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MSU

Fellowship honors slain MSU professor

Josh Jarman
January 31, 2006

The first winners of a $10,000 research fellowship will be announced at noon today in the Kellogg Center's Big Ten room. The TIAA-CREF Ruth Simms Hamilton Research Fellowship was established through an endowment by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund, or TIAA-CREF, an insurance and retirement savings provider for workers in the academic, medical, cultural and research fields. An expert in the field of African diaspora, Hamilton was a distinguished MSU professor of social science and a TIAA-CREF board member who died in 2003.

MSU

ASMSU to put out student survey about IM addition

Kristi Jourdan
January 31, 2006

Student government officials are taking initial steps toward creating a survey to determine student demand for additional student recreational space on campus. ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, allocated $7,000 earlier this month to fund a survey of student opinions on the project, which calls for the construction of a combined IM facility and student events center.

MSU

Online forensic course appeals to professionals

Kristen Daum
January 30, 2006

Chris Osborne jumped at the chance to enroll in MSU's new seven-week online course in forensic entomology when she first heard about it. "It is one of the bigger and more important pieces of the pie in forensic science," said Osborne, a lifelong education student who has studied forensic science for 11 years. The three-credit online course, which is new this semester, is titled "Forensic Entomology: The Role of Insects in Crime Scene Investigations." The course focuses on a specific branch of forensic entomology known as medico-legal entomology, in which insect growth can help estimate the time of a person's death, said Richard Merritt, chairperson for the Department of Entomology and teacher of the online course. Although Merritt has a similar course on campus in the fall semester, he said he created the online class so that a wider range of people could have access to the information. Forensic entomology is the study of how insects are used in the legal system. "It's become a lot more important in crime scene investigation in the last 10 to 15 years," Merritt said. "People are very interested in insects, and how they can be used in this way is fascinating." After a person dies, insects will colonize the body within minutes to hours after death.

MSU

Remembering the past

Abraham Pasternak, of Southfield, lost his father, mother and brother upon their arrival at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. West Bloomfield resident George Vine was taken to a concentration camp at 13 years old. Edith Berman, a Troy resident, would be dead today if the gas chamber she was taken into did not malfunction. In honor of the first International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the three Holocaust survivors lit candles Friday at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. The United Nations General Assembly marked Jan.

MSU

WEB EXTRA: Investigation underway into MSU professor's role in falsified research

Kristen Daum
January 27, 2006

The university has started investigating an animal biotechnology professor's involvement with falsified research, MSU officials said. Jose Cibelli reviewed a manuscript in 2003 for a research paper led by Woo-Suk Hwang, a former professor at Seoul National University in South Korea. Hwang claimed he had cloned human stem cells, and his paper was published in the journal Science in 2004.

MSU

E.L. area not recognizing honored day

Today marks the first International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and for the most part, area communities have not planned any events in honor of the day. East Lansing Deputy City Manager Jean Golden said the city must pass a resolution to pay homage to a particular day or week, but in this case, the city wasn't informed that the international commemoration day was happening. "Typically, we get information about a remembrance day or a special event that needs to be acknowledged, and typically, we pass a resolution acknowledging it," she said. The United Nations General Assembly, which designated the day of commemoration, chose today in recognition of when the Polish concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated — Jan.

MSU

WEB EXTRA: Bricks on the block: Spartan statue memorabilia for sale

Melissa Domsic
January 27, 2006

Some of the MSU Surplus Store's most recent acquisitions are bricks from the base that the original Spartan statue stood on for more than 60 years. The bricks have been available at the store for a week and about seven have already been sold — one of which went for $200, store manager Ruth Daoust said. The statue, which is the largest free-standing ceramic sculpture in the world, was moved inside the new stadium expansion this past summer to protect it from the elements.

MSU

Committee preps for tournament

Melissa Domsic
January 26, 2006

By the time March Madness comes, students and community members will know exactly what to do and expect if a disturbance occurs — if all goes according to the Celebrations Committee's plan. About 30 university, city, student and community leaders met Wednesday as the newly revamped Celebrations Committee to discuss how they could implement recommendations made by an independent commission that reviewed the April 2-3 disturbances.

MSU

Folk club's focus evolves

Angela Bianchi
January 26, 2006

No longer does the MSU Faculty Folk Club focus on dinner dances and teas. More than 80 years after its inception, the club's activities include touring nuclear reactors and Spartan Stadium. The Faculty Folk Club has evolved from its days of solely social events to include education, scholarships, charity and volunteerism as major aspects of the organization. The roughly 260 members of the club are mostly spouses of MSU faculty and administrators, although faculty and administrators themselves are welcome to join.

MSU

Looking to the top of the state

By Caitlin Scuderi Special for The State News Being from a small town hasn't stopped Ian Mattoon from setting big goals. From high school debate to joining MSU College Republicans, Mattoon keeps setting his political goals higher.

MSU

Innovations: Working wheezes

Kristen Daum
January 25, 2006

Name: Dr. Ken Rosenman, adjunct professor Department: Medicine Type of research: Occupational lung disease, including work-related asthma, scarring in the lungs and connective tissue diseases. Date of research: Rosenman started his research in 1988, and his projects have been ongoing since that time. Basics of the project: "We're looking at the causes of lung disease and how exposures at work might contribute to it," Rosenman said. He has about seven projects underway, looking at different causes of occupational lung disease. Asthma — one of the aspects of Rosenman's research — is one of the more common work-related diseases, and about 15 percent of people with asthma develop it from their work environment, he said. People can develop asthma in the workplace by interacting with a certain animal or product on a daily basis, depending on their occupation, Rosenman said.

MSU

Agriculture college to offer specializations

Kristen Daum
January 25, 2006

Two specializations will be added in fall 2006 for majors within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, after being approved by Academic Council on Tuesday. A natural resource recreation specialization was created through the department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies. Agronomy, or the science of soil management and crop production, will be offered by the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. It will take 17-20 credits to specialize in natural resource recreation and 15-18 for agronomy. The specializations will create better job opportunities for graduates of the college, committee Chairman Michael Schechter said.

MSU

MSU prof returns to India for quail project

By Erin Atkinson Special for The State News MSU professor Sam Varghese will return to South India on Friday to study the effects of his educational work with tsunami victims. Varghese, an animal science professor, has been aiding tsunami victims since learning his hometown of Kerala, South India, was affected by the 2004 storm.