MSU alumni and friends receive the MSUToday magazine in the mail four times each year. Or read current and past issues online right here. Each issue features stories of how MSU is inspiring and making a positive impact on lives in Michigan, across the United States, and around the world through innovative teaching, research, and outreach.
MSU and Detroit, SIDE BY SIDE: Fall 2009 MSU is expanding its commitment to southeast Michigan and leading economic recovery on campus and across the state. Nearly half of the students in each MSU freshman class come from Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties, and more than 21 percent of MSU’s living alumni reside in the region...
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Graduate explorers: Summer 2009: A doctoral student’s dissertation research is perhaps the pinnacle of learning by doing, the ultimate form of exploration as education. “An independent research project is the hallmark of graduate education,” says Ian Gray, vice president for research and graduate studies at MSU, which awards more than 2,500 advanced degrees each year and is one of the top 50 universities in the United States for the number of graduate and professional students enrolled...
Big science: Spring 2009 The U.S. Department of Energy’s announcement that Michigan State University had been selected to design and establish the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams was good news not only for MSU but also for countless others, including the best scientific minds around the world. Imagine for a moment you’re an astrophysicist. You care about stars—and not just for the beauty they add to a cloudless night sky. Your job is to determine how they form, what makes them shine, and how they eventually die, sometimes in spectacular fashion...
Research on the edge of knowledge: Winter 2008 Researchers regularly push the frontiers of knowledge. And MSU scientists are among the leaders, whether the frontier is on the edge of the universe or at the core of a gene. A telescope that was described as a quantum leap for MSU’s astronomers when it went online in 2004 offers unprecedented access to the frontiers of deep space and the means to uncover some of the mysteries of the universe. Few universities have this kind of guaranteed access to such a large and modern telescope...
Reduse, reuse, rethink: Fall 2008 “Go green!” has long been a familiar rallying cry at Spartan sporting events, but MSU also has a proud tradition of “going green” to support the environment—making significant contributions to environmental research, outreach, and education that have a positive impact on Michigan, the nation, and the world. Close to home, MSU—one of the largest universities in the nation—faces a substantial environmental challenge due to its sheer size. Past conservation efforts are insufficient to keep pace with an evolving campus on which more people and facilities translate into the production of more waste and more energy consumption...
Students advancing knowledge: Summer 2008 A visitor walking through the second floor of the MSU Union on a warm day last
April might have been surprised to see students in jackets and ties or dresses and heels
instead of T-shirts and shorts. A peek into the meeting rooms there and on the third floor
would have revealed those dressed-up students with laser pointers and sophisticated
PowerPoint presentations before an audience of faculty, parents, friends, and others
interested in the research that bright undergraduates are conducting these days...
Meeting the need: Spring 2008 Imagine going to the doctor’s office and finding no doctor there. Imagine spending a few days in the hospital with no nurses there to provide care. Or maybe you own a dairy farm and your herd gets sick, but there is no veterinarian to make it better. Extreme scenarios? Perhaps. But maybe not. Michigan and the nation are facing serious shortages of health care providers. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing says the U.S. shortage of nurses will stand at about 340,000 by 2020. Also, many more nursing professors are retiring than are being hired...
Team research: Winter 2007 They’re sometimes called silos, the discrete departments that make up the colleges that make up a university. And they sometimes have the intellectual equivalent of a silo’s tall, thick walls that confine the contents. But whatever its value for storing grain, the silo concept doesn’t work very well when there are complex problems to solve, or when one field of study needs the expertise of another to advance...
Celebrating arts and culture: Fall 2007 Policy makers and planners in Michigan are intensely focused on economic development. Increasingly, cultural development is being recognized as an essential ingredient in creating an environment that fosters economic growth. Across the state and nation, art and culture influence business development and expansion decisions, inspire downtown revitalization and historic preservation, build community identity, and promote diversity and inclusiveness. Where technology, innovation, and creativity anchor the economy, you will find a strong cultural sector. Michigan State University is at the center of energizing cultural entrepreneurship and development in Michigan’s Capital Region and beyond...
Researchers at a big university tackle the tiny: Summer 2007 How hard is it to study something you can’t see? With the right technology, not that hard. And MSU researchers tackle the tiny—the very tiny—more often than you might think. An international team of scientists, including MSU’s Michael Velbel, found that, among other things, this particular comet, 81P/Wild 2, is composed of a variety of silicate and sulfide minerals lacking structural water. This means that parts of the comet were formed in a high temperature region of the solar system and not in the coldness of space beyond the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune...
Let's eat: Winter 2006 It seems like a good idea – most of the time. But many of us eat too much of the wrong things and too little of the right ones. For some, there isn’t enough food available, or it doesn’t offer enough of essential nutrients, or bacteria in it make us sick. MSU researchers address all of these issues surrounding the food we eat. Reliance on rice as a primary source of food causes malnutrition throughout much of the developing world since rice is a poor source of several essential micronutrients...
MSU in action: Fall 2006 When most of us reflect on Michigan State University, we view it through the window of our own experience. We see the classrooms, professors, residence halls, dining rooms, the library, campus gathering spots. We remember the pleasures, achievements, friendships and, perhaps, the growing pains that were part of the roles we played as we passed across the grand stage that framed a major act in the drama of our personal development. All of this we took for granted—and our students today take it for granted as life around them moves smoothly, safely, and supportively...
Health matters: Summer 2006 How do diseases originate? What can be done to eradicate them? The National Institutes of Health spends billions of dollars each year on such issues, and some of that funding supports MSU research. Faculty members are using their grants to delve into causes and to evaluate treatments. Here is a sampling of MSU research projects. As odd as it may sound, given that most parasitic creatures are not good for you, some of them are actually beneficial. MSU researcher Linda Mansfield is part of a national group of scientists investigating the role that parasites can play in treating inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, in humans...
Figuring it out: Winter 2005 Education: Everybody talks about it, and everybody tries to influence it. So what really works in the classroom? MSU faculty members have some pretty good ideas about that. “I cannot imagine how anything could be more demanding than teaching first grade well,” says Michael Pressley, professor of educational psychology and teacher education and one of the nation’s leading literacy scholars. Over the course of 25 years as a researcher, he and his doctoral students have spent countless hours in elementary school classrooms, observing teachers and students in an effort to decipher what practices increase learning...
Digging up the past: Fall 2005 The pursuit of knowledge thrives at Michigan State University. It links the past with the future, the university’s heritage with its potential. It is the quest to advance knowledge coupled with the resulting power to transform lives that has defined Michigan State since its founding in 1855. Michigan State’s 150-year legacy of achievement is its benchmark for future accomplishments. Classroom and laboratory endeavors are measured by the impact they have in the real world...
Discoveries: Spring 2005 Genes and genomes. DNA. Cells and chromosomes. Proteins. From crime scenes and the water supply to the grocery store and the doctor's office, the science of genetics promises advances. And MSU researchers play a role. Even the animals that live at MSU participate. Chicken No. 256, for one. A consortium of 175 researchers from around the world put the first draft of her genome into free public databases last year and published their accomplishment in the British science journal Nature...
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