Two food courts on campus are in the midst of a makeover that will bring four new restaurants to MSU by fall. The Taco Bell and Wendy's located in the International Center announced in February that they would not rebid their contracts, which expired at the end of the semester.
During finals week, nearly 1,500 campus bike riders discovered bright orange tags on their bikes, issued by the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety.
After about a year of construction, IM Sports-West opened the doors to a brand new fitness and exercise area on Monday and is offering free visits to MSU community members until Friday. The room is 12,000 square feet and features more than 180 new weight and cardiovascular machines for students, faculty, staff and alumni to use. Weight machines are positioned on the large first floor, and cardiovascular machines are on the second balcony level - a far cry from the small fitness room with dated machines IM Sports-West used to have. Most of the machines in the previous fitness room are from the 1970s, and there were few cardiovascular options, IM Sports-West intern and kinesiology senior Greg Haverlock said. Among the new equipment are 24 elliptical running machines and 24 treadmills, and each machine features a personal TV screen.
MSU's budget and tuition rates for the 2005-06 school year are waiting on one thing - the state's long budgetary process in Lansing, university officials said. Next month, the university will set its tuition rates for the new school year, but MSU Board of Trustees member David Porteous said the board is at a standstill until the state determines its higher-education funding for its 15 public universities. At this point, Porteous said it would be "premature and impossible" to predict what is in store for MSU's tuition rates.
Sex toys and a gorilla-masked mannequin are a few of the stranger things manager Tim Knightfound while doing dorm room cleaning. "The mannequin scared the living daylights out of you because you thought something with a hairy face was behind you," he said. Many students could not fit everything they have acquired throughout the year into the bags and boxes Mom and Dad brought to them in the spring.
The Michigan chapters of the American Red Cross have the lowest blood supply levels in a decade. MSU students leaving for the summer and high school classes coming to a close give the Red Cross fewer possible donors. A new campaign called "Strive for Five" started on Friday to help increase blood donations for the summer. It encourages sponsors to give five more pints of blood than their original goal, American Red Cross Marketing Manager Kelly Rogers said. The campaign began because this summer is projected to be the lowest blood-drive turnout in years, said Justin Looyenga, donor recruitment representative for the Mid-Michigan Chapter of the American Red Cross. "We're really going to be struggling this summer," Looyenga said. The summer always is a problem for the organization, Rogers said.
Channel 12 is back on. The channel, which broadcasts free movies and student-produced programming to MSU's campus and surrounding cities, was scheduled to be taken off the air at the end of the school year due to declining viewership. But the Residence Halls Association announced this week that it will assume control of the channel after a division of Housing and Food Services gives up control of it next month. RHA President Kevin Newman, who during his campaign stressed improving amenities as the key to keeping students on campus, said keeping Channel 12 a part of residence hall living should be a priority. "This is another program that RHA can bring to the on-campus community that they can't get anywhere else," Newman said. The move became possible after Swank Motion Pictures Inc., the company from which RHA purchases the movies for Channel 12 and its Campus Center Cinemas, agreed to provide them with a digital media player system at no charge for at least a year. The system will substantially cut the channel's labor costs by enabling a month of its programming to be done in 30 minutes. "There's been some technical issues, but the new digital media player will alleviate that," RHA Director of Technology Tom Wolf said.
MSU's co-ed a capella group Capital Green will host its annual spring show at 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $5 for students and $7 adults.
Thursday was the third continuous day of bargaining in negotiations between MSU and the Graduate Employees Union, which are attempting to establish a contract for the union before the current one expires May 15. About 40 members of GEU held a "grade-in" today at the Nisbet Building, where the bargaining meeting was being held.
Starting a campaign for his co-workers to take the stairs instead of the elevator was a step in the right direction toward a healthier campus community, said Matthew Reeves, an epidemiologist. But after discovering only 3 percent of Americans are fulfilling the recommended behaviors that add up to a healthy lifestyle, Reeves said there needs to be a cultural shift in the way people take care of themselves. Reeves looked at four indicators of healthy lifestyles: not smoking, eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily, exercising 30 minutes five days a week and maintaining a healthy weight.
T.J. Leyden, a reformed neo-Nazi skinhead activist and recruiter, will speak at noon May 5 in the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety Community room. The presentation, for police, students and staff of MSU, "Turning Away From Hate," is about the neo-Nazi skinhead culture and the nature of hate. Leyden has spoken at more than 100 high schools, and to various military groups, including the Pentagon.
Fourteen teams of students from electrical and computer engineering senior design classes displayed posters and prototypes of their projects in the International Center on Thursday for Design Day 2005.
The university opened its arms to a group of potential future Spartans on Thursday as more than 100 employees brought their children to the annual "Take Your Child to Work Day." The day's activities included tours, informational displays and a ceremony where the children got to meet Sparty and receive a certificate of completion.
Kim Wilcox said the administrators he has most admired - and he would most like to imitate - are the quiet ones. "They are quiet people - they're quiet in the sense of listening and carefully listening," Wilcox said at a public forum.
By Jason Chapman Special for The State News An opportunity for MSU to regularly help the homeless and poor in Lansing with food donations has come up, but university officials said legal and food safety concerns keep MSU from participating. Food Movers, located in Lansing, is an organization that rescues leftover perishable food from restaurants and other local businesses, supplying it to food shelters in the area.
The Kellogg Center hosted the Habitat for Humanity of Michigan Awards Banquet on Wednesday. Gov. Jennifer Granholm spoke and received the Public Official of the Year award. The banquet was held to honor the work done by members of the group this year. "She's a large supporter of low-income housing," Ken Bensen, president of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, said of Granholm.
On Friday, a group of MSU physicians will host "Women's Health 2005: Clinical Update for Practitioners." The conference will be from 8 a.m.
The Grant W. Howell Trust awarded $150,000 to MSU's School of Journalism earlier this month. The money will be used to establish an essay contest on media bias, as well as a scholarship program.
"Take Your Child To Work Day" is on MSU's campus today. The target age group is from 8 to 14 years old. This year's theme is "Sharing Power & Possibility," which involves daughters and sons participating in work, family and community responsibilities.
Capaciflectors, proximity sensors and retro-rockets might not take them back to the future, but some MSU students are finding they can lead to future careers. Students in the electrical and computer engineering senior design class will show off projects ranging from self-controlled robots to a new style of Mars rover during the annual Design Day, which starts at 9 a.m.