A portion of Albert Avenue will be closed from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday for construction, East Lansing officials said in a statement. City employees will be repairing sewer lines underneath a portion of Albert Avenue encompassing Gunson, Ann and Durand streets, according to the East Lansing Department of Public Works.
The last day to register to vote in the upcoming election is Monday, Oct. 7. Two four-year and one partial two-year city council terms are on the Nov. 5 ballot.
MSU and East Lansing has had a bad reputation for couch burnings in the past, so this year, the University Student Commission plans to put in extra effort to eradicate the issue. The University Student Commission is a commission of MSU students who make proposals and suggestions to the East Lansing City Council addressing the problems students face. Their second meeting of the school year was Oct. 1, when members met to outline their initiatives for the semester. Issues included the rise in tuition costs and the continuation of party litter policy, but the main topic of conversation was couch burnings.
Offering online courses is relatively new at MSU, and the campus community still is working toward the best solutions for academic problems that can arise, officials said. Online courses generate increased complaints of academic dishonesty that warrant different kinds of investigation and communication, University Ombudsperson Robert Caldwell told the Steering Committee earlier this week.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in your own personal aquarium? Welcome to the life of fisheries and wildlife junior Heather Burke. She has a concentration in fisheries biology, and it shows. Burke comes home everyday to more than 40 fish tanks that are tucked away into every free corner of the small house she shares with her younger sister.
Starting this year, MSU hockey fans will be able to see games with more clarity, Munn Ice Arena will be more sustainable thanks to new LED lights. Deputy Athletic Director Greg Ianni said the idea of LED lighting came when installing a new ice-making system.
In an effort to bring together MSU’s student community to address problems often associated with African-American heritage, MSU’s Alpha Phi Alpha designed a full eduactional week informing students on various issues. Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity created a week of events, with a theme of “We the People.” With only 16 active undergraduate members, Keyon Clinton, chapter president and electrical engineering senior, said the events were focused on redefining themselves in the African-American community, with programs explaining African-American worth in the U.S. and establishing an agenda to become a proactive race.
The murder trial of Okemos resident Connor McCowan continued Thursday morning with additional testimony and recorded police interviews from the roommate of his alleged victim, MSU student Andrew Singler. Singler, a nutritional sciences senior, was fatally stabbed in his apartment Feb. 23 after he and McCowan allegedly had a disagreement over a series of text messages, culminating in McCowan showing up at the apartment. McCowan’s trial began this week in Ingham County Circuit Court.
A sexual assault reportedly occurred between 3 and 4 p.m. on Sept. 25 in the Chemistry Building, according to the MSU Police Department. A 20-year-old female student told police on Oct. 1 she met a man while sitting outside of Wells Hall Sept. 25. The man walked her to the Chemistry Building and allegedly assaulted her in a stairwell, MSU police said in a statement.
A recent Gallup poll shows public trust in the government is at an all-time low, but, perhaps counterintuitively, those under the age of 30 tend to be much more trusting than those over 30, according to a study earlier this year from the Pew Research Center. At MSU, the trend seems to hold true according to some student political leaders. Lucas Joncas, president of MSU’s College Libertarians, said he thinks younger people tend to not pay as close attention to politics and policy as their older counterparts might.
MSU students are imploring Kellogg’s food company to stop doing business with Wilmar International, a palm oil supplier destroying rainforests and threatening the endangered Sumatran tiger. Student volunteers spent hours Wednesday on Grand River Avenue sidewalk outside Espresso Royale recruiting passersby to call Kellogg’s and make their voices heard.
The university is working on brining free wireless service into residence halls for students, starting with Wilson Hall this fall. During Wednesday’s Residence Halls Association, or RHA, meeting Ray Gasser, senior associate director for the Residence Education and Housing Services, or REHS, said the organization is working on educating residents of Wilson Hall not to use routers in their rooms since the additional routers distort the connection.
Students will have another option when it comes to mobile device repairs with Genius Phone Repair creating a new home on Grand River Avenue. The new business, which originated in Grand Rapids, deals with solving physical and hardware malfunctions and provides more options for student who have encountered phone troubles. Genius Phone Repair conducts mostly physical damage such as replacing cracked screens, button repairs, headset jacks, charger outlets and internal hardware and water damage. It is independent from all other carriers, such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, though they work closely with one another, making the business unique from other options in the area.
Ben Eysselinck has been many places in his life, but he said as soon as he entered East Lansing’s Glencairn neighborhood eight years ago, he was “instantly in love.” Now, he wants to make his mark on the city by running for one of the four-year term East Lansing City Council seats that will be vacated by incumbents Vic Loomis and Kevin Beard after the Nov. 5 election.
ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, approved a bill last week allowing the allocation of $52,800 to fund a bike share pilot program on campus, providing students and faculty members initially with 40 bikes to rent throughout the school year. The program would allow students to rent from stations across campus, mostly located in front of residence halls.
A new smartphone application will attempt to cut down on drunk driving by having MSU students get rides from an unlikely resource — their fellow students. Sobrio, which will begin offering regular rides this weekend, connects riders to drivers through the app’s interface.
MSU won’t be immediately impacted by the federal government shutdown that occurred when Congress failed to reach consensus on a national budget Monday night — at least not in any dramatic ways.
A series of offensive text messages exchanged between Okemos resident Connor McCowan and MSU stabbing victim Andrew Singler kicked off McCowan’s murder trial Tuesday morning. “I have no problem finding you just to whoop your ass,” Ingham County Assistant Prosecutor John Dewane read, quoting a text McCowan sent to Singler the evening of Feb. 23. “Then you wouldn’t have a problem if I showed up at your apartment then, huh?”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer made clear his intentions to improve the budget situation for both primary and higher education and discussed his campaign strategies for the upcoming 2014 race in a Tuesday press conference. Schauer, who visited Riddle Elementary School in Lansing to celebrate an endorsement from the Michigan Education Association, is the Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. The MSU alumnus previously served in the Michigan House and Senate and was elected to one term in the U.S. House of Representatives before losing his seat in 2010.
Most freshmen are required to live on campus by the university, but there are exceptions to students who live with their parents nearby. Although this alternative often is less expensive, a study show there can be negative side effects. A study published by recent MSU graduates under professor Matthew Wawrzynsk show first-year commuter students are less likely to feel a sense of belonging in the MSU community.