Planning today for tomorrow's challenges
Firmly rooted in its land-grant mission while deeply engaged with contemporary challenges, Michigan State University has always stretched to see over the horizon.
Anticipating society’s needs and preparing graduates for jobs that might not yet exist is as great a priority as ever. Our society’s challenges require innovative approaches, a measure of boldness and a commitment to working across disciplines. MSU is meeting that imperative thought our educational, research and facilities planning.
Construction of the Leinweber Engineering and Digital Innovation Center is underway near our College of Engineering and STEM Teaching and Learning Facility. This hub for instruction and discovery will prepare students for disciplines ranging from materials science to artificial intelligence to entrepreneurship. It will provide state-of-the-art laboratories for more than 75 principal investigators and enable the enrollment of 1,000 new engineering students.
The same spirit animates our work to modernize our general education curriculum for incoming students. Owned by our world-class faculty, supported by the provost’s office and informed by students, this initiative aims to develop a more integrated, forward-leaning curriculum that also considers the needs of transfer students and adult learners.
And following 18 months of intensive study and stakeholder engagement, we are pursuing a One Team, One Health vision integrating the university’s strengths across human, veterinary and environmental sciences to catalyze new synergies in education, research and health care delivery.
We are excited to pursue our nextbig steps:
• Establishing a cross-campus One Health Research Network
• Unifying our colleges of Human Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine into one medical college offering M.D. and D.O. degrees, preserving each program’s distinct strengths
• Creating a College of Health Sciences to expand interdisciplinary education
Much remains to be done to ensure approvals are in hand and quality is not compromised, so we’re moving carefully but deliberately.
Innovation at MSU is not confined to our programs and facilities but is strengthened through the engagement of our alums and donors. I have the privilege of seeing this firsthand as we enter the second year of our $4 billion
Uncommon Will, Far Better World campaign, which you’ll read more about in these pages.
These investments expand Michigan State’s capacity to prepare Spartans for a rapidly evolving workforce—expanding experiential learning, advancing interdisciplinary research and foreseeing opportunities in emerging fields.
Innovation is also what drove the creation of Spartan Ventures, a separate, not-for-profit organization to help MSU lead an evolving intercollegiate athletics environment. Spartan Ventures will tap new revenue streams, grow strategic partnerships, enhance student-athlete opportunities and, importantly, help us avoid using general university funds to underwrite athletics.
Our dynamic world demands innovative and timely responses from higher education. Spartans—on campus and off—are stepping up. Together, we embrace such challenges as we look to the horizon and envision a far better world.
Go Green!
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
PRESIDENT
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF KINESIOLOGY