Feature: MSU's Kellogg Center is Now Fifty Years Young

            Serving the needs of hospitality and continuing education, MSU’s Kellogg Center celebrates its half century as a front door to the university.

            Imagine . . . room rates were $5 per night for a single, and $7.50 for a double.  A tenderloin steak dinner in the State Room cost $1.75, and a piece of apple pie to top off your dinner cost a whopping 20 cents! 

            The year was 1951, when the Kellogg Center just opened its doors.

            Now a mature age 50, the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center is still a youngster to Michigan State University.  Its debut in September 1951 was at Michigan State College, an institution that had been in existence for almost a century!  John Hannah was president and Edgar Harden was director of continuing education.

            Today, it continues to serve as a “front door to the university” and to fulfill its original mission—and then some.

            MSU’s Kellogg Center was the first of 11 Kellogg Centers nationwide established via a major grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek.  The original concept was to create a facility that could house, feed, and conduct educational conferences and meetings, under one roof at the lowest possible cost.  

            Designed by architect Lewis J. Sarvis of Battle Creek, the Center was constructed for $2 million.  The Kellogg Foundation donated $1.4 million, MSU $500,000, and the Michigan Hotel Association $114,000.

            In 50 years, there have been just five general managers. The first four were graduates of The School of Hospitality Business at MSU.  Weldon “Bill” Garrison was just 27 when he took the reins as the first manager of the Kellogg Center.  A 1946 graduate of what was then called the Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management (HRIM) program, he steered the course for five years.  Next came Bob Emerson, a 1947 graduate of MSU’s HRIM program, who served for nearly two decades as manager from 1956-74.  George Fritz, another MSU grad, served as manager until 1984.  “Fritz” had previously opened another Kellogg Center in Nigeria.  Jack Burns, a 1968 HRIM graduate, rose through the ranks after starting as a night manager in 1970.  He served as manager from 1984 until his untimely death in 1992.

            Joel Heberlein, a 20-year veteran of the hospitality industry, has been manager since 1993.  He has spearheaded some major changes, including a total refurbishment of the 165 guestrooms and suites, and the redesign and renovation of the State Room and River Café restaurants, the Spartan Pub, the Gift Shop, the Lobbies, and all of the offices and banquet rooms. 

            Today, Kellogg Center boasts state of the art technology in all its meeting rooms and guestrooms.  Meeting participants can hold teleconferences, or hook up to the internet at sites throughout the Center.  In 2000, a fitness room was added on the Garden Level

            Change has been the hallmark of the first 50 years.  Who could have envisioned  in 1951 that Kellogg Center would become a full service hotel and conference center, serving not only the University community and greater Lansing, but the world at large.  Even the name has been changed to The Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center to reflect the broader scope of services which are now available. The physical structure has changed significantly with three major renovations and expansions, including the addition of the covered parking structure.

            Guests to the Center have come from every country in the world.  Distinguished visitors read like a Who’s Who in the world of education, science, politics, and the arts. President Gerald Ford, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Ralph Bunche, singer Marian Anderson, Van Cliburn, Walter Cronkite, John Kenneth Galbraith, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Ralph Nader, Margaret Mead, Roberta Peters, Tyrone Power, Nelson Rockefeller, Carl Sandberg, Adlai Stevenson, and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrètien are among the many famous people who have visited.   

            In Fall 1997, Oscar-nominated actor James Caan, who played football for Duffy Daugherty, revisited MSU as the Grand Marshal of the Homecoming Parade.  He accompanied MSU’s football team in their traditional pre-game walk from Kellogg to Spartan Stadium.

            Supporting continuing education is still an important part of the Kellogg Center mission.  MSU’s Evening College, a component of the MSU Alumni Association, is housed at the Center, as are most of its courses, which range from Haiku poetry to the History of Broadway Musicals.  “We’ve been at Kellogg Center since day one,” says Louise Cooley, director of Alumni Lifelong Education/Evening College and assistant director of the MSUAA.  “More than 2,000 people register a year.  We offer between 60 and 65 noncredit courses each semester.”

            In 1951, Kellogg Center served some 125,000 guests.  Now more than 1,000,000 people come through the doors of the Kellogg Center each year.  They include alumni returning to campus for any number of reasons, ranging from football games to such MSU Alumni Association events as Homecoming’s Green and White Luncheon, Patriarch’s Weekend, and Kaleidoscope.

            Consistent with its original mission, Kellogg Center remains a working laboratory for students in The School of Hospitality Business. Each semester the Center employs from 300 to 350 students, who work in areas ranging from the banquet services to the front desk.  At least one fifth of the student workers are enrolled the The School of Hospitality Business.  Some of the students opt for rotating internships to gain in-depth experience in at least three departments of the Center’s operations. 

            As Megan Yates, a 2001 graduate of HB and now with the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, says,  “Working at the Kellogg Center helped me to learn how to work with differing management styles and to learn the importance and value of each of them.” 

            The hotel has become a major presence in the Greater Lansing area and has been a consistent leader in room occupancy rates. Guests can choose a wide option of rooms to meet their special needs in size and accommodation from 165 rooms and suites available.

            The State Room restaurant has achieved the status of a “destination restaurant,” thanks in part to the popular bi-annual Visiting Chefs Series and to Kellogg Center’s own professional chefs.  Dinner guests can now order more than 80 different wines by the glass and the wine list is impressive with an array of Michigan, domestic and foreign labels.   Robert Bao, editor of the MSU Alumni Magazine, writes of the Kellogg Center in his new book, The Michigan State University Experience (College Days Press, 2001),  “Food service here remains unmatched.”  In his book, Bao has even provided the recipe for the State Room’s famous Michigan Bean Soup.

            All in all, the first 50 years have been exciting, says Heberlein.  “When I look into the crystal ball of the future, I’m confident that the Kellogg Center will maintain it’s proud reputation as ‘the front door of the University,’” he notes.  “Who knows, perhaps that may mean another major expansion . . .  the possibilities are intriguing.”

            Jan Reed graduated from MSU in 1984 with BA in Communication.  She is a free lance writer and editor of publications for the Kellogg Center.