A team of researchers from the College of Arts & Letters has released a new web application aimed at keeping online conversations on track. The Faciloscope app, developed by faculty and students in MSU’s Writing, Information and Digital Experience (WIDE) research center, provides rapid, real-time analysis of how online conversations are developing. This can be especially helpful to moderators, or conversation…
African American Language (AAL) may be one of the most misunderstood languages and often is dismissed as slang, improper, or incorrect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr1kbwELDPU&feature=emb_title In order to bring a better understanding to this language, Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures Ph.D. Candidate Shenika Hankerson is working to dispel some of the misconceptions associated with AAL. Focusing on the sociocultural, historical, and political dimensions…
Six out of ten college students are clinically lonely, which can lead to increased anxiety and depression—but what if a smartphone app could help? In January 2015, an app quietly appeared to do just that. Through the support of Michigan State’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, professional writing senior Zoe Zappitell co-created, launched and marketed Conecter. The app links students to one another through interest-based…
In today’s fast-paced world where the Internet is the go-to research tool and information on any topic is just a click or tap away, one’s own digital presence is more important than ever. The College of Arts & Letters recognizes this, and starting this month, will offer all its graduate students and faculty a new kind of web hosting support.…
Transforming Student Experiences A newly energized commitment to robust collaboration is taking place between MSU’s College of Arts & Letters, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and College of Music. It’s called the Media Arts Collaborative (MAC). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk18yxht5sE&feature=emb_title Dedicated to creative endeavors in integrated media arts, the MAC is a coordinated effort to promote collaborative projects that cut across disciplines to enrich the…
Michigan State University will use a three-year $1.2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a multi-university research project to improve the teaching of less commonly taught languages, or LCTLs. Faculty from MSU’s Center for Language Teaching Advancement, or CeLTA, housed in the College of Arts and Letters, will direct the initiative on behalf of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (formerly the…
Tamara Butler, Assistant Professor in the Department of English and African American and African Studies Program, has been selected to receive the 2016 Promising Researcher Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), a professional association of educators in English Education, Literacy Studies, and Language Arts. Butler is the third Michigan State University scholar to receive this honor.…
An MSU undergraduate team, which includes sophomore English major Lindsay Mensch, has built a system on campus to explore the ability of mealworms to decompose polystyrene (Styrofoam) and to find useful applications for the organic waste that is produced from this. From left to right: Lindsay Mensch, Matthew Huber and Kirsten West Their work is based on research out of…
Foreign language teachers play a pivotal role in creating global citizens, but some teachers lack confidence in their ability to speak in their nonnative tongue, which could undermine the quality of language instruction, Michigan State University researchers argue. Peter De Costa, assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, and Lorena Valmori, a recent Ph.D.…
Hoping to bridge data science and the humanities, Michigan State University researcher Sean Pue will use a fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to study the role of sound in modern South Asian poetry. Pue, director of digital humanities and associate professor of South Asian literature and culture, is the first MSU faculty member to receive a Mellon New Directions…