Michigan State University academics

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Wells Hall is a sprawling classroom and office building just south of the Red Cedar River.

Michigan State University has over 200 academic programs on its East Lansing, Michigan campus. MSU is well known for its academic programs in education and agriculture, and the university pioneered the studies of packaging, horticulture and music therapy. MSU has the premier hospitality school in the United States, and the study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation, offering more than 200 programs in more than 60 countries on all continents including Antarctica.

As a research university, MSU is one of 60 members of the Association of American Universities. Since its inception as a small agricultural college in 1855, MSU has put a strong emphasis on research. Important discoveries made at MSU include hybrid corn, homogenized milk, antio-cancer drug cisplatin, and Germanium isotope Ge-60. Like other large American universities, MSU has many teaching assistants teaching upper-level courses.

[edit] Demographics

The Art Deco Psychology Building originally housed the Physics and Astronomy department.

Michigan State has the eighth largest student body in the U.S. There are 45,166 total students, with 35,678 undergraduates and 9,488 graduate and professional students. The student body is 54% female and 46% male. While 89% of students come from all 83 counties in the State of Michigan,^[1] also represented are all 50 states in the U.S. and about 125 other countries.^[2] MSU has about 4,500 faculty and 6,000 staff members, and a student/faculty ratio of 19:1.^[3] Like other large American universities, MSU has a large number of teaching assistants teaching upper-level courses. This led The Princeton Review in 2005 to rank MSU eleventh worst in the category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper-level courses".^[4]

[edit] Rankings

The Kresge Art Center is named for K-Mart founder S.S. Kresge.

Michigan State ranks 77th in the world, according to a Shanghai Jiao Tong University study,^[5] with U.S. News & World Report's ranking MSU 74th in the U.S.^[6] With over 200 academic programs,^[7] MSU has several highly-ranked programs. U.S. News has ranked MSU's graduate-level elementary^[8] and secondary education^[9] programs number one for the last eleven years. In 2006, U.S. News ranked nuclear physics programs, MSU ranked second behind only MIT. Indeed, MSU’s entire Physics & Astronomy department ranks highly based on the number and impact of publications by its faculty. A ranking by the National Communication Association ranks MSU doctoral programs as the nation’s most effective in educating researchers in health communication and communication technology.^[10] MSU also is ranked in the top four in several other communication fields, including international/intercultural communication, mass communication and interpersonal communication. Other programs of note include criminal justice,^[11] music therapy,^[12] packaging,^[13],and communications.^[14] MSU's study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation with 2,461 students studying abroad in 2004–05 in over 60 countries on all continents, including Antarctica.^[15]

[edit] Research

Erickson Hall houses the MSU College of Education.

The university spent $289,787,000 on research in 2002,^[16] capping a long history of productive research. In 1877, botany professor William J. Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses to produce hybrid corn, which led to increased yields. MSU dairy professor G. Malcolm Trout invented the process for the homogenization of milk in the 1930s. In the 1960s, MSU scientists developed cisplatin, a leading cancer fighting drug. Today Michigan State continues its research with facilities such as the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and a particle accelerator called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. In 2004, scientists at the Cyclotron produced and observed a new isotope of the element germanium, called Ge-60.^[17] In that same year, Michigan State, in consortium with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the government of Brazil, broke ground on the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The consortium telescope will allow the Physics & Astronomy department to study galaxy formation and origins.^[18] Since 1999, MSU has been part of another consortium called the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, which aims to develop biotechnology research in the State of Michigan.^[19] College of Communication Arts and Sciences and Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media is home to the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law - research facility dedicated to original research on current issues of information and communication management, law and policy. Michigan State University Libraries is the 26th largest academic library system in North America with over 4.8 million volumes and 6.4 million microforms. ^[20] The university library comprises nine branch locations including the main library. The Africana Collection of the MSU Library is one of the largest of its kind in the nation with a collection of over 200,000 items. Other significant collections include the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library, the largest academic voice library in the nation, containing a collection of over 40,000 hours of spoken word recordings and the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collections which includes the extensive Comic Art Collection. This collection includes over 100,000 comic books, and 10,000 related books and periodicals.^[21]

[edit] Endowment

MSU's new Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building contains many laboratories and offices, several lecture halls, a library and a cafe.

MSU's endowment started in 1916 when the Engineering Building burned down. Automobile magnate R.E. Olds helped the program stay afloat with a gift of $100,000.^[22] While this opened the door for other types of private donations, MSU has often lagged behind peer institutions in terms of endowments. As recently as the early 1990s, MSU was last among the eleven Big Ten schools, with barely over $100 million in endowment funds. However, in the early 2000s, the University started a campaign to increase the size of the endowment. At the close of FY 2004–05, the endowment had risen to $1.325 billion, raising the University to sixth of the 11 Big Ten schools in terms of endowment; within $2M of the fifth-rated school.^[23] The rapid increase in the size of the endowment will help to improve outdated facilities, such as the Music Building, which the music department hopes to soon replace with money from its alumni fundraising program.^[24]

[edit] Programs

[edit] James Madison College

The South Campus skyline.

Main article: James Madison College

James Madison College (JMC), one of MSU’s two residential colleges (as of 2006), started in 1967. The concept behind Madison College was to merge the best attributes of a small public affairs college with the resources of a major university.^[25] Though JMC started as an experiment, it is now a well-respected liberal arts program.^[26] Madison admits about 320 students each year, holding the total student body around 1,150. Classes in the college are small, with an average of 25 students, and most instructors are tenure track faculty with PhDs or occasionally PhD candidates.^[27] As a residential college, JMC has its classrooms, offices, and student housing together in Case Hall. As part of its "living-learning" philosophy, JMC requires freshmen students to live in Case during their freshman year.^[28]

Madison offers three majors, which students choose at the end of their freshman year. The three majors are Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy, International Relations, and Social Relations. All of JMC’s majors require two years of foreign language and one "field experience”, either in the form of an internship or study abroad program.^[29] James Madison College also has a fairly large amount of academically successful students. Madison boasts numerous major award recipients, including Rhodes, Truman, Fulbright and Marshall Scholars to name a few. About 15% of its students are in the Honors College and though JMC only represents about 4% of MSU graduates the college, they make up around 35% of the MSU’s Phi Beta Kappa members.^[30]

[edit] Residential College for Arts and Humanities

Snyder-Phillips Hall will house the as-yet-unnamed residential college.

In 2007, Michigan State University will accept its first class of students for the Residential College for Arts and Humanities (RCAH). The program will offer approximately 600 undergraduates (150 students per undergraduate class) the opportunity to examine the liberal, visual and performing arts in an integrative and broad-focused manner, while creating an individualized curriculum that allows students to draw from the vast resources of MSU. While all students in the program will graduate with the same degree, only the first year programs and the broad MSU distribution requirements are mandatory for graduation. Double-majoring is encouraged, through "pathways" that include such combinations as Art and Public Life, Childhood and Society, or Art Education.

Accompanying the academic structuring of the new college will be a complete renovation of Snyder-Phillips Hall, one of the oldest residences on campus. It will include a 150-seat multipurpose classroom and performing arts space, a student art gallery, a wireless coffeeshop, music practice rooms, language proficiency center (which is part of the RCAH program), and a new dining hall.

[edit] MSU College of Law

Main article: Michigan State University College of Law

Michigan State's postmodern law building.

Michigan State University College of Law is a private law school. Founded in 1891, and originally named Detroit College of Law, the school was the first law school founded in Detroit. Detroit College of Law became affiliated with Michigan State University in 1995 (changing its name to MSU College of Law), and began offering joint degree programs,^[31] including JD-MBA and various LLM programs. Students attending MSU College of Law come from 42 states and 13 countries, with applications tripling since affiliating with MSU in 1995. Full-time and part-time (night) students can participate in 8 concentrations, including the Trial Practice Institute. The law school publishes the Michigan State Law Review^[32] and several journals.

The newly renovated and renamed Marshall-Adams Hall is home to the Department of Economics.

The first trial practice institute in the United States, the Geoffrey Fieger Trial Practice Institute,^[33] started at Michigan State University College of Law with a grant of $4 million from Geoffrey Fieger.^[34] The Intellectual Property and Communications Law program is ranked number 1 among law schools in the Big Ten Conference, and number 17 in the United States. In addition, MSU College of Law's Indigenous Law Program offers an Indigenous Law Certificate Program.^[35]

[edit] Eli Broad College of Business

The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management,^[36] ranked 11th among public institutions and 29th nationally by Business Week magazine, offers 3 MBA programs, Full-Time MBA, Weekend MBA, and Executive MBA. The school also offers joint degrees with the law school. There are four departments (Accounting and Information Systems, Finance, Management, and Marketing and Supply Chain Management), and one independent, industry-specific program, The School of Hospitality Business. The school has 4,775 undergraduate students and 776 graduate students.

[edit] Press

Michigan State University Press is the publishing arm of Michigan State University. It traces its origins to the late 1940s when the Michigan State Board of Agriculture established a publishing program at Michigan State College (MSC). President John A. Hannah made a recommendation on publications to a special committee. In response, the committee members recommended to Hannah that Michigan State College Press be created. The president acted on their advice and on July 1, 1947, the publishing house came into being.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

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Michigan State University

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