News – Page 30 – College of Arts & Letters

Department of English Faculty Recognized with Several Awards and Professional Recognitions

January 9, 2023

The Department of English at Michigan State University is home to a myriad of talented faculty members actively engaged in research and creative activity with several of these scholars and artists recently earning awards and professional recognition for the books they have written. These celebrated publications examine topics like linguistic justice in English education, queer literature and theory, color in…

African American and African Studies / Faculty / News / Staff

Faculty Voice: Envisioning Wellness and Justice for All

January 5, 2023

Dr. LeConté Dill is a scholar, educator, creative writer, and artist guided by Black Feminist ways of being and knowing. With a commitment toward transdisciplinary, community-accountable scholarship, her work focuses on the safety, resilience, and wellness strategies of urban Black girls and other youth of color. Dill’s scholarship is critically informed by years of working in partnership with youth and community…

African American and African Studies / News / Student

Helping to Lay Foundation for Future African American and African Studies Majors

December 20, 2022

Ayodele Uhuru, a first-year undergraduate student from Detroit, is among the first cohort of students at Michigan State University to major in African American and African Studies (AAAS). The B.A. in AAAS just launched this year through MSU’s Department of African American and African Studies in the College of Arts & Letters. “Choosing to major in AAAS was a no-brainer for me,”…

Faculty / Faculty / Grant / International Impact / Linguistics / News / Research / U.S. Impact

MSU Linguist Receives NSF Grant for Cutting-Edge Research in Word Pattern Recognition

December 19, 2022

Most people can recognize what words are real and which ones aren’t in the languages they know. However, sometimes a nonsense word might sneak through, especially when the word sounds and looks a lot like a legitimate one. Karthik Durvasula, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, is delving further into “wordlikeness judgments”…

News / Student / Student

New Scholarship Helps Students in Low-Paying or Unpaid Internships

December 19, 2022

A new scholarship is being offered to College of Arts & Letters majors who are participating in independent internships. Funded by the Excel Network, the College of Arts & Letters Independent Internship Scholarship is designed to help students who are doing unpaid or low-paying internships. The scholarship aims to alleviate the financial burden that low-paying or unpaid internships can bring…

Award / News / Student / Student

English Major Receives Board of Trustees Award for Graduating with Perfect 4.0 GPA

December 16, 2022

Michigan State University College of Arts & Letters student Mary Claire Zauel is graduating with a perfect 4.0 grade point average and is a recipient of the Board of Trustees’ Award. Each semester, the MSU Board of Trustees recognizes graduating students for earning the highest scholastic average. This fall semester, 52 students received the award, including Zauel. Each of the award…

News / Student / Student

Graduate Embarks on New Chapter After Life-Changing Experiences at MSU

December 16, 2022

Writing has always been something I was innately interested in. Throughout all the stages of my life, I would always find ways to engage in it when all other forms of communication fell short. This feeling has remained very much present since the early days of surpassing the single composition page required for writing prompts in elementary school, writing articles for my high school’s newspaper, and composing poems and short stories in my room on the weekends...

Alumni / Featured Alumni / News / Spanish

College of Arts & Letters Graduate to Receive Honorary Doctoral Degree from MSU

December 14, 2022

Marta Tienda grew up poor in the inner ring suburbs of Detroit. Her mother died when she was 6, but her father assured her life would be better if she worked hard and finished high school. She listened to her father, an immigrant from Mexico who raised five children in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Alternating between jobs as a factory…

Two side-by-side photos of an individual wearing a welding helmet and safety gloves while welding handle scales.

Award / COVID-19 / News / Student / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

Studio Art Student Uses CREATE! Micro-Grant Funds to Produce Sculpture of Balisong Knife

December 13, 2022

As a 2022 CREATE! Micro-Grant recipient, Ryan Freund, a junior majoring in Studio Art, produced a sculpture featuring a single, manipulated Balisong knife. Titled Intersection, Freund utilized the knife's four handle scales to complete the piece. "I find flipping Balisong knives to be very beautiful and have been doing it since I was 13 years old," Freund said. "Their handles are used…

African American and African Studies / News / Student / Student

Living Her ‘Freedom Dream’ With New Major

December 12, 2022

Evamelo (Eva) Oleita came to Michigan State University wanting to pursue a degree in Human Biology, but after re-evaluating her priorities and thinking about the communities she wanted to serve, she is now among the inaugural class of students majoring in African American and African Studies (AAAS) at MSU. Oleita, who is in her second year of her undergraduate education,…