Dear Spartans and friends,
On behalf of Michigan State’s leadership, faculty, staff and our proud global family of alums, I want to warmly welcome all the Spartans embarking today on their first day of fall semester classes! Our campus is at its best when filled with more than 51,000 curious and engaged students, and I enjoyed meeting so many and their families during move-in last week.
I want to thank the many people who worked so diligently to prepare for the new academic year and, last week, to settle some 17,000 students into our campus residence halls. Having dropped off three of my own children at college over the years, I know how bittersweet it can be. But I also know our students are in good hands with our devoted faculty and staff, and we will work tirelessly to help them feel safe, welcome and valued.
Spartans Will
Embarking on what will surely be an exciting academic year, I am reminded of the saying that courage is the power to let go of the familiar. To get the most from their college experience, I encouraged my own kids to room their first year with people they didn’t know, as well as to study abroad. As I wrote in the Lansing State Journal last week, my hope is that Spartans embrace the opportunities we offer to engage across differences to better understand the many ways to live in and view the world.
Last week’s Fall Welcome activities gave our newest Spartans a sense of the vast opportunities available to engage in the vibrant and diverse life of our university, which hosts more than 1,000 registered student organizations. Being fairly new to Michigan State myself, I started working on the Spartan Bucket List over the summer to help understand our campus and culture better. You can see my posts on Instagram.
My bucket list quest has already taken me to campus landmarks such as the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum and the MSU Dairy Store, and I’ve had fun with Sparty and Zeke the Wonderdog. Importantly, the Spartan Bucket List also includes potentially transformative activities such as joining a club, connecting with research opportunities, pursuing education abroad, volunteering service — even taking a class just for fun.
All can succeed here
Students need to feel safe to be successful. Over the summer, our Department of Police and Public Safety continued safety work including integrating all student and employee cell phone and preferred/primary residence phone numbers into our emergency alert system. We added emergency preparedness signage in classrooms, and we’re about done installing new door locks. MSU DPPS offers a variety of safety information and will provide more details in a message to the campus community in the coming weeks.
As we reminded our newest Spartans at last week’s convocation, we believe every student we admit can learn, thrive and earn an MSU degree — an asset that will appreciate over time. At the same time, students can discover their passions in life and make friends and connections that will support them now and well beyond. Students, Michigan State’s world-class faculty and dedicated staff are here to support you and ensure you have what you need to succeed.
Our student body this year is shaping up to be a big, diverse group, and we’ll have final counts to talk about later this semester. My travels over the last six months have taken me to many of our students’ hometowns around the state, and I’m looking forward to visiting more Michigan communities during our inaugural Spartan Bus Tour in October.
It’s going to be an exciting semester, and it’s off to a great start — and to top it off, Spartan football kicks off Friday with a 7 p.m. home game against Florida Atlantic, televised on the Big Ten Network. We’re going to “stripe the stadium,” with fans in even-numbered sections encouraged to wear green and those in odd-numbered sections to wear white.
Fall is a great time to take in some of the greatest college experiences, so for all our Spartan family, go green!
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
(pronounced GUS-ka-wits)
President
Professor, Department of Kinesiology