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Campus

MSU

Bike service hopes to expand

Bike owners on campus could have more service options if a plan to expand MSU Bikes Service Center gains momentum. The center is located in Bessey Hall.

MSU

Asha raises $800 for charity

Students gathered Friday night at IM-Sports Circle to dance and celebrate Indian traditions during the Tarang Indian festival and fundraiser. Tarang is a traditional Indian festival and celebration of colors hosted annually by Asha for Education, a nationwide student organization that advocates literacy and education in India. About 175 students came to the event, many of whom danced to the tunes of cultural Northern Indian music.

MSU

MSU hosts LEGO robotics competition

By Lauren Talley For The State News IM-Sports Circle buzzed with students and adults carrying out "missions" using LEGO robots early Saturday morning during the Spartan FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League Challenge. Elementary and middle school students from Mid-Michigan tried to best each other in specific tasks, such as lifting a toy truck by using LEGO robots they built themselves. "The motivation (for the competition) is very simple," said Satish Udpa, dean of the College of Engineering.

MSU

MSU students work elections, aid voters

Many students took the opportunity to vote in last week's elections, but a few took an extra step by helping out their fellow voters and earned some cash along the way. Last week, eight MSU students served as election inspectors, who answer voter's questions during the voting process. The City of East Lansing paid the inspectors $100 for a whole day, $50 for half a day and $20 for the training they needed for the job. The inspectors were brought together by MSU's YouVote, which works to motivate more students to vote, as well East Lansing residents. Jerry Bracy said before becoming one of the inspectors, he really had no idea how much work is put into the voting process. "I learned a lot on how everything is run," Bracy said.

MSU

Campaign aims to end poverty

Poverty accounts for one-third of all deaths in the world today, according to the Millennium Campaign, a group determined to end extreme poverty. In 2000, global leaders came together at the United Nations Millennium Summit and designed the group, giving them the goal of ending poverty by 2015. The campaign's executive coordinator, Eveline Herfkens, came to MSU on Thursday to make students aware of the campaign's goals and how they can help its efforts. "Today more than ever, we live in a globalized interdependent world and our dependence on others will only increase over the generations," Herfkens said at the start of her speech.

MSU

Officials, students discuss possible long-term development on campus

Some students learned what campus could look like in the future after officials discussed the construction master plan Thursday at the International Center. At the meeting, Campus Planner Stephen Troost and Planning and Budgets Assistant Director Bill Latta laid out their plans for the university's physical outlook in the future. Troost said the master plan will guide long-term development. "Every construction project is coordinated with the master plan," Troost said.

MSU

Same-sex parents fight for joint-custody rights

It has been close to three months since Ingham County Assistant Prosecutor Marie Wolfe has seen the children she loves. Jonah and Harper are 19 months old now, and as they continue to grow, they will have to face the world without the help of their estranged parental figure. "I'm missing out on a lot of things in their lives," Wolfe said.

MSU

BET host addresses leadership with MSU

Social activist and minister Jeff Johnson told a crowd of about 150 students they need to take leadership roles in their communities Wednesday evening in Wilson Hall Auditorium. Through his speech, "Who Will Lead the Next Social Movement," which was hosted by MSU's Black Student Alliance, or BSA, Johnson asked students to become leaders of their generation. "Nowhere in the history of the world has a generation not led itself," Johnson said.

MSU

Deer crashing into car not rare during hunting season

As Mary Govoni waited inside her red Pontiac sedan at the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Wilson Road Thursday morning, she thought she was being attacked when her passenger side windows were suddenly shattered. Seconds later, the Okemos resident looked outside the car to see a man pointing at a fleeing six-point deer — the culprit of the clamor, said her husband Lenny Govoni. "She didn't know what hit her; it all happened in 30 seconds," said Govoni, who is an MSU Grounds Maintenance landscape services coordinator.

MSU

Professor receives money for research

Andrew Christlieb, an assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded $300,000 during a three-year period by The Young Investigator Research Program. The program, which is supported by the U.S.

MSU

Modified LSAT to include new comparative reading section

The Law School Admission Council created a new portion of the Law School Admission Test and removed another — the largest changes to the exam in 15 years. "(The changes) are not particularly earth-shattering changes," said Russell Schaffer, spokesman for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. Beginning in June 2007, the reading comprehension section of the LSAT will include a new comparative reading portion, according to the admission council's Web site. The reading comprehensive section currently consists of four sets of passages, followed by four sets of questions. In the updated exam, one of the passages will be replaced with the new comparative reading section. "It will be based upon two passages where you compare what you just read," Schaffer said.

MSU

Animal shelter to host tailgate event

A tailgate open-house party will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Ingham County Animal Shelter, 600 Curtis St., in Mason. The open house will feature half-price adoptions on any spayed or neutered pet.

NEWS

Making MSU greener

As university officials shoveled dirt to make room for a tree near the Simon Power Plant located on Service Road, the act signified something more than just adding to the landscape. Administrators signed an agreement Tuesday to make MSU the newest member of the Chicago Climate Exchange to improve the natural environment on campus. The exchange program, or CCX, is the world's first and North America's only legally binding rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system.

MSU

Webberville native dies during tour in Iraq

Army Staff Sgt. Gregory McCoy, a 26-year-old Webberville native, died Thursday in Iraq after an improvised explosive device hit his vehicle, according to a Detroit Free Press article. McCoy was a member of the Ft.

MSU

Supplements may help ease flu

With cold and flu season in full swing, an MSU physician said bed rest and plenty of fluids aren't the only things that will protect people from viruses. Edward Rosick, a physician of family and community medicine, said natural supplements such as vitamin C or echinacea could help strengthen immune systems and even shorten the length of an illness. "The benefits for some of these supplements is there are not any prescriptions out there that shortens the duration of a cold," Rosick said.

MSU

MSU study abroad ranks high in national report

For the second year in a row, MSU was recognized as the top public study abroad university in the nation, according to Open Doors 2006, an annual international education report. According to the Institute of International Education, or IIE, in 2004-05, 2,385 MSU students studied abroad — second to New York University in terms of student participation among all colleges and universities. MSU offers 232 study abroad programs in 62 countries and all seven continents. Kathleen Fairfax, director of MSU's Office of Study Abroad, said MSU was happy to receive recognition because the university is very committed to its study abroad program. "The study abroad program is a signature program for MSU," Fairfax said.