Staff Honored for Their Service and Outstanding Work

Two new awards were presented at this year’s College of Arts & Letters Staff Appreciation Ceremony in addition to the Jo-Ann Vanden Bergh Award. Seven staff members also were recognized for their years of service during the annual event, which took place June 9 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center. “It is really the commitment that each of you…

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Student Researchers Studying Styrofoam-Eating Mealworms

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…

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From Oregon, with Love

Scott Lovejoy is a Spartan who is living, working, and raising a family in the middle of Oregon, far from East Lansing, Michigan, so he wanted to make sure his wife Kristy and three young children were aware of all the reasons they should be Spartans. Turns out, it wasn’t a hard sell. The Lovejoy family loves MSU, and they’ve…

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Language Teachers Facing a Confidence Conundrum

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.…

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Philosophy at Home

In recent years, we’ve seen a surge of articles, essays and blog posts by professional philosophers on the future of philosophy. While it isn’t surprising that people who reflect professionally would reflect on the future of their profession, this surge is symptomatic of a deeper anxiety that some philosophers, and many humanists, have felt in the modern, outcome-oriented academy. Some…

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