAN college access program, and the board of trustees of College Board, Inc.
She has received many awards and recognitions, including Ohio State’s Distinguished Staff Award in 2006 and the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award from the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience in 2005. She also has received the Columbus YWCA’s Woman of Achievement Award and the Columbus Mayor’s Award for Volunteer Service. She is a past national president of the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, and in 2004 Ohio State’s chapter honored her by being renamed the Mabel G. Freeman Ohio State Mortar Board Chapter.
“The Ohio State University has given me the incredible opportunity to look forward to each day with enthusiasm because I get to work with amazing, talented, and caring students, faculty, staff, and alumni who truly are The Ohio State University,” Freeman says.
