They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, but that wasn’t quite the case for Robert Ogburn, ESIA MA ’85 and his wife Thu-hang (née Hoang), CCAS BA ’83.
After finishing his master’s in East Asian Studies, Robert still had friends on campus. One of those friends, Iris, worked in the pharmacology department, along with Thu-hang (Thu). Sensing that Robert and Thu might be a good match, she arranged a group get-together in late spring 1985.
“I was working at a radio station in Annapolis and had casually come into D.C. after work,” remembers Robert, who wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. “Iris had tried to prepare me, but I did not make the world’s best impression on Thu.”
But their friend was on to something; Robert and Thu soon found themselves on a casual date, playing ping pong at the Marvin Center. A month later, their first real date took place while attending dinner at the home of then GW Professor David Perry (whose son was later Robert and Thu’s ring bearer).
Thu and Robert enjoyed GW’s proximity to D.C.’s famous haunts, as well as quieter spots, like the Tower Records that once occupied the Shops at 2000 Penn and the miniature golf course on Hains Point.
“GW has a unique campus,” says Thu, who specifically chose her alma mater over the University of Virginia for the city atmosphere. “You could walk to the monuments – we were usually hanging around the Jefferson Memorial. It was really nice.”
After marrying in July 1988, the pair set out to see the world. Robert had passed the Foreign Service Exam and received his first assignment in Korea. The location held a personal meaning – Robert was born there before being adopted by American parents. It was his first time returning to the country since his birth.
“The nice thing was that the program [at GW] really prepared me for it,” Robert says, of living in Korea.
Additional assignments took Robert and Thu all over the world, along with their family – their son Calvin was born in 1990, followed by daughter Calista in 1999, who was delivered at GW Hospital while the family was on assignment in the D.C. area. Although their lives brought them to new cultures and countries, they never had a problem staying connected to GW.
“We ran across GW people wherever we were – whether in the Middle East or Asia – we’d [meet] graduates who were working abroad or professors who were there on a grant,” the Ogburns say, “so we always felt like we weren’t really that far away.”
GW also stayed in the family. When Thu was on campus, her two sisters both took classes as well, and all three sisters worked in Gelman Library. Their younger brother earned two degrees from GW, and Thu’s brother-in-law received his PhD here as well. Calvin also found himself drawn to Foggy Bottom, earning his bachelor’s from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He is now a U.S. Army Captain and Field Artillery Officer in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
So, when Robert got an opportunity to return to campus after some 20 years away, he and Thu felt it was a no-brainer. Currently “on loan” from the State Department, Robert is spending the year as a visiting fellow at the School of Media and Public Affairs.
“The students are great [and] it’s wonderful being back,” he says. “The nice thing is that the basics are still the same – even though Gelman might be totally globalized, you can still find it. There’s still that feeling of engagement – you’re in D.C. and so many people are more than purely studying. They might be interning on the Hill or at an NGO, or they might be an adjunct [faculty member] with a totally different career.”
There’s another place on campus that may look a little different now, but still takes the Ogburns back: The Marvin Center. They haven’t forgotten that first date across the ping pong tables, thanks to the intuition of a mutual friend…and the benefit of great second impression.
-Melissa Nyman
