The East Lansing Public Arts Commission has full purview over ordinance 1339 and also has the power to commission art for the community separate from development. The arts committee works in tandem with the art selection committee and the city council. 

Though the tasks of the arts commission have changed since its inception in the 1960s-70s, staff liaison to the arts commission Heather Majano said it still has the same overarching purpose. 

"It was important to have people who were art experts or art enthusiasts… to oversee this expenditure of city funds, because this was pre-Public Art Fund, that they were spending," Majano said. "Now, it's important for essentially the same reasons. We want people who know what they're doing to be in charge of art in the community."

For each commission of public art in the city, the arts commission sends out requests for qualifications. These qualifications are then sifted through until three to five artists are decided on by the art selection committee. These artists are then paid to draft proposals for the space and finally the committee decides on one. The artist and work are then approved by the commission and the installation can move forward. 

Today, there are over 20 works of public art around East Lansing and the commission is hoping to continue these efforts, not just downtown. 

"The East Lansing Arts Commission is for East Lansing, not just downtown," Majano said. "So we're working to get our figuring out ideas to get art in the communities."

MSU has a similar group on campus, the Public Art on Campus Committee. The committee is involved in every new building project on campus and makes decisions about how public art will be incorporated. 

The committee was created in the 1990s, vice provost of University Arts and Collections and co-chair of the Public Art on Campus Committee Judith Stoddart said.

"It was an effort by the Board of Trustees to think about how we think about place making on campus," she said. "And every time there is a building project, how a part of that building project can be installing public art, either in the building or outside the building."

Public art on campus is selected to strengthen the mission or purpose of the building the piece is in or around. For example, during the construction of the STEM building, the committee decided on a reactive video display connected to energy consumption on campus.

"That was partly thinking about: what is this building teaching us about the connections between art and science and the way that we use a space? And how does it create a moment within that building that can reinforce the function of the building?" Stoddart said. 

Public art encourages viewers to connect with the piece and the place that the piece is in. It often provokes a sense of community. 

"Art helps people have a sense of place," Majano said. "They go somewhere and they see something that is beautiful or special or unique, and they're more likely to go back and share that with friends and family, and then people come back and check it out."

When thinking about art on a university campus, Stoddart said it is also important for the Public Art on Campus Committee to incorporate student voices in the selection process. 

"Every group of students has a different sense of how they are, how they like to be on campus, how they see campus, how they envision the community here," she said. "And having that constant representation of those voices is really important, because they're helping to make campus."

Art history junior Ella Hollandsworth transferred from a smaller liberal arts college in Illinois at the beginning of this year. Public art has been a positive part of her introduction to MSU’s campus. 

"It's been so fun and playful, seeing the kind of sculpture that's just up and about, and even the paintings that are sprinkled across all of the buildings on campus," Hollandsworth said. "I have classes in some of the science buildings, and even seeing, in those buildings, there's an effort to have paintings and to have art featured."

Artwork around the campus and in the city also has the effect of taking a person out of their own heads. It acts as a passing distraction, even if it only lasts for a moment.

"If you see public art as part of your everyday experience, it's that moment to look at something and it takes you out of what you're doing for a minute to think about: 'Oh, that's really interesting. What is that? What is it doing there? And how does it make me feel,'" Stoddart said. 

A current initiative by the Public Art on Campus Committee is an app based music installation called Art Moves MSU. The app plays music, which is activated as you pass by different locations along the Red Cedar River. 

"It's a different kind of public art, but it's trying to serve that same function, right?" Stoddart said. "It's a moment in your everyday life where you're moving through campus as you normally would, but you can listen to that music and use your own body to create an experience that grounds you in that moment, that connects you to your environment."

For Hollandsworth, the art on campus often takes her out of her thoughts by sparking curiosity for the piece's purpose or artist. On the surface, art also brings her joy. 

"Michigan State has a certain affinity for contemporary art and you can see that all across campus," Hollandsworth said. "I'm hit a lot with that curiosity, like, what is that or who made that? My mind is definitely whirling whenever I see certain pieces, but for the most part, it's like amusement and enjoyment."

There is also an educational value that comes along with the emotional reactions that art can elicit. 

"Typically, public art addresses something, maybe not always political, but it does address something, whether that's the physical place that you're in… or recognizing the faces of the people who live there or the history specifically, a lot of public art deals with the histories of a place," Hollandsworth said. "I think it is educational, and it kind of brings people into a story."