As the 2020 Spring semester has come to a close, we want to thank you for the hard work required to shift to remote teaching, and also to acknowledge the myriad of other disruptions to your personal and professional lives during this unprecedented pandemic. We write today with a message of reassurance.
Suzanne Evans Wagner isn’t telling people how to talk. She’s here to say that people have options and reasons for talking the way they do. An Associate Professor of Linguistics in MSU’s Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, Wagner researches the social motivations for language variation and language change. It’s a subject she speaks freely about, providing examples,…
As an undergraduate student at Michigan State University, Josh Guilford majored in English and completed a certificate in the Film Studies Program. Now an Assistant Professor of English in Film and Media Studies at Amherst College, Guilford teaches courses that are cross-listed between the English Department and the Film and Media Studies Program. The courses Guilford teaches cover a broad…
Episode eight of the Liberal Arts Endeavor Podcast is now live! Our host, Christopher P. Long, Dean of the College of Arts & Letters, talked with recent Film Studies graduate Donté Smith over Zoom about his experience in the program and adjusting to life in quarantine. Smith is a freelance photographer and part of the Liberal Arts Endeavor Podcast production team.
The day after May McCalmon’s art pieces were mounted at Kresge Art Center as part of the Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, they had to be taken down due to the COVID-19 outbreak that prompted the suspension of all face-to-face instruction at MSU. “I was pretty excited and not too stressed about it,” McCalmon said about the exhibition. “I was ready and…
The Dean's Arts Advisory Council (College of Arts & Letters) invites proposals for creating artworks that respond critically and imaginatively to the ongoing COVID-19 global crisis.
Growing up in the United States, Rika Wakai enjoyed learning about Japan, her ancestral home and the country from which her parents migrated to the United States before she was born. This made her want to learn more about the country and its culture, so much so that she decided to major in Japanese and pursue it as a career.…
As a School Psychologist for the Jackson County Intermediate School District, MSU alumna Katy Friend is the person other school psychologists rely on when there is a case involving a Spanish-speaking student because of the Spanish education she received from Michigan State University. “I typically work in one district but can be pulled to work in another if they…
The Citizen Scholars program launched in fall 2016 preparing the next generation of diverse, high-achieving, and engaged citizen leaders. The first three graduates of the program graduated last spring. This spring and summer, there are 11 more students who are graduating from the program while earning their undergraduate degrees. “I hope when they look back at their years here at MSU they…
Ruth Nicole Brown has been appointed as the Inaugural Chairperson for the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) at Michigan State University, effective July 1, 2020. She currently is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I’m overjoyed about joining MSU as the Inaugural Chairperson of African…