Elias Young, a junior Japanese major at Michigan State University, is applying his language skills and interest in LGBTQ+ culture on an undergraduate research project where he plans to create an open-access database outlying how queer spaces, events, and culture intersect with mainstream Japanese culture. This summer, he will travel to Japan, with support from an Undergraduate Research Initiative grant…
While balancing being a freelance fashion stylist, fashion designer, creative director, and social media influencer, Michigan State University student Takai Taggart also manages the demands of MSU’s newest magazine. As of fall 2022, the Apparel and Textile Design major launched N Crowd, a fashion magazine created by and for Black students. “My main focus when creating N Crowd was to offer a safe space for Black creatives who attend Michigan State University,” said Taggart, who was…
Class assignments provide opportunities to learn, practice, and demonstrate acquired knowledge, and sometimes they do more than that by planting seeds of creative and entrepreneurial inspiration for developing new products or services. It was a class assignment, combined with her own personal experiences as a disabled person, that gave Professional and Public Writing major Charlotte Bachelor the inspiration she needed…
Ruby Mendoza, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, has won a national award in recognition of their outstanding work in the area of queer theory. Mendoza is one of only two recipients of the 2023 Gloria Anzaldúa Rhetorician Award, a national scholarship presented by the Conference on College Composition and…
Michigan State University’s Department of Religious Studies will expand its curriculum to include a focus on Anishinaabe communities, and more broadly, Great Lakes Native American cultures thanks to the creation of two new faculty positions conceived by the Department’s winning proposal for an inaugural 1855 Professorship. Named for the year MSU was founded, the 1855 Professorships, created by the Office…
Linguistics major Ryan Peters has devoted much of his time to cultivating the LGBTQIA2S+ community at Michigan State University in his pivotal role as the Residence Halls Association (RHA) Representative for People Respecting the Individuality of Students at MSU (PRISM), which is the South Neighborhood LGBTQIA2S+ Caucus. He was first elected as the RHA Representative for PRISM during his first semester on campus.…
An equity-based art exhibition featuring more than 200 pieces of work from all around the world, exploring the use of creativity to cope with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, is opening this week at various Lansing, Michigan, locations and was three years in the making by a team led by Nancy DeJoy, Associate Professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Writing,…
Nowruz is the Iranian New Year celebrated by many ethnicities around the world, with origins in ancient Persian culture. It marks the beginning of spring and includes rich traditions that symbolize renewal and hope for the new year. Parisa Ghaderi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan…
The MSU Womxn of Color Initiatives (WOCI) is bringing Colah B. Tawkin to Michigan State University’s campus March 27-31 as its 2023 Artist-in-Residence. Tawkin is the creator, producer, and voice behind the renowned Black in the Garden podcast. Using her extensive horticultural knowledge, endless love for Black people, and keen ability to teach in a spirit of joy and kinship, Tawkin has built a…
Four faculty members from the College of Arts & Letters are being honored by the University as recipients of 2022-2023 Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards. These awards, presented by MSU's Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, recognize recipients' exceptional and innovative contributions that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Michigan State University through their teaching, research, programming, service,…