Audiences: current students, admitted students, employees, current and admitted student parents, alums and BOT
Dear Spartans and friends,
The Spartan Bus Tour is back home after three eventful days this past week, having logged over 1,100 miles across northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Seventy faculty, staff and senior leaders joined me to visit more than a dozen places many of our students and alums call home and where Michigan State is making an impact. We gathered a wealth of experiences, knowledge and inspiration, with learnings that could spur new collaborations and inform our educational, research and outreach work on behalf of the public we serve.
We learned about the challenges of rural health care in visits to partner hospitals in Kalkaska and Marquette and saw how our research and Extension centers in Escanaba and Chatham support regional prosperity through the products of forests and fields. We met with fellow educators at Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College and tribal community leaders. We dropped in on the Head Start program in Houghton Lake to see how kids are learning about healthy, mindful eating. And we were thrilled when men’s basketball Head Coach Tom Izzo welcomed us to his hometown, Iron Mountain.
Gaining an appreciation for the beauty of Michigan’s northern reaches was a distinct bonus, and several stops highlighted the region’s resource-based economy and culture as well as its amazing vistas. I’m grateful for all the partners and friends who hosted us, and for those faculty and staff who engaged in these intense few days of immersion in regional understanding.
Supporting Michigan businesses
Part of the purpose of our bus tours is to learn how Michigan State’s research and other services support the community economies and quality of life of our fellow Michiganders. We stopped at Spartan-owned Mammoth Distilling in Central Lake on the way up to learn how our partnership reviving heritage rye varieties is creating new opportunities in the spirits industry. Coach Izzo and MSU Forestry Innovation Center staff joined us at Connor Sports Flooring in Amasa to see how they manufacture the official hardwood courts of the NCAA Final Four and other prestigious venues.
Elsewhere around the state, meanwhile, we recently profiled the fourth-generation Preston Farms in southern Michigan, which is applying MSU research to save on rising dairy feed costs. It’s a development that could help many more such farms survive and prosper while assuring wholesome dairy products for consumers. It also illustrates the importance of federally supported research for our families and communities.
Welcoming transfer students
Speaking of collaborations with community colleges such as KBOCC in the Upper Peninsula, last week marked National Transfer Student Week, celebrating transfer students and the professionals who support them throughout their academic journeys.
Transfer students are an essential part of Michigan State’s community, accounting for one in every seven Spartan undergraduates, with more enrolling every year. Transfer students’ 86% graduation rate already exceeds that of the general undergraduate population. They also contribute diverse perspectives and lived experiences that enrich our campus community — and a great example is transfer student Aesha Zakaria, who successfully advocated for the first-ever transfer student seat in our student government.
Aiming to be known as a premier transfer serving institution, we have significantly reduced the time for transfer credit evaluations, launched a podcast and newsletter through the Transfer Student Success Center and enhanced key transfer student engagement experiences like the Transfer Experience Mentorship Program and the Transfer Student Advisory Board. We’re in the early stages of designing a dedicated physical space to foster belonging and community for transfer students, as well.
Envision Green continues to broaden the pathway for many of our transfer students from Lansing Community College, offering bimonthly events, on-site academic advising and other services. Increasing accessibility to an MSU degree even further, MSU’s Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities is working with LCC’s Center for Student Access to support student accommodations, and we’ve connected to serve military-affiliated students as well. Our goal is to expand Envision Green to more community colleges across Michigan.
Honoring alums and donors
With a less certain environment for federal research support and future levels of state appropriations, the need to develop additional channels to support students’ success and modern facilities to do so is more important than ever. I’m grateful for donors like Mary and Mike Lamach, whose recent $10 million gift is kick-starting our fundraising for the planned Engineering and Digital Innovation Center. The EDI Center is where Spartans will imagine, create and learn to lead the industries of tomorrow. We anticipate asking the Board of Trustees at its Oct. 31 meeting to approve proceeding with the project.
Last week, I had the privilege of celebrating Mary and Mike with the Philanthropist Award, along with many other remarkable Spartans at our Grand Awards — among the highest distinctions MSU bestows upon its alums. The honorees included innovators, artists, educators and scientists whose achievements, leadership and generosity continue to shape industries and improve lives. Their impact reminds us that Spartan excellence extends far beyond our campus.
The support we enjoy from donors offers vital margins of excellence, and new global rankings attest to Michigan State’s rising trajectory. Times Higher Education’s 2026 World University Rankings place MSU in the top 5% of the 2,191 institutions considered. That’s up 17 positions from last year’s rankings and a four-place rise among universities in the United States. It’s another glimpse of the academic and research quality represented by our leading global public research university.
Go Green!
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
(pronounced GUS-ka-wits)
President
Professor, Department of Kinesiology