Wednesday, December 17, 2025

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Commentary

COMMENTARY

Stay classy until next year MSU

If every year of college goes by this fast, I need to take more time to appreciate the little things. By the end of next week, I’ll have completed my first year as a college student, which is shocking to think about. It doesn’t seem like so long ago I had settled into my tiny dorm room (away from the comforts of home) and into the vast MSU campus.

COMMENTARY

Setting the record straight on MSU animal research

The recent column by guest columnist Mitch Goldsmith, “The Darker Side of Animal Testing,” (SN 4/25) not only is horrifying but also left me completely bewildered by the obscene skewing of MSU’s poultry and mink teaching and research farm.

COMMENTARY

A senior Spartan’s survival guide

My time at this school nearly has run its course. I am graduating (scary, I know), and as I think back on my four years here, I find myself wishing I could go back and tell my cocky little freshman self what I’ve learned, not only about college and MSU but also tips for making the rocky years from age 18 on to age 22 a little bit easier.

COMMENTARY

Manifesting ‘Spartanness’

Right now, humanity is confronted with a problem — well actually it’s just my problem. With graduation fast approaching — and due dates looming — I feel ever-increasing pressure to refrain from doing anything. Why is it when we are so close to the finish line we want to slow down?

COMMENTARY

The darker side of animal testing

When I first came to MSU as a high school senior, almost five years ago, I thought animals largely were absent from the academic experience and MSU community in general. I thought we had advanced past laboratory horror stories. I thought animal experimentation (also known as vivisection) as I knew it had ended long ago.

COMMENTARY

Broad Museum spray painting simply vandalism

Panels of the skeleton of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum were vandalized by red spray paint on April 15. The irony is palpable. An unfinished art museum — what some might consider a work of art in and of itself — has a few panels redecorated by artwork of the street variety.

COMMENTARY

A rhyme to end freshman year

My name is Omar Thabet, and I am a freshman at MSU pursuing a career in journalism. I am a Muslim Arab-American from the city of Hamtramck, Mich., a town near Detroit. The first article I wrote earlier in this semester was a poem about the tragedies going on in the Middle East.

COMMENTARY

Weekend brings 10,000 student activists together

This past weekend, an estimated 10,000 young men and women from campuses nationwide attended the third biennial Power Shift conference. It was the biggest movement building training and strategy session ever, according to Ethan Nuss, co-field director for the Energy Action Coalition, and 42 of the attendees were our very own MSU Spartans.

COMMENTARY

Private sector fed on TALF bailouts

Fellow Spartans, are you hard up for cash? Have college expenses barely left you with enough money for booze at the end of the week? Well, I’m here to tell you your troubles are over! I’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime here, and I’m prepared to let you in on the ground floor!

COMMENTARY

ASMSU must work harder to engage with students

“Student engagement” is mentioned as an ASMSU goal every year. And, each year it is lost in the shuffle of events and falls to the bottom of the to-do list. By allowing this to happen, we lose our greatest resource — students.

COMMENTARY

The crossroads of power and truth

I want to welcome you to a world where power and control have created truth. A world you already might know well. Where clashes over money and religion and society’s inner workings have created a global Hobbesian leviathan with ever-present epilepsy — a seizing giant of scattered information.

COMMENTARY

Rhetoric only adds to problems

President Barack Obama’s inclusive tone was part of his appeal to Independent voters in the 2008 presidential election. Obama referred to common causes such as energy independence as collaborative efforts that would need people of different parties to come together.

COMMENTARY

Cutting foreign studies programs isolates US

Higher education international programs should be just about the last sector to suffer federal funding cuts. In an increasingly globalized world, foreign relations absolutely are vital to successful American economic growth. College students, businesses and even government officials need to be trained in international language and culture.