The CREATE! Micro-Grant Program has selected 12 student projects to each receive $500 to respond critically and imaginatively to events occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the winning projects also will reflect on the fight for social justice in the Black Lives Matter movement, producing art that responds to struggles brought on by the pandemic and acts of police…
Elena Ruíz’s anti-violence research has attracted the interest and support of advocacy organizations and philanthropic groups world-wide, including the Me Too Movement Organization for which she was named principal researcher for gender-based violence in January 2020. An Assistant Professor in MSU’s Department of Philosophy, Ruíz identifies strategic interventions for sexual violence and social structuresthat harm and keep people from meeting their basic needs. Through cross-disciplinary…
Stacia Rigney, Assistant Professor and Affiliated Graduate Faculty in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, has been appointed Director of the College of Arts & Letters Citizen Scholars program, effective August 16, 2020. “I'm excited to work in the Citizen Scholars Program. One of the university's main responsibilities is to prepare students to be informed, equitable, inclusive, and active citizens.…
Each year, the College of Arts & Letters presents two Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Awards to graduate students for their outstanding achievement in the arts or letters. This year’s winners are Jessica Stokes, Outstanding Achievement in the Arts recipient, and Bronson Hui, Outstanding Achievement in the Letters recipient. Paul Varg and Richard Sullivan are former Deans of the College of Arts…
It is easy to deploy diversity rhetoric; by contrast, helping create an inclusive and just society is a monumental task, even more so, during tumultuous times. This is why, however well-intentioned, so many institutions and companies choose rhetoric. As we commemorate the anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States, we must commit to the hard, latter choice:…
Adam Brown, Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design, won the Grand Prize in the Arts Division at the Japan Media Arts Festival for his work, [ir]reverent: Miracles on Demand, which will now be part of a major exhibition at the National Museum in Tokyo later this year. His project was one of 3,566 overall entries from 107 countries in…
Alumnus Joel Guzman is providing a source of creativity for his community as the Director of Artist Engagement at Sing for Hope in New York City, which is a nonprofit organization that serves under-resourced schools, healthcare facilities, refugee camps, transit hubs, and public spaces by connecting them with creative outlets. As Director of Artist Engagement, Guzman is responsible for connecting with…
Resilient – that is the word to describe the students of the 2019-2020 Fiction Filmmaking Capstone class, who faced countless obstacles this past academic year, but each time they were knocked down, they stood up and figured out a way to move forward. Students in this capstone course spend the fall and spring semesters producing an original film in order…
Lynn Wolff’s decision to study German in middle school was purely pragmatic. Most kids her age took Spanish. She wanted to be different. Plus, it simply made sense to learn German when she lived in Wisconsin — a state where nearly 45 percent of the population claim German ancestry. Ultimately, learning German opened her eyes to the world beyond the borders…
Jonathan Choti, Assistant Professor of African Languages in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, and two doctoral students, Pauline Wambua (Ph.D. in Educational Policy) and Ja’La Wourman (Ph.D. in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures), collectively received the 2020 Excellence Award in Interdisciplinary Scholarship (EAIS) for their 2019 study abroad project, Sustainable Community Development in Tanzania. Choti was the faculty leader of the…