Although a recycling program has been in place at MSU for many years, it has been expanded this fall to include bins for various other paper products in the residence halls, said Pete Pasterz, manager of the Office of Recycling and Waste Management. "Students have been asking for an expansion of the types of things they can recycle," he said.
The National Science Foundation recently awarded MSU researchers a $750,000 grant to study the effect technology has on children. "Children are spending more and more time using technology," psychology Professor Linda Jackson said.
After hearing about a fundraising campaign for Hurricane Katrina victims that's spread to 14 schools across the country, Hazel Atienza decided to get MSU involved in the effort. The chemistry freshman started the MSU chapter of the Blow-a-Kiss campaign with the help of some friends, the Facebook Web site and advertisements posted around campus. Grace Kim, a student at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., started the campaign after she saw news coverage on television. "I found it horrifying, I started crying because it was so awful and I was completely traumatized that the government wasn't doing much," Kim said. She decided selling T-shirts would be a good way to raise money and named the project the Blow-a-Kiss campaign because it's optimistic and hopeful. "It's just a very happy little thing that can bring light to a horrible situation," she said. At MSU, Atienza is selling Blow-a-Kiss T-shirts for $12, with proceeds going to the American Red Cross. "In addition to giving money, you also get a shirt out of it," she said.
The Executive Leadership Series will hold the first of five sessions at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in the Union's Green Room. The series, sponsored by the Department of Student Life, is intended to further develop leadership skills in students.
MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon will unveil a series of plans for university growth during a public address today, with the goal of making the university the leading land-grant research institution in the United States by 2012. The announcement of a new strategic initiative Simon has titled "Boldness by Design" will come as part of a two-day academic convocation celebrating the university's sesquicentennial - or 150th anniversary - that kicks off this afternoon in the Kellogg Center. Simon's speech, scheduled for 12:30 p.m.
The Spartan Marching Band is putting a new twist on recycling this fall. Every 10 years, the band orders new uniforms, leaving the old ones out of commission.
As a group that focuses on serving students - not only at MSU, but outside of the university - ASMSU's Academic Assembly unanimously passed a bill to honor and aid Hurricane Katrina victims as well as advocate taking in evacuated students at its Tuesday meeting.
Most people are exposed to small amounts of harmful chemicals every day, but MSU researchers will soon delve into the role people's genes play in developing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. The researchers will use two grants, a total of more than $3 million, to conduct a study of children's behavior, environment and genetic makeup to determine possible correlations, said Joel Nigg, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and lead researcher in the study. "The genetics part is important, but it's not in a vacuum," Nigg said.
Five current and former press secretaries of Michigan governors will speak at 5:30 p.m. today in the Big Ten A room of the Kellogg Center. "Meet the Press Secretaries" is the 2005 Edward Zabrusky Public Relations Lecture.
Members of ASMSU's Student Assembly will vote on bills about everything from accepting student groups into the association to lowering parking-meter rates on campus during their meeting today. Academic Assembly members voted to give the MSU International Student Association and Arab Culture Society seats on their assembly, but the groups won't become members unless Student Assembly members vote them in as well. Student Assembly also will vote on a bill to support the lowering of parking-meter rates on campus, said Derek Wallbank, Communication Arts and Sciences representative for the assembly. The meeting is at 6:30 p.m.
There are a few recurring themes in former MSU President M. Peter McPherson's work - agriculture, land-grant universities, and national and international politics. McPherson, who stepped down from the top job at MSU in 2004 after 11 years, will renew his involvement with land-grant institutions when he takes over as president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, or NASULGC, in 2006. He has spent the past year working with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, an organization he co-founded to encourage agriculture and rural development in African nations. McPherson said he has begun meeting with the group's executives, but his main focus will be the Partnership for the remainder of the year. "I've got a lot to do here over the next few months," he said from the Partnership's Washington, D.C.
The American Advertising Federation, or AAF, is inviting interested students to its first meeting at 7 p.m.
A dark plume of smoke rose high above north campus Tuesday afternoon after what started as a small brush fire on the north end of Farm Lane grew to a nearly two-story blaze west of the Natural Science Building. "One of our officers was out and she noticed it smoking," MSU police Sgt.
Out of 26 possible college representative seats on ASMSU's Academic Assembly, 19 are empty. Each college has two seats available for representatives on the assembly, including the Undergraduate University Division, or no preference majors. James Madison College and the Eli Broad College of Business are the only schools with both seats filled, while eight colleges have no representatives. Academic Assembly has other representatives from campus groups, but the assembly needs more college representatives, said Jason Ardanowski, Academic Assembly's director of University Governmental and Budgetary Affairs. "This isn't enough people," Ardanowski said.
Training for anyone interested in volunteering with the Sexual Assault Crisis and Safety Education Program will be held at 6:30 p.m.
The Executive Committee of Academic Council met Tuesday for the first time since classes started this year. After approving three sets of past minutes, the first major item on the agenda was to elect a chairperson and a vice chairperson for the executive committee.
When Eric Canosa was a student of English Professor Arthur Athanason, he admired how Athanason wouldn't arrange the classroom's chairs in a long row, but instead form a circle as a way to open up the class for discussion. "The class was led by itself," Canosa said.
A candlelight vigil in honor of the victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina is scheduled for 7 p.m.
The Student Investment Association is having its general-membership meeting from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. today in N100 Business College Complex. The student group is scheduled to detail its analyst program and planned trip to New York.
University, state and federal officials gathered on campus Friday to formally announce $16.8 million in funding for two Farm Lane underpasses. The underpasses, which have been in the works since 2002, will allow for traffic to move underneath the trains that cross Farm Lane near Service and Mount Hope roads. "I have spent hours waiting for trains to come through," said U.S.