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News | Msu

MSU

Smokers on campus down from 2000

More MSU students are choosing not to light up a cigarette compared to two years ago, according to a recent MSU study. The National Collegiate Health Assessment Survey was conducted in 2000 and 2002, and sighted a decrease of MSU smokers from 30 percent to about 20 percent.

MSU

Altar promotes awareness

It started out as just a little idea, but grew into an altar that stands nearly 10 feet tall, decorated with small skulls and red and white candles. Candy was set on the altar as an offering to ancestors, and pictures of the dead are mounted on its backboard. Education sophomore Blanca Gamino and social work sophomore Rocio Vera offered to create the altar in Baker Hall as part of an effort to promote cultural awareness about their Mexican heritage and a holiday they've celebrated since childhood - Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. The effort is supported through the Student Organization of Latino Social Workers. "It's to remember all our ancestors and those who passed away that we love," Gamino said.

MSU

Campus Briefs

Groups to sponsor parenting programs The MSU Child and Family Care Resources and the MSU Women's Resource Center are co-sponsoring a two-part parenting series.

MSU

Speaker to discuss Middle East, cakes

Lyman Briggs School is presenting a guest speaker at 7:30 p.m. today in C-106 Holmes Hall.Edward Burger, a mathematics professor at Williams College, will be hosting a presentation called “The Texas Cake Cutting Massacre: Can Conflicts be Resolved by Making Piece?”The lecture will discuss negotiating skills and the Middle East, relating the ideas to cakes.

MSU

Assassin game alarms police

Student groups on campus are playing a game that is causing others to call the police.The game is called a variety of names, including “Assassins” and “game of elimination.”About five MSU police officers approached Criminal justice freshman Michael Klopp and two friends were after they were seen walking into Akers Hall with what was thought to be a handgun last week.A Capitol Area Transportation Authority bus driver reported the situation.

MSU

U.S., China seek to develop Web-based language learning

Imagine playing video games for hours, and as a result, gaining the ability to speak Chinese fluently.An MSU professor says the idea is in development.Yong Zhao, associate professor of educational psychology, is leading the design on a new platform that will incorporate teaching Chinese in the United States.

MSU

Penn State, U battle in blood drive

Plates full of cookies and jugs of juice were placed on a table in the Bailey Hall lounge Monday. Red and blue lawn chairs were strategically placed around the rest of the room as American Red Cross workers in white lab coats patiently waited for students to come in and donate blood. The ninth annual MSU-Penn State Blood Challenge began Monday and will run until Nov.

MSU

Family Funk

She’s already a racial ethnic student aide at Hubbard Hall, working an outside job and taking 15 credits toward her criminal justice degree. Now add to sophomore Faye Higgs’ schedule: four hours of practice, five nights a week. “I have 300 black students to be there for, 20 meetings a month and an outside job,” she said. But Higgs said it’s worth it to be a dancer in the 12th annual Fake the Funk at the Breslin Center, where more than 9,000 cheering attendants checked out her moves Saturday evening. “It’s time-consuming,” she said.

MSU

Recordamos los muertos

Small white crosses lined the grass around the rock on Farm Lane. On each of the crosses, which stood no more than a foot off the ground, students wrote the name of a loved one who passed away. A little altar has been built near the crosses, with offerings of bread to the spirits of ancestors.

MSU

Campus briefs

Group to plant flowers for hall beautificationAt 10 a.m. on Saturday, the Briggs Ambassadors, a group of students who promote the Lyman Briggs School, are helping to beautify Holmes Hall.

MSU

Federal death penalty debated

All Gina King could do was sit and watch the news from her East Lansing home and worry about her family in Virginia as a sniper terrorized the Washington, D.C., area.When the smoke settled after a three-week shooting spree, 10 people had been shot to death and three were wounded.Two suspects, John Allen Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, were arrested on Oct.

MSU

U learns gun safety in police academy

Salman Ateequi carefully passed a SIG-Sauer handgun off to his classmate after he practiced aiming and balancing an empty bullet shell on the gun’s barrel by dry shooting the weapon.With just three sessions of the Citizen’s Police Academy remaining, Ateequi says he knows a great deal about community policing.

MSU

Writers series starts Friday

MSU Libraries, Computing & Technology is hosting Michigan Writers’ Series, featuring readings and discussions with prominent Michigan writers.

MSU

College to sponsor seminar

The Office of Minority Student Services in the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine is presenting an informational seminar titled “So You Wanna be a D.O.ctor: Pre-medical Student Informational Seminar” on Nov.

MSU

Report: Greek grades on the rise, below U average

Greeks at MSU are earning better grades in their classes, and their grade-point averages have been rising for at least the past five years.The Spring 2002 Greek Academic Report says all Interfraternity Council groups averaged a 2.831 GPA, up from 2.689 in spring 1997.

MSU

Photos exhibit Dia de los Muertos

Dressed in elaborate costumes, a group of people re-enact the crucifixion of Christ in Chicago.A 9-foot-tall statue of the virgin Mary is paraded through the streets of Grand Rapids.These images, mounted on the burgundy background in the lobby of the Main Library, are part of a photo exhibit celebrating Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday honoring the dead.The exhibit was taken by history Assistant Professor Juan Javier Pescador.