For nearly 50 students affected by fires in East Lansing and Lansing, the nightmare scenario of having their home and personal belongings destroyed is a reality.
Community service does more than help the schools, parks and any other recipient of the assistance — it truly enriches the volunteer’s life. There are numerous programs in which students are involved, and some colleges require a certain amount of service hours before graduation. But volunteering should not need to be required.
If Lansing wants to become a hot destination for young professionals and recent graduates, then it needs to strive for more than a high “cool” factor. Jobs will be the ultimate deciding factor in attracting the newest generation of talented professionals to the area. Just being “cool” doesn’t pay the bills.
After years of various designs for its uniforms, the MSU athletics department has taken a giant leap to bring every varsity athletic team into one uniform design.
In all, the new budget created by ASMSU is one that can’t be strongly criticized. The organization should be putting money in places where students will see the most positive effects. This time, it increased two of the more tangible uses: blue books and legal services.
MSU has let down its senior class by failing to bring in someone who fits that bill. Kennedy is an uninspiring, unimpressive and all-around disappointing choice for commencement speaker. No amount of recycled gowns or eco-friendly diplomas is enough to cover up that fact.
Raising room and board rates by 5.1 percent puts the cost of living on campus for a school year at $7,770, a $376 increase for 2010-11. Not only is this irritating to students who already had signed contracts, it will convince more students to consider the move to apartments and houses.
If a forthcoming recommendation is approved by the MSU Board of Trustees, MSU will not increase the merit-based pay rates that come from its general merit pools. The recommendation to limit the raises already has been unanimously approved by Academic Governance.
Despite the obvious detriments, the decision to cut benefits is better than many other options, such as directly reducing the number and quality of MSU faculty. Hopefully, cutting these benefits doesn’t do just that.
The Council of Graduate Students, or COGS, is working on fellowship criteria to add to the monetary pot available to graduate and professional students. An initial endowment would be $125,000, which COGS has accumulated in the past five to 10 years from budget surpluses.
Some students might question this move to increase the budget of any university department when program cuts are being made and tuition is on the rise, but with careful consideration of many contributing factors, they should be relieved of any worry.
Transparency with the public about what could happen and being up front with the numbers involved with projects also would be preferred. The city has a plan in place and should provide residents with regular reports on how it is doing in paying back the debt from the bonds.
The T.B. Simon Power Plant burns 250,000 tons of coal each year, providing heat and electricity to the university. However, the plant produces harmful greenhouse gases — much to the dismay of many on-campus student groups and other local environmentalists. There has been a flurry of protests and campaigns to raise awareness of this fact and convince the university to switch to alternative, less harmful energy sources.
Students pay for an education. They do not pay to evaluate professors. A new pilot program will require students to respond to a survey or wait a week before receiving their grades.
Race to the Top is a contest for money based on which states can best formulate a plan to conform to the federal government’s wishes. But the federal government doesn’t necessarily know what’s best for children’s education, and asking states to change in exchange for money rather than for what might be in the best interest of students is not right.
Once composed of mostly men, veterinary education now is nationally dominated by women. However, this reversal of gender dominance in the field is a general trend. Before the 1980s, veterinary classes at MSU were composed of mostly male students.
As the numbers of unpaid internships have grown, so have the concerns about whether employers are abiding by labor laws. The future of those internships rests on the need for new legal limitations on what is right and wrong in the unpaid workplace.
Although the most recently publicized threats are coming from radical right-wing groups, threats come from all directions. Each threat needs to be taken seriously, regardless of political ideology. A group might not act on a threat, but law enforcement should act like the threats are real to ensure everybody’s safety.
Fortunate circumstances this past weekend caused postgame activities to be less of a riot and more of a respectable gathering among students seemingly parting with riot-like ideals. Students leaving town because of Easter, partially rainy weather and the outcome of Saturday’s game left little fuel to start the Cedar Village fire Saturday night.
It’s a great year to be a Spartan. This weekend especially is a time to celebrate what it means to be a Spartan: resiliency, ingenuity and teamwork.