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MSU

Board secretary to be confirmed today

Alison Barber is expected to be confirmed today as the new secretary of the MSU Board of Trustees, officials said. The board will meet today to discuss, among other things, the appointment of Barber, the MSU senior associate dean in the Eli Broad College of Business.

MSU

Student group advises nonprofit businesses

An MSU organization is aiming to help the community by providing free advice to local nonprofit organizations. Students Consulting for Nonprofit Organizations, or SCNO, is a national organization that focuses on helping local communities through pro-bono consulting.

MSU

Union alters dining lineup

Students craving MSU Dairy Store ice cream will soon be able to purchase the treat at a new location inside the Union. Construction of the new store should be completed by the end of September, said Union Manager Jim Sheppard. On Monday, officials announced changes to the lineup of restaurants scheduled to open in the Union this fall. Grill 155 and Pete's Arena Pizza had been slated to replace the Little Caesars Pizza and Wendy's, whose contracts ended this year, located in the One Union Square Food Court.

MSU

High number of visits slows parking site

Students trying to register for campus parking permits Monday experienced some difficulty accessing the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety's online registration Web site. The volume of visitors to the site forced students to wait in an application queue ranging from several hundred to as many as one thousand students. MSU police Sgt.

MSU

Player pleads guilty to drunken driving

Senior wide receiver Aaron Alexander pleaded guilty to drunken driving charges and faces an Aug. 12 sentencing, a clerk from the 54-B District Court said. Alexander is still a member of the football team, said John Lewandowski, assistant athletics director and director of Sports Information. However, Lewandowski wouldn't comment on whether MSU football head coach John L.

MSU

Program helps freshmen adjust to college living

A group of incoming freshmen performed skits on college life on Friday in the McDonel Hall Kiva to wrap-up the one-week program Maximizing Academic Growth in College, or MAGIC. For nine years, the program's aim has been to provide incoming racial and ethnic minority students with information about transitioning to college through workshops and other activities.

MSU

Mozilla browser gains popularity on campuses

For years, Web browsing has been dominated by a single application, but one newcomer is starting to garner more attention at several universities. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has led the field of Internet-browser applications, according to statistics from WebSideStory Inc., a San Diego-based company providing Web marketing applications and Web analysis.

MSU

Weekly bell concerts featured at Beaumont

His loosely clasped fists striking the batons and his black shoes dancing on the pedals, French carillonneur Stefano Colletti filled the air with the sounds of the bells of Beaumont Tower. Colletti's recital, which included the music of Bach, Satie and his own improvisations, was one in the Muelder International Summer Carillon Recital Series. A carillon is a musical instrument with at least two octaves of bells played from a clavier, a series of batons arranged like a keyboard that one plays with both hands and feet.

MSU

Dairy training

A little before 2 p.m. on Monday, veterinarian Jill Brester was elbow deep in a cow. Brester, an intern with the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, was performing a routine abdominal surgery on the cow at the MSU Training Center for Dairy Professionals, a new university facility which officially opens today.

MSU

300 volunteers to flush Spartan Stadium toilets

In the middle of August, 300 volunteers will enter every bathroom in the new Spartan Stadium to simultaneously flush every toilet and turn on every faucet. This test, called a "super flush," is to make sure the plumbing can handle an entire stadium full of spectators using the facilities. It has been standard practice to test new structures ever since Notre Dame's newly renovated stadium flooded during its first game in 1997, MSU Associate Director for Media Relations John Lewandowski said. During Notre Dame's home opener against Georgia Tech, the plumbing could not take the overwhelming needs of the crowd, causing the stadium's concourses to flood; thus the concession stands could no longer sell beverages, he said. It occurred during a television time-out as fans flocked to the bathrooms. The stadium's plumbing and the super flush are being coordinated by Keebler Plumbing & Heating in Lansing. The super flush will make sure the new plumbing can handle the demands of the new stadium, Lewandowski said. "They're trying to simulate a halftime," he said.

MSU

Dig's findings shown to public

Members of the general public had a unique opportunity last weekend to get a glimpse at what life was like inside the first dorm on campus - a glimpse that, until recently, was buried underground. For the past five weeks, MSU students and archaeologists have been excavating the site of Dormitory #1, nicknamed Saints' Rest by its residents.

MSU

Restoring history

Students and researchers excavating the site of MSU's first dorm might have uncovered a link to the fire that destroyed the building - a trowel found in the dorm's basement. In December 1876, the student residents of Saints' Rest had left for winter break, and the only people in the building were a group of workmen doing grouting in the basement.

MSU

Board to set tuition rates for 2005-06 at July meeting

MSU students will have to wait a few weeks longer than in previous years to receive their tuition bills for the upcoming school year. As tuition for the 2005-06 school year hinges on the authorization of the Legislature's state higher-education budget, the MSU Board of Trustees has delayed the process of setting tuition and sending out tuition bills until the university's state funding is certain. Last year, tuition rates were approved in late June, and students received their tuition electronically on July 23.

MSU

MSU server compromised

The latest in a series of computer attacks within the MSU community has struck the Human Resources servers. On Friday, MSU officials sent an e-mail to some members of the MSU community informing them that two of the department's servers, which hold information such as social security numbers and personal home addresses, had been hacked into by an unknown attacker. Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Pamela Beemer sent an e-mail to notify the potentially affected people about the intrusion. The letter said someone attempted to gain unauthorized access to two MSU Human Resources servers between June 25 and 26.

MSU

MSU could renew energy campaign

Incoming freshmen are leaving their homes, but they might not have heard the advice to turn off the lights when they leave for the last time. With the influx of new faces, the Energy Subcommittee of the University Committee for a Sustainable Campus has discussed the prospects of rejuvenating a campaign to conserve energy on campus, subcommittee member Bob Ellerhorst said.

MSU

Prof. travels to India to aid

Six months after a tsunami devastated coastal areas of India, an MSU professor is planning to help victims of the disaster in the southern part of the country. Sam Varghese, a professor of animal science, will leave with his wife Alice on Friday for his second relief trip this year. He plans to be gone three months, and in that time he will run workshops in Trivandrum, India, to teach victims how to raise quail and other small animals for food and profit. Varghese spent a month during January and February in southern India giving aid to victims of the tsunami. "All I could do was go to the shelters, see these people and hand out cash," Varghese said of his previous trip. Varghese distributed $17,500 to victims and taught them about food safety during his month in the country. "It broke my heart to see this devastation, but God willing, I wanted to come back," he said. For his current trip, he raised $14,150 from departments at MSU and an additional $5,000 through Coturnix International Ministries Inc., a charitable organization founded and run by Varghese. On his last trip, he only received $250 in funding from MSU. Jeff Riedinger, dean of International Studies and Programs said the university is better positioned to support long-term development than short-term economic relief. He said he helped convene a meeting of MSU faculty and administrators to hear a proposal from Varghese. "He and a group of other MSU faculty were interested in following up on what MSU could do on a long-term basis," Riedinger said. International Studies and Programs contributed several thousand dollars to help fund Varghese's meeting with foreign aid officials, Riedinger said. The rest of the money donated by MSU was pooled from the Department of Animal Science, MSU Extension and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said Professor Karen Plaut, chairwoman of the Department of Animal Science. Varghese will use the money to buy baby chicks, feed, equipment and cages which will be donated to the residents he teaches. "Everything will be given to them free so they can get started," he said. Coturnix, a Japanese species of quail, are particularly well-suited for this project because they don't need much space, are cheap to raise and mature quickly, Varghese said. A coturnix can begin laying eggs in about 35 days after hatching, he said, and can lay between 250-300 eggs in a year. He said he will also be purchasing rabbits and possibly chickens, which can be sold for their meat.

MSU

Soybean rust might infect Mich. plants

A fungal disease that kills one of Michigan's largest crops has been found recently in the Southeast, but Michigan growers and MSU are preparing for the possibility of the fungus spreading. Asian soybean rust has been found in Asia and South America for decades, the infection spread to five counties in Florida and one in Georgia, Department of Plant Pathology Chairman Ray Hammerschmidt said. On campus, there's a lab dedicated to identifying plant diseases, including soybean rust, he said. Hammerschmidt said soybean growers can bring their plants to MSU's Diagnostic Services in the Center for Integrated Plant Systems if they think the rust has infected their plants, but he added that there haven't been any reports of rust in Michigan. "But we are probably more prepared for this disease than any plant disease in history," he said. Growers in Michigan dedicate more than 2 million acres to soybean plots as part of a very large industry in the state, Hammerschmidt said. Soy, because of its high protein and calcium, commonly replaces milk in dairy products. Organic food store Foods for Living, 2655 E.