GREENFIELD — While he might not admit it, Gabe Cochard has every right to call himself the Big Man on Campus at Ball State University this year.
Cochard, who commutes to the Muncie campus from his Greenfield home, is featured on a 60-foot-tall banner on the side of a 10-story building there.
With his arms crossed confidently across his chest, the third-year nursing student, sporting navy blue scrubs, smiles down on his peers as they traverse campus.
“It’s pretty weird seeing me up there,” Cochard said. “If you’re on a certain side of the building, you can see it from just about anywhere you’re walking.”
Not one to seek the limelight, Cochard was taken by surprise when one of his nursing instructors, Margie Pyron, nominated him to be among the students featured in the university’s “We Fly” marketing campaign.
The 2-year-old campaign is being “refreshed” this year with new banners, billboards, television commercials and digital ads, said Marc Ransford, a senior media strategist at Ball State. The banner featuring Cochard is by far the biggest on campus, he said.
The Greenfield student was taken by surprise when he received an email inviting him to take part in the campaign. Thinking he’d likely end up in a campus brochure, he had no idea the quick 20-minute photo shoot he took part in would lead to having his likeness taking up the whole side of a building.
Cochard has had friends and even a few strangers ask what it feels like to have his portrait gracing the side of the Teachers College, the university’s tallest building, at the busiest intersection on campus.
Rather than letting his pseudo-celebrity status go to his head, he just shrugs and says he’s happy to help promote the college he’s grown to love.
“I love going to Ball State. I think it’s a great place to learn,” said Cochard, whose parents are Brian and Deborah Cochard of Greenfield.
“I like being able to support the school and having the opportunity to be part of the brand, being able to promote it so others can see it’s a really good school,” he said.
Cochard, who graduated high school at the Hoosier Academy in Indianapolis, said he appreciates that Ball State allows students to learn in a very hands-on way. “Even when I was a freshman taking pre-req classes in chemistry, I was doing hands-on labs, and now in clinics for nursing I’m going to the hospital or nursing homes in Muncie and taking care of real patients. It’s a great way to learn,” he said.
Ransford said Cochard was chosen for the publicity campaign along with other students to represent certain segments of the student body at Ball State. Cochard represents both nursing students and commuters.
Cochard, who expects to graduate in May 2021, serves as a commuter ambassador for the university’s Office of Graduation and Retention, where he encourages fellow commuters to take full advantage of university resources and stay on track academically.
It’s the compassion Cochard shows as a nursing student that inspired Pyron to nominate him for the marketing campaign.
“Gabe has a positive, energetic and enthusiastic personality that is exhibited with every patient interaction. He is always smiling, even during the busiest times of the day,” she said.
“He is such a compassionate person and always puts others first. He will be an amazing nurse, someone I would want to take care of me, my family or friends.”
