Tagged: michigan state university

About two years ago, police and prosecutors were conducting a walk-through of a Detroit Police storage room when they came across something as shocking as any crime scene: more than 10,000 rape kits, collecting dust.

“You don’t get 10,000-plus kits sitting in a storage facility because one person or one organization didn’t do their job. It just doesn’t work like that. You can’t get a problem that big,” says Michigan State University researcher Rebecca Campbell.

Not just a Detroit problem

A new study indicates racial minorities pay more for water and sewer service than whites in Michigan.

Michigan State University researchers looked at what people across the state paid for water and sewer service in 2000. Basic economic theory predicts that rural residents would pay the most for such services.

But the researchers found precisely the opposite to be true. Their results show that people in urban centers—with large minority populations—paid the most.

The long-awaited Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has officially set its opening date: April 21, 2012.

But there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done;  the Zaha Hadid-designed building is still under construction, exhibits still need to be planned, and positions need to be filled.

But Min Jung Kim, the museum's deputy director, is confident it will all be ready for the museum’s grand opening. She says the whole process of creating a museum from scratch is exciting:

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan State University says a secret admirer has donated $7 million to expand its geology department.

The East Lansing school announced the gift Tuesday. The university knows the donor, a Michigan State graduate who prefers to remain anonymous.

Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon says the money will pay for endowed professorships and endowed graduate fellowships.

The university says the search for three early career faculty members for the new endowed professorships is expected to start next year. Part of the money will complement funds from an earlier
anonymous donor and will endow graduate fellowships.

Michigan State says another part of the gift completes funding for the Thomas Vogel Endowed Chair in Solid Earth. It was established in 2006 in honor of the retirement of longtime geology professor Thomas Vogel.

 A Michigan State University study says the job market for this year’s college graduates looks better. But the same cannot be said for those who entered the job market during the past few years.   

Michigan State University’s annual Recruiting Trends study predicts a 4 percent rise in hiring of new college grads. But what about those who’ve graduated since the recession began in 2008? 

Phil Gardner is the director of MSU’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute.  He says job seekers who graduated between 2008 and 2011 are still not in demand. 

“So we have a huge problem for…about a three year pocket of graduates, and maybe even more, that are misaligned out there …haven’t been able to get attached to the labor market in a positive way," says Gardner.

Gardner says those graduates will just have to wait for hiring levels to increase substantially more before they will probably get their chance to get their career started.

According to Open Doors 2011, an annual report put out by the Institute of International Education with support from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, two Michigan universities placed in the top 10 in terms of international student enrollment.

The University of Michigan came in at number eight with 5,995 enrolled international students in the 2010/11 academic year, while Michigan State was ninth on the list with 5,784.

The report shows a total number of 723,277 international students attending U.S. colleges and universities during the 2010/11 school year, a five percent increase over the previous year.

A press release form the IIE says:

This is the fifth consecutive year that Open Doors figures show growth in the total number of international students, and there are now 32 percent more international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities than there were a decade ago. The 2010/11 rate of growth is stronger than the three percent increase in total international enrollment reported the previous year, and the six percent increase in new international student enrollment this past year shows more robust new growth than the one percent increase the prior year.

Increased numbers of students from China, particularly at the undergraduate level, largely accounts for the growth this past year.

Included in the report is an assessment of possible positive economic results created by the increase in foriegn students:

International students contribute over $21 billion to the U.S. economy, through their expenditures on tuition and living expenses, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Higher education is among the United States' top service sector exports, as international students provide revenue to the U.S. economy and individual host states for living expenses, including room and board, books and supplies, transportation, health insurance, support for accompanying family members, and other miscellaneous items.

Open Doors reports that more than 60% of all international students receive the majority of their funds from personal and family sources. When other sources of foreign funding are included, such as assistance from their home country governments or universities, over 70% of all international students' primary funding comes from sources outside of the United States.

As part of our Changing Gears series, Michigan Radio's Sarah Alvarez considers some impacts more international students could have on the Midwest as a whole.

-John Klein Wilson, Michigan Radio Newsroom

The "Quicken Loans Carrier Classic" will be played on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson stationed in San Diego in honor of Veteran's Day (the nuclear powered carrier is famed for being the ship from which Osama bin Laden's body was buried at sea).

Michigan State University will play North Carolina in an NCAA Division 1 basketball game to be broadcast on ESPN starting at 7 p.m.

President Barack Obama will attend "the first ever aircraft carrier to host a Division 1 college basketball game."

MSU Coach Tom Izzo's reaction to the game was captured in this ESPN blog post - they quoted Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis:

“I saw him tear up today,’’ Hollis said of Izzo’s emotions when he boarded the USS Carl Vinson on Thursday. “He was emotional. He lives for these kinds of things. The Final Four is special, but this will rank up there in his mind.’’

It already has -- and the tipoff hasn’t even occurred yet.

“My first impression far superseded what I thought it could be about seven or eight years ago when we tried to get this thing together,’’ Izzo said. “At first we were going to play two military schools. But if you could have seen our players’ eyes. There was such an appreciation for what we’re doing. It’s bigger than the game. It’s bigger than North Carolina or Michigan State. It’s a dream come true for us.’’

Here's a video of the MSU team's shoot around:

A Michigan State University professor says he’s concerned a revised plan for cleaning up an oil spill in the Kalamazoo River is missing details in one important area.