Learning Arabic can be difficult for both native speakers and newcomers to the language. But MSU’s Detroit Center hopes to give educators useful strategies for this task during a two-week STARTALK workshop. The national program to improve the teaching of languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Hindi, began Monday and continues through Aug. 6.
Based on past voter turnouts and filings for absentee ballots, about 1.7 million voters are expected to vote in Tuesday’s primary, according to the Michigan Secretary of State.
The Capital Area Transportation Authority, or CATA, will offer free rides to all customers with a Michigan voter registration card during regular service hours Tuesday, the date of the primary elections. Valid cards must be presented to the driver upon boarding to receive a free ride.
Although it is the offseason for the MSU baseball team, a number of Spartans have spent their summers on the diamond playing for teams in various college leagues.
Along with freshman Liz Nagel and senior Natalie Brehm, six other Spartans — senior Michelle Bowles, juniors Maddi Massa and Shannon Warner and incoming freshmen Lindsey McPherson and Christine Meier — qualified for match play in the 94th Michigan Women’s Amateur. MSU head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll also is competing in the event.
In the middle of Joe Hertler’s freshman year at Central Michigan University, he bought his first guitar and started what would become a lifelong relationship. Although not from the area, Hertler said the East Lansing music scene is one that makes the trip to town worth his while because it’s supportive of blossoming musicians like himself.
Whenever we turn on the TV, surf the Internet or open a newspaper, we are bombarded with stories about something negative happening because of oil. For months we sat and watched as BP tried to cap its mess, cursing the people who were to blame and hoping nothing like it would happen again.
As I have said in the past, I am for the smoking ban. I don’t feel it infringes on the rights of property owners because if secondhand smoke is dangerous to others, it can be regulated in situations where smokers and nonsmokers mingle.
Given the occasional spats between students and the city of East Lansing, it is nice to see a relationship between both parties that is mutually beneficial. On Tuesday, the East Lansing City Council approved a special parking permit program proposed by MSU’s Council of Graduate Students, or COGS.
A number of items dotted the East Lansing City Council’s work session agenda Tuesday, including a discussion on a possible medicinal marijuana ordinance and an approval request for a special parking permit program.
The MSU Community Music School is turning students into triple threat performers with its new Musical Theatre Camp this week, teaching young performers the ropes of the stage in a little more than a week’s time. From Monday through Friday, more than 60 students from grades 2-12 will fill their days with singing, choreography, acting, costume design and other activities that will prepare them for the basics of a stage production.
MSU’s University Archives & Historical Collections is beginning to assemble a new system called Spartan Archive, which will aim to be one of the leaders in digital archives, or an archive in which the documents were originally in digital format. The Spartan Archive will be a database of MSU’s digital records, some dating back as far as the 1970s. Because older digital documents can be in a variety of formats and difficult to open, Spartan Archives will put all documents on a similar, easy to access format.
More than 175 children and parents attended the seventh annual Bug Day on Tuesday at Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden. Various stations were set up around the gardens with hands-on activities, such as making a bug hat out of a paper plate, creating an insect out of pipe cleaners and tasting honey with graham crackers.
As the 2010 college football season approaches, the MSU football coaching staff has been hot on the recruiting trail trying to sign players for 2011. Monday, the Spartans picked up their 10th verbal commitment — safety Arjen Colquhoun out of Canada — of what looks to be a solid class. Here is a look at the players committed to MSU so far from the class of 2011.
East Lansing once was a residential community for MSU faculty and staff, adjacent to the university. Starting 50 or 60 years ago, students began to trickle into rental houses in neighborhoods across from the university. But in the ’80s, resident-renter integration accelerated at a pace the city did not foresee, thrusting East Lansing into a period of change.
In addition to the prominent gubernatorial race featured on the 2010 ballot, East Lansing’s incumbent state senator and representative both are up for re-election, facing a Republican challenge for their seats in the Michigan Legislature.
East Lansing will join numerous other Michigan cities trying to make sense of a relatively new law when the East Lansing City Council opens discussion on a potential medicinal marijuana ordinance at its Tuesday work session.
A 21-year-old female from East Lansing reported her bicycle stolen outside Yakeley Hall last Wednesday, MSU police Sgt. Dan Munford said.
With magic tricks, blues music, free food and speeches from a variety of Michigan’s advocates for disability rights, the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, was celebrated Monday on the Capitol steps in Lansing. The ADA provides disabled citizens with civil protections that provide equal opportunities in education, communications, transportation and employment.
Although most still are in operation, some local hookah bars have watched their profits go up in smoke as a result of Michigan’s workplace smoking ban. The law prohibits smoking in public areas, but because more than 75 percent of sales are derived from tobacco products, hookah lounges such as Blue Midnight Hookah Lounge, 330 Albert Ave., are not required to cut smoke from the premises.