A field guide for new Buckeyes
You know the buildings. Now learn what they make possible.
Use the map to find academic help, student organizations, lower-cost housing history, community spaces, and wellness resources across campus.
Live map: © OpenStreetMap contributors · building addresses checked against OSU sources
Welcome letter
A map tells you where.
This guide tells you why.
Dear new Buckeye, welcome to Ohio State. At first, campus buildings can feel like names attached to class locations. A standard map can direct you to an entrance, but it cannot tell you which services are inside, why the building was created, or how students have shaped its use. The Journalism Building, for example, contains classrooms, but it also has a history of student reporting that began when The Lantern moved there in 1924.
This guide is for students who are still learning their way around OSU, including first-year, transfer, and international students. It follows Thompson Memorial Library, Walker House, the Journalism Building, the Ohio Union, and the Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC). Their histories connect academic work, housing, communication, community, and wellness. They also show why a new or expanded building does not automatically make its services accessible to everyone.
Each stop pairs an archival source with a practical “Use This Space” invitation. The archive identifies the need a building addressed at one moment in time; the current resource helps you use its services now. A “Think About Access” question then asks who can receive that support without financial, physical, informational, or social barriers. Walker House, for example, supported women’s education while a 1932 newspaper page also documented the exclusion of a Black student from a Home Economics practice house.
You can read the guide from beginning to end or jump directly to a building you use. Look closely at the archival images and captions. Open the linked resources when you need hours, access details, or program information. Then explore the research map to see how the five local stories connect to supportive learning environments, social connection, retention, and degree attainment.
The guide uses one standard for every building: support is only effective when students can find it and use it. Physical expansion can create capacity, but access and inclusion determine who benefits. By the end, you should be able to visit one unfamiliar space, use one new resource, explain one way a building changed because of students, and identify one barrier that still deserves attention.