Word on the Street
Do you think summer classes are more difficult than during the year, and why?
Do you think summer classes are more difficult than during the year, and why?
To his colleagues, friends and students, Aimé Ellis was an ambitious, intelligent, kindhearted and creative man, with a knack for engaging his students and challenging their preconceived notions of the world.
From Friday until Sunday, the MSU Pavilion will host the Half Arabian Association of Michigan horse show. The Half Arabian Association of Michigan is a state-wide horse club that promotes the breeding, showing and use of half-Arabian horses, said John Schauer, show manager for this year’s show and association treasurer.
When MSU biochemistry and molecular biology professor Robert Last identified two new genes and enzymes in the tomato plant, his view of the vegetable was forever changed. “It is almost like discovering one of your best friends really isn’t what you thought he or she was,” Last said. “This compound is fundamentally different than was thought.”
Most college graduates won’t face an uphill battle paying off student loans according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The report, published in the Chronicle’s May 22 issue, said 65 percent of college students leave school with debt, and the average debt is about $20,000.
Drivers might have to pay more to fill up their tank because of proposed national climate change legislation, but it could result in positive long-term effects for Michigan, state officials said.
Michael Nelson, an MSU associate professor of fisheries and wildlife, knows that being a scientist means having responsibilities outside of the lab. He and more than 180 Michigan scientists, lived up to those responsibilities last week by signing a letter pressuring Michigan lawmakers to take swift action against climate change in the Great Lakes State.
MSU’s College of Music and College of Education will have a new base of operations in the Detroit area beginning this fall. The university signed a seven-year lease on a 22,000-square-foot building, located at 3408 Woodward Ave., in Detroit.
An MSU committee is discussing options including lowering prescription drug costs and implementing wellness programs for faculty in an attempt to curb rising health care costs. The Health Care Strategy Advisory Committee was formed in February to find ways to make MSU’s health care system more efficient.
MSU must hand over police documents regarding a 2006 campus assault to The State News, which requested the information under the Freedom of Information Act, an Ingham County Circuit Court judge ruled Wednesday.
For many baby boomer college faculty across the country, job satisfaction is a problem. According to a study conducted at the University of Washington that was released last month, baby boomers in the middle of their lives are less satisfied with their jobs than their older and younger colleagues. However, that might not be the case at MSU.
Extra inches around the waist might promote cancer growth, according to a study published last month by MSU researchers. Jenifer Fenton, a food science and human nutrition researcher at the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, studied the link between a hormone found in fat cells and colon cancer.
MSU police will be on the lookout for unbuckled motorists Wednesday and next week as part of Mid-Michigan’s annual Buckle Up or Pay Up, Click It or Ticket mobilization, MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor said.
With a projected $12.5 million in federal funding during the next five years, researchers at MSU will investigate the implications of thermoelectric energy and contribute to a nationwide effort to understand and use sustainable energy.
MSU researchers studying children’s exercise will have new labs this summer in what was once unused locker space. Renovations turned half of the women’s locker room in the basement of IM Sports-Circle into a new workspace and laboratory for the Department of Kinesiology’s Human Energy Research Laboratory, or HERL.
MSU’s future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams might be getting a $2 million funding boost next year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s budget request to Congress. The request is slated to raise the amount allotted to FRIB from $7 million in fiscal year 2009 to $9 million in 2010.
On Thursday, Mary Alice Stollak, founding artistic and musical director of the MSU Children’s Choir, directed her choir of 54 children for the last time. The choir members, ranging from 4th grade to high school-aged, wore brightly colored vests, white shirts and blouses and sang to an audience that almost filled the entire first level of Wharton Center.
The multimillion-dollar Farm Lane underpass project, originally set for completion this summer, will not be completed until the fall but will not exceed the original budget, university officials said.
The world is full of college graduates, including plenty of MSU grads. Previous college graduates all seem to share the same bit of advice: Be confident and keep your head up.
Although many of this year’s graduates don’t have long-term plans laid out, many grads will be busy this upcoming year. From law school to volunteering, internships to careers, here’s a sample of what some MSU alumni are planning to do this summer and beyond.