Tuesday, December 16, 2025

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MSU

Campus gardens prepare for plant tour

Benjamin Cuddeback started visiting the MSU Horticulture Gardens on the corner of Bogue Street and Wilson Avenue during his breaks from classes. Cuddeback, a horticulture senior, said he liked the gardens so much he decided he wanted to become a summer intern.

MICHIGAN

Researchers develop real estate system

A team of MSU researchers in the School of Hospitality Business has worked with hotel industry experts to develop a system that ranks top real estate markets around the country in terms of financial viability. Arjun Singh, an associate professor of international lodging, finance and real estate, and Raymond Schmidgall, the Hilton Hotels Professor of Hospitality Financial Management, worked jointly with about 30 industry members to implement the Lodging Market Potential Index, a system that ranks potential land investment hot spots. Using the opinions and insight of industry experts, the two researchers devised a system based on 10 different dimensions and 30 different indicating factors, all of which are used to rank the top 25 major hotel markets in the country. Singh and Schmidgall presented their findings at the Midwest Lodging Investors Summit this past July, something they’ve done for roughly the past three years, Singh said. The system’s rankings then can be used to determine the financial solvency of long-term investment in specific cities.

MICHIGAN

Library helps E.L. with e-book technology

After being a member of the East Lansing Public Library, or ELPL, for the past 20 years, Elise Harvey was delighted to be able to learn how to read books on her computer at the monthly e-book clinic held at the library Monday night.

MSU

MSU Museum creates online registry of Michigan’s stained glass

In 1992, Betty MacDowell was fresh off of a doctoral degree from MSU when the idea struck. She had heard about an effort on the East Coast to archive local stained glass windows, and after completing a dissertation about female stained glass artists in Michigan, she decided to start a similar project on her own.

MSU

Professors partner with marketing firm to increase volunteer awareness

A group of MSU professors has partnered with East Lansing-based marketing company Netvantage to begin Every Child is Yours, a program to increase awareness for volunteer opportunities in Greater Lansing. Every Child Is Yours is targeted toward presenting volunteer opportunities to the millennial generation, or those between the ages of 18-30.

MSU

Professor to study fundraising

An MSU professor plans to study new and improved ways of online fundraising, research that could have implications for the university’s donation and fundraising efforts. Rick Wash, an assistant professor in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, will use a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to explore crowd funding sites — applications that provide researchers or project sponsors with an outlet to receive donations geared specifically to their project. “I look at these sites as an electronic system that matches two sides,” Wash said. Examples of popular crowd funding sites range from dating sites to job-searching outlets, but Wash said the tactic also can be applied to various forms of university and college fundraising. Using computer simulations of different funding websites, Wash plans to develop the best possible approach to crowd funding, a tactic that he eventually hopes to apply to an MSU-themed donation site. On the site, students or people associated with the university could post various projects or ideas, and interested donors could contribute funding. The method even could extend to research projects being conducted at the university. “This is actually giving power to the donor,” said the university’s director of annual giving Kathleen Deneau, when discussing the potential for crowd funding at MSU.

MICHIGAN

Move-in days bring stress to E.L.

For theatre senior Erika Moul, moving into her new apartment has been a disaster. Moul is one of a number of students moving into apartments this week, a trend that will only pick up steam as the month continues. DTN Management Co. had its first move-in date on Monday, and many other apartment complexes are scheduled to open their doors in the coming weeks.