On this longest night of a challenging year, the fire we light together calls back the sun. As the winter solstice turns us toward the brighter days of a still inchoate spring, may you find time to be with those you love, to rest and reflect, and to restore the energy we will need to support our students and one another in the year to come.
Marshall Ross, a senior BFA Acting major, received CREATE! Micro-grant funding to support his SOLO* project, a short-film that follows the experience of a young man living on his own during the Michigan stay-at-home order in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Written, directed, filmed, and acted entirely by Ross on his smartphone, the film explores the impact prolonged…
Nate Davis, senior BFA in Acting major, and Jason Dernay, senior BFA in Acting and BA in Management double major, received CREATE! Micro-Grant funding to support their project, The Art of Adaptation, an interview-based podcast exploring how members of the artistic community are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Altogether, they produced 10 episodes, each 15-30 minutes in length.Inspiration for…
Lauren Slawin, a sophomore majoring in Creative Advertising and Graphic Design, used the CREATE! Micro-Grant program to confront racial discrimination and police brutality in a video essay where she sketches the face of the late George Floyd, an African American man killed during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill, with a voiceover that describes such events as “the second pandemic.”
Alexander Gamelin began his time at MSU after competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics. In the same impressive fashion, he now finishes his undergraduate career with a 4.0 GPA. A Linguistics major, Gamelin started ice skating with his twin sister when they were 7 years old and has competed all over the world in countries like Austria, Belarus, Canada, Estonia,…
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. Tienda listened to her father, an immigrant from Mexico who raised five children in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Alternating between jobs as a factory…
The College of Arts & Letters is saddened by the passing of James E. Fagan, Professor Emeritus of Studio Art, who died on December 7, 2020. He was 90 years old. A member of the Department of Art, Art History, and Design faculty at Michigan State University for 51 years, Fagan completed his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Illinois…
Michigan State University’s Department of Theatre has produced a new sensory-friendly musical for children who are neurodiverse and will begin offering free virtual performances this month. Written by students and faculty at Michigan State University, Soda Pop Shop! is an interactive musical that invites audience members to relate to the experiences of the characters in the show and help them cope with their feelings as…
Spanish and Religious Studies double major Andrew Keller is this semester’s only graduate of the College of Arts & Letters’ Citizen Scholars program. And while he was unable to study abroad as he originally planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was able to help an organization that has helped him by donating his Citizen Scholars funding to them.
Marissa Rubaiai, a junior double major in Studio Art and Media and Information with a minor in Comics and Graphic Novels, received CREATE! Micro-Grant funding to support her Rope of Emotion project, which is influenced by the multitude of emotions experienced by so many as a result of the death, loss, isolation, and grief caused by COVID-19. Rope of Emotion took two months…