MSU Today with Russ White

Michigan State University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D.’s one-year anniversary as president of MSU was on August 1. This conversation is an opportunity to look back on the past year and look ahead to the 2020-21 academic year.

Bill Beekman, Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Michigan State University, welcomes Norm Lownds, curator of the MSU 4-H Children's Gardens, to MSU Today for a closer look at this campus gem.

Bill Beekman, Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at Michigan State University, welcomes Spartan Marching Band Director David Thornton to MSU Today to discuss some behind the scenes information and perspective on the band.

Michigan State University will continue providing much needed assistance to students who are children of migrant farm workers with a U.S. Department of Education grant renewal of more than $2 million. MSU's College Assistance Migrant Program Scholars initiative, better known as CAMP, has served more than a thousand eligible migrant and seasonal farm worker students during its 20 years.

Two Spartan alumni are working to empower Black students in Michigan through mentoring and leadership development. Ongoing mentoring relationships have a powerful impact on young people. Research shows that students who have mentors in their lives are 55 percent more likely to enroll in college and 130 percent more likely to hold leadership positions in the future.

Phil Hart earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology in 1970 and 1974 respectively from MSU’s College of Social Science. Hart has dedicated his career to studying race in America through the lenses of sociology, urban planning, and social justice. He's authored more than 100 books and articles on race in America and has served as a leader both on campus and around the country on race-related initiatives.

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak at Harper's in East Lansing and attempts by universities like MSU that are trying to open with in-person on-campus instruction in the fall, let's talk about effective health risk messages that might resonate with college students.

We're all spending a lot more time in virtual spaces and that's likely to continue well into our future, even as we might be slowly moving back towards more in-person meetings and classes. But virtual spaces aren't void of harassment.

“Sending waste to landfills is more expensive than it seems," a recycling advocate told Michigan lawmakers recently, "It costs money to store and manage trash, it also takes valuable material like plastic and aluminum out of the supply chain and away from manufacturers who could reuse it."

Bill Beekman, Michigan State University vice president and director of athletics, welcomes Barb Kranz to MSU Today. Kranz is the director of Facilities Planning and Space Management at MSU and a person who many people at outside the university may not be familiar with.