When the recommendations are received on October 16, they are not expected to provide a single or overarching vision for the entire University. Instead, each college and unit involved will be submitting local recommendations based on local knowledge and leadership. Insofar as a university is its people – a broad and diverse collection of individuals – a university’s vision is collective.
The challenge, then, will be to find ways to unify these visions around common values and shared goals. As we work toward sculpting the University in ways that maximize efficiency and effectiveness, we will continue to use a common set of tools, the design principles – one overarching set, and a number of specific sets for focus areas for change – to guide our work.
Like President Simon, I have used the word messy to describe the process we have undertaken. It may have been less messy – not to mention easier – to put eight people in a room and tell them to draft a singular vision for the entire University. But that’s not what we’re doing. And that’s not what we want to do. While the current waiting period may cause a degree of anxiety, it’s actually a relatively short time frame to draft some serious long-term recommendations.
Some of you may have recently heard me say that a nearly anyone can balance a budget, but thoughtful long-term planning involves a great deal more work. Each of us is going to need to find ways to adopt a thoughtful and long-term perspective as we go about our everyday work. We’re all going to have to work differently. As President Simon, recently said in the Detroit News column “MSU sets example in how to lead,” by Daniel Howes, “Everybody’s got to be part of the solution.”
Michigan State University has a strong history of leadership, and of finding creative solutions to challenging problems. We will continue to innovate, to grow, and to invest in areas that we’ve identified as strategically valuable for the future of the University. Indeed, there is already much good news to share from the start of the academic year.
Finally, I would like to extend my deep appreciation to all of you for helping to make Fall Welcome’s Fill-the-Bus initiative an outstanding success. As many of you know, we welcomed the academic year with Fill-the-Bus, our first university-wide service learning event. The purpose of the event was to introduce newly admitted students to an important MSU value - Spartans giving of themselves, to others, in community, for the public good. I’m pleased to report that the MSU community filled four buses and one van with school supplies, non-perishable food items, recreational equipment, pet supplies, and health and hygiene supplies that were delivered to various charitable organizations around the Lansing and East Lansing area. Your active participation helped us both exceed our expectations and demonstrate MSU’s continuing commitment to enriching our community. Collectively, your individual contributions made a significant difference in the lives of many.
Michigan State University is, and will remain, one of the top universities in the world. It will continue to innovate and move forward. In doing so, it will emerge from the current challenges it faces more efficient and more effective, while remaining firmly committed to its core values and mission. To expect anything less would run counter to who we are, to what we do, and to that which we aspire to become.
]]>In an era of significantly reduced state funding and increasing expenses, MSU is working to change how we work while holding true to our core values and commitments. This process is aimed at building value and ensuring quality. It seeks to build a new model that will transform the way we work on behalf of our students, stakeholders, and the communities we serve both locally and globally. Background information related to that process, along with planning initiatives and communications to campus related to that process, may be found on the Shaping the Future Web site.
In the same way that a set of design principles are guiding our thinking in key focus areas for change across the University, a set of design principles specific to MSUE has been drafted to guide their redesign. While the urgency of this redesign has been hastened by the current budget situation, it is a necessary action for MSUE to remain relevant, responsive, and a leader in realizing MSU’s land-grant mission.
Five key principles will guide MSUE’s redesign.
Using these design principles, MSUE Director Tom Coon and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Dean Jeff Armstrong created two task forces in early August, one charged with identifying statewide programmatic areas for MSUE, the other with developing an organizational structure to best carry out this programming. Task forces were chaired by MSUE regional directors, comprised of MSU faculty and MSUE community-based academic staff, and included at least one department chair from CANR.
As the redesign process continues, MSUE is communicating to its employees the need to fundamentally evolve their organization to best serve Michigan residents and communities. In late August and early September, seven regional town hall meetings were held, one in each of the MSUE regions, and two on campus. At these meetings, to which all MSUE personnel were invited, MSUE leadership
MSUE leadership has begun discussing the organizational redesign with key stakeholders across the state and will continue these discussions through November 2009. I expect MSUE to share their thinking with me later this fall.
Please check the Shaping the Future Web site regularly for additional MSU budget-related communications. The better informed we all are, the better we will be able to engage in the challenges we collectively face.
]]>As part of this year’s Fall Welcome, new undergraduate students took part in the University-wide service and civic engagement Fill-the-Bus event, and students were encouraged to donate school supplies, non-perishable food, or personal care items for 13 campus and community partnering organizations. Fill-the-Bus provided a hands-on introduction to MSU’s commitment to Spartans giving of themselves, to others, in the community, for the public good.
Since its founding in 1855, MSU has been dedicated to giving back to the community. Throughout the building of that legacy of service and engagement, our collective character has come to be defined more by self-satisfaction than by arrogance. For over 150 years, our students, faculty, and staff have constantly raised the bar, both for themselves and for others, making MSU the great University that it is today.
Many of you have heard me say before that at its core, a university is its people – not its buildings, its campus, or its programs, but its people. As we begin this academic year, I ask you all to think of MSU – and your role at MSU – in that way. You are MSU. What you do here defines who we are, and who we will become. As with the start of every fall semester, we are pleased to welcome your individual energies as part of our collective effort.
]]>At the three Provost Forums I held spring semester, many of you shared your concerns and questions about what the current economic downturn may mean for our University. This year we face an especially challenging budget situation of decreased state funding and increased health care and energy costs. We must meet this challenge while maintaining our responsibility to build a sustainable future for our University.
As we plan for the next academic year, and the two years beyond that, I remain committed to processes that focus on strategic thinking and planning. I also continue to support multi-year, long-term planning. Rather than shift quickly into crisis mode, I want us all to be deliberate and strategic about our changes. To that end, I have asked Deans to think about change over a three-year period. This approach will allow us to review our decisions over time, and to use short-term cash management options as we make longer-term base budget reductions.
It is difficult to assess the degree of differentiation in our planning based on initial information for a single year. A long-term planning framework – along with University-wide reduction planning of 4%-4%-2% over the next three years – provides planning parameters, just as a 3% increase in other years has provided a planning parameter. As with any long-term planning framework, there is always room for variation around the proposed averages. Our deliberate intent is to work through this period using the longer-term timeline, with the expectation that it will allow for a series of more focused discussions as the process moves into years Two and Three.
Overall, I will continue to encourage planning that enables us to re-invest in areas that allow us to grow in distinction and excellence. We will not stop moving forward as an institution because we are called on to contract in size. Universities all over the country are retrenching and retreating. We cannot afford to retreat, or to allow ourselves to believe that innovation or creativity is tied to size. We may need to reduce our overall budget, but we cannot afford to sacrifice our goals or aspirations.
As we move through this process, we need to work cooperatively across units to see where there are opportunities to share, or to understand where our planned reductions will impact others. President Simon often refers to “Team MSU.” There has never been a more important time than now for us to work together for the greater good of the University.
This year, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the featured speaker at our spring undergraduate convocation. A South African activist who served as an opponent of apartheid during the 1980s and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, Tutu is a champion of civil rights and advocate for the transformative power of reconciliation. His work toward advancing the greater good serves as an inspiration for us all.
As Archbishop Tutu once said, “do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Wherever you are this summer, may you find a way to make a positive difference in the world. Best wishes for a rewarding summer.
]]>Please share this information with those in your colleges, departments, and units. Those serving on search committees or involved in the hiring process are especially encouraged to attend.
I look forward to seeing many of you there!
I could cite multiple other examples of recent success stories – from the accomplishments of our work in the bioeconomy, to the outstanding new hires in many of our departments, to the aspirations of our ADVANCE grant project. Some of those stories took root at the unit level; some of them were guided by institutional aspirations. Regardless of their origins, our success stories share one common element: a commitment to excellence.
Ultimately, each success story bolsters our institutional reputation. Each instance of someone doing his or her part to make a positive difference contributes to the collective positive difference that the University makes, world-wide. By building this reputation we continue to be recognized and rewarded as excellent – positioning us as a leader.
Excellence demands an openness to flexibility and a willingness to stretch. To do something new, one often has to let go of something old, or at least loosen one’s grip. While agricultural sciences are still concerned with crops, they’re making a rapid shift to research on plants as fuel and plastics, rather than food. Departments, colleges, and other higher education institutions once seen as “competitors” are now “collaborators.” Undergraduate students, the traditional recipients of information, are increasingly expected to become generators of knowledge. Fundamental assumptions about what constitutes a classroom, an academic semester, and definitions of scholarship continue to be challenged. The contours of the institution that claimed leadership in defining higher education in the nineteenth century are changing as fast as the science and technology on its campus.
As we leave campus for the holiday season and look toward the year ahead, I want to thank the members of the MSU community for all they have done this past year to make the University a better place. At the same time, I encourage us all to take a moment and reflect on the ways in which we can continue to contribute to MSU’s tradition of excellence – from the seemingly insignificant gestures of our everyday workplace practices, to the career-shaping decisions that can forever change our life paths. As evidenced by MSU’s longstanding commitment to excellence, our attitudes, our energies, and our willingness to explore new opportunities can indeed make a world of positive difference.
While it was an exciting and enriching experience to work alongside our international partners in both Tanzania and Dubai, it’s good to be home. The start of classes each fall on the beautiful MSU campus remains a special time for many of us, for many significant reasons. Chief among those reasons is the sense of meaning and purpose that many of us find affirmed as we return to work each academic year. I hope the start of fall semester holds some of this sense of homecoming for each and every member of the MSU community.
]]>MSU has a long and highly respected history of engagement with Africa. Our African Studies Center is one of nine Title VI National Resource Centers on Africa designated by the U.S. Department of Education. Our faculty and graduate students conduct research and work on development initiatives in many countries across the continent , addressing the real needs of real people in real communities. From health and food safety to education and sustainable agriculture, a diverse range of long-term initiatives have characterized MSU’s engagement with the continent.
The pilot projects in the Monduli District and Lindi region are characterized by that same kind of engagement. In both cases, projects will rely on existing structures, with a focus on improving practices, not on creating new programs. In the coming months and years, I hope to visit other parts of Africa, as MSU works toward its world-grant aspirations.
After leaving Tanzania, I head to Dubai, where the first MSU classes will begin, in late August. This will be my first visit to MSU Dubai, and I’m eager to meet with our faculty and first class of students. I’m also looking forward to talking with those on the ground and hearing what they have to say about the range of opportunities and challenges associated with MSU’s programs in Dubai.
Until classes begin, MSU Dubai is just a building. Not until students start to study and learn, will it truly become MSU. Regardless of distance, and regardless of cultural differences, MSU’s core values and mission will continue to guide our presence in Dubai. Programs offered in Dubai are the same MSU programs offered in East Lansing, relying on the same MSU faculty, and the same standards and expectations for students.
Overall, it’s an exciting time for the University. The start of classes in Dubai marks a watershed moment for MSU. It’s amazing what we’ve achieved in only one year’s time, so many miles away from our home in East Lansing. I’d like to extend my thanks to the many individuals and units that have worked together with diligence and dedication to bring us to this point. Like them, I look forward to the positive growth of MSU Dubai in the years ahead.
When I return from Tanzania and Dubai, I plan to share some of my travel experiences here, in another post. I’m sure there will be many interesting and valuable stories to pass along. Until then, best wishes to the MSU community, as we all gear up for the start of fall classes.
]]>As the feature story notes, Michigan State’s project is part of the AAC&U’s Core Commitments initiative and makes MSU a Core Commitments Leadership Consortium school. We’re pleased to be part of the project’s Leadership Consortium and to join with other institutions of higher education across the country in finding innovative ways to integrate educating students for personal and social responsibility into the undergraduate learning experience.
]]>Certain quantitative outcomes are easy to measure. Accomplishments such as meeting our capital campaign goals, increasing research productivity, and expanding our international reach and local outreach are all central to the mission and success of Michigan State – and are all things we take account of on a regular basis. But equally central is the way in which we fulfill our mission and define our success. Reaching goals is one thing. Reaching goals while holding true to one’s core values is another thing entirely.
Recent conversations about accountability in higher education have focused heavily on tangible or quantitative outcomes, but failed to thoroughly explore the value of less tangible or qualitative outcomes. I would argue that one of MSU’s most impressive achievements over the past year has been qualitative: our ability to more deeply integrate, and thus embed, a culture of change across the entire University community. That’s a change that’s difficult to measure. Guided largely by our strategic positioning process, Boldness by Design, we have thought about and actively explored how personal, unit, and college goals align in support of institutional goals and aspirations. We’ve changed the way our culture works so we work better together.
I am not suggesting that people have simply “fallen in step.” I would, in fact, argue the exact opposite. We’ve found ways to coordinate and complement our individual strengths to better capitalize on our shared assets to help our decentralized and diverse community create a clearer unified identity.
The culture change going on here at MSU hinges largely on a shift toward local leadership paired with local accountability. We are expecting strong leadership at the unit level. Part of the responsibility associated with that strong leadership is being accountable for the unit’s success.
I’ve encouraged this shift toward local leadership and local accountability and watched it take shape. With the hiring of several new deans, the development of institutional and unit-level metrics, the implementation of Academic Program Review, the revision of planning and budget processes, and the establishment of undergraduate outcomes for liberal learning and global competencies – we’re already doing a great deal to establish and maintain a culture of accountability at MSU. And all of our internal efforts, of course, take place within the larger, ongoing context of national accreditations and evaluations by a diverse range of assessment organizations.
In addition to ongoing participation in external assessment and accreditation, MSU continues to develop rigorous internal measures that are deliberately linked to the student learning outcomes that we value. We’re currently exploring how to most effectively measure outcomes in quantitative literacy and writing. The University Committee on Liberal Learning is wrestling with the question of how students might best demonstrate accomplishments related to our Outcomes of Liberal Learning.
As the national conversation related to accountability continues, it’s important to take frequent note of these local conversations taking place on our own campus. We should remind ourselves and others of the broad range of accountability tools that are in place across campus – and of how each recognizes a nuanced area of strength or expertise that deserves singular acknowledgement.
Throughout this entire process, we will continue to participate in the national conversation in ways that maintain MSU’s unique identity and aspirations while working to effectively respond to our stakeholders. We also will continue to find ways to engage in the national conversation that add value to the diverse range of local accountability measures already in place. In doing so, we will work to account for the standardized and the specialized, the quantitative and the qualitative, the glaringly large and the humbly small. Because ultimately, it all counts.
]]>I’ve engaged in a few early conversations around campus already, regarding MSU’s participation in the VSA – with Faculty Council, the Executive Committee of Academic Council, Deans’ Council, and at a Model Unit Leadership Training Initiative seminar. A number of other individuals and groups across campus have also engaged in some early discussions concerning the VSA. We’ve received a good deal of constructive input from our colleagues.
At this point, we’re moving forward with plans to participate in the VSA. It is important to emphasize that we will have four years to meet fully the VSA requirements. Over that time, we will continue to assess whether or not the use of the College Portrait template and the VSA system are meeting the needs of those who have the greatest need for sound and accessible information about university programs, costs, and outcomes.
While most of the information that will be posted by way of the VSA already has been available to those who know where to look, the VSA system is committed to helping universities report key data in ways that are easily understood and comparable across institutions. One piece of the VSA looks at consumer information that is already public information – things like cost, grad rates. etc. A second piece looks at student experiences and perceptions. The third piece is the one causing the most concern. It requires that institutions sign on to measure critical thinking and writing, using one of three nationally normed instruments. Institutionally, we have to explore what will work best for our students and faculty, in our setting. After looking closely at the three assessment instruments related to the third piece of the VSA, we will work to determine which instrument can offer MSU the greatest value added, and then move forward from there.
Higher education institutions across the country have expressed concerns we share: looking to a standardized instrument to suggest the value added of a university education is a slippery slope. While we’re all supportive of measuring student learning, the methods by which a significant number of accountability measures arrive at their results threaten to gloss over many significant outcomes. Many institutions, including MSU, are looking to develop their own measures. We’re currently exploring how to most effectively measure outcomes in quantitative literacy and writing. The University Committee on Liberal Learning is wrestling with the question of how students might best demonstrate accomplishments related to our Outcomes of Liberal Learning.
Taken together, a diverse range of accountability measures working together stands to best reflect the diversity of our strengths. In a large, decentralized research university like Michigan State, such an approach represents a thoughtful way to accurately and adequately account for all of our success stories – and to add value to the institution.
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Linda Katehi of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took the lead in crafting our response. Her efforts remind us of the importance of CIC collaboration.
The nature of Building Stories, as an ongoing celebration by way of the arts, dovetails nicely with MSU’s larger celebration of the Year of Arts and Culture. While we have set this academic year apart from others to take special note of the arts and culture, MSU’s celebration of and commitment to the arts and culture are perennial.
When I first clicked around the Year of Arts and Culture Web site, I was impressed by the incredible scope and depth of ongoing programs and resources in place across campus in support of the arts. Music, dance, multimedia and film, theatre, visual arts, museums and collections, the humanities – these don’t represent special initiatives that were launched because it’s the Year of Arts and Culture; these are long-standing, substantive, and diverse institutions, programs, and celebrations of the arts and culture that have enriched the MSU community over the years. A few of these – the Wharton Center for Performing Arts, the MSU Museum, and the Department of Theatre – celebrate milestone anniversaries during the Year of Arts and Culture.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which gave the inaugural performance for the grand opening of the Wharton Center for Performing Arts, 25 years ago, recently returned to celebrate Wharton Center’s 25th anniversary. As Michigan’s premier performing arts center, Wharton has hosted countless performance and educational opportunities over the years. Plans for an $11 million expansion project to improve the facility’s look and functionality are underway, with groundbreaking slated for spring 2008.
Another campus icon, the MSU Museum, is celebrating its 150th anniversary. One of the oldest museums in the Midwest and Michigan’s leading public natural history and culture museum, the MSU Museum continues to promote a world of discovery, via exhibits, collections, and educational programs. In 2001, the MSU Museum became the state’s first Smithsonian affiliate, a partnership that encourages the ongoing exchange of research, programs, exhibitions and collections.
Our Department of Theatre celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. In 1907, faculty and students collaborated on a production of School for Scandal, launching a tradition and area of study that continue to enrich the arts community at MSU. The BA program enrolls over 100 majors, and a new Theatre BFA program has brought in a number of talented students in its first year. This fall, Theatre is one of the first departments on campus to introduce a minor as part of its curriculum.
In terms of what’s new at MSU, this is the first academic year for the College of Music, which made the transition from being the School of Music, in February. This change recognizes the long history of success and growth of the School while providing a foundation for further excellence in a highly competitive national environment. The last time the National Association of Schools of Music completed a national ranking of music schools, the MSU School of Music was ranked within the top 30 national programs.
This summer, the arts at MSU received a significant boost by way of a $26 million gift from MSU alumni Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe. Five internationally known architectural firms came to campus in July to present their conceptual designs for a new world-class art museum focusing on modern and contemporary art. The new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum will increase the visibility and accessibility of art on campus showcase more of the university’s permanent collection, acquire and show larger and more significant works and exhibitions, and significantly add to the rich cultural and artistic heritage of MSU. While consideration of the specfic design plan is still underway, groundbreaking is expected in fall 2008.
The arts enrich our lives in many vital ways. They speak to universal concerns that persist over time and across cultures. They engage us intellectually and emotionally. They please as they teach. They entertain as they challenge. They attract and help retain creative human talent, serving as a spark for economic development in a region. They are perhaps our best strategy for teaching about multiple perspectives – a required approach to learning and understanding for the 21st century. While doing all of this, they help build community – by stimulating discussion and social action, and by bringing people together around shared interests and values.
In an environment of diminishing state and federal support, it could be all too easy for institutions of higher education to forfeit on their commitments to the arts and culture. But to do so would cost dearly. Higher education finds itself at a critical juncture, with various constituencies and stakeholders vying for position to set standards, define curriculum, and chart an overarching course.
To remain relevant, receptive, and responsive into the 21st century, while continuing to be one of the top 100 universities in the world, MSU is re-affirming its fundamental commitment to excellence in both the arts and the sciences. As the premier world-grant university, our aspirations include work in the bioeconomy and arts and culture. While our land-grant mission has established MSU as a place of ands, our world-grant goals guide us toward holding true to that mission while expanding its scope for the 21st century. In doing so, we will continue to educate students as lifelong learners able to lead – and adapt – in an ever-changing world of constant flux.
In such a world, characterized more by change than by stasis, the arts serve as a constant source of inspiration and education. In the best ways possible, they remain an ongoing source of provocation. They make us think. They make us laugh. They broaden our perspectives.
From performances and exhibits to public art and gardens, there’s much to celebrate during MSU’s Year of Arts and Culture. As all good celebrations do, this one promises to bring people together, to both praise and to reflect. Please, join in.
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MSU continues to offer a diverse range of living-learning programs, including Academic Scholars and an honors-floor programs, in the Honors College; the Business Residential Option for Academic Distinction, or BROAD, for business majors; the Residential Initiative for the Study of the Environment, or RISE; the Residential Option for Science and Engineering Students, or ROSES; and the Multi-Racial Unity Living Experience, or MRULE.
We’re also exploring new opportunities in a number of areas, including a Cornerstone Engineering residential program in the College of Engineering. We’re open to exploring the many diverse embodiments of what a living-learning community might look like, and to tailoring programs to meet the specific or nuanced needs of a discipline or area of study.
In addition to these programs, three residential colleges round out the living-learning opportunities on campus. Our new Residential College in the Arts and Humanities significantly expands our offerings across a broad spectrum, including literature, history, ethics, the visual and performing arts, and the study of languages and cultures. Lyman Briggs College’s recent return to college status makes it our college-level living-learning opportunity in the natural sciences. James Madison College represents our college-level living-learning opportunity in the social sciences.
In all of these living-learning programs, there is a conscious focus on creating a student learning experience that is both integrative and interdisciplinary. Integrative learning asks students to connect skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences, apply theory to practice in various settings, utilize diverse and even contradictory points of view, and understand issues and positions contextually. Interdisciplinary learning cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries and incorporates multiple perspectives and sources of authority to tackle the real problems facing society today.
Beyond learning experiences that are both integrative and interdisciplinary, our living-learning programs place a concerted focus on learning that is also discovery-centered, translational, and contextual. Discovery-centered learning encourages students to produce original output that contributes to the knowledge or activity of a particular discipline or disciplines and, in doing so, develop a faculty-student mentoring relationship. Translational learning allows students to take what they learn in class and apply it in a diverse range of real world and real work settings, to apply new research or basic technology to a specific application or discipline, and to innovate beyond the original iteration or execution of an applied skill. Contextual learning takes place in real work and real world settings, and in the context of civic engagement – engaging students with questions about their ethical responsibilities to self and others, and as citizens in a diverse democracy. Taken together, these five qualities represent some of the best learning experiences we can provide for our students.
As we work to identify what is unique about living-learning experiences at MSU, these five elements rise to the top. Not in a singular fashion, but as interconnected parts of a larger whole. This way of learning, and this approach to teaching, can be thought of as characterizing the signature pedagogy for world-grant. Certainly such a pedagogical approach is not limited to our living-learning programs. It is evident in numerous other programs, laboratories, and classrooms across campus, and in other off-campus and online settings. In each instance, the five characteristics of our world-grant signature pedagogy work together to prepare graduates to be fully engaged global citizens, ready to meet the demands of the 21st-century workplace. Such learning not only enhances their student experience, it enhances their life experience.
It’s important to note that MSU is keeping its focus on enhancing the student experience front and center in its transformation from land-grant to world-grant. Living-learning programs have proven that they do just that – enhance the student experience. Studies have shown that students in living-learning programs spend more time attending class, studying, and doing community service than their non-living-learning student peers. They discuss academic, career, and socio-cultural issues with their peers more. They have more course-related faculty interactions and report higher confidence in math and science. They also report significantly greater intention to participate in community service, research with a professor, a leadership position, study abroad, and independent research. U.S. News & World Report recently listed MSU’s “Learning Communities” as a stellar example of a program linked to student success, in its America’s Best Colleges 2008 “Programs to Look For.” Such recognition shows that we’re doing praiseworthy work in the right direction.
As a world-grant institution, our attention to the student experience must remain both broad and deep. We must continue to attend to not just the quality of and goals for teaching, but also to the processes and outcomes of student learning. Living-learning programs do just that – they ask us to examine the diverse range of components involved in such a rich and complex pedagogical opportunity to enhance our students’ learning experiences. As such, they represent one exciting way in which our community of scholars is transforming itself to meet the demands of the 21st century.
]]>Our presence in Dubai will involve various MSU colleges and departments offering undergraduate and graduate degree-granting programs and conducting research in Dubai International Academic City. Strong mutual interests between MSU and Dubai International Academic City exist across a wide range of academic specialties, and will provide mutual benefits. Programs offered in Dubai will be the same MSU programs offered in East Lansing and with the same MSU faculty, and the same oversight groups as on campus. All of our efforts in Dubai will fit with MSU academic priorities, standards, and expectations, and we retain authority over courses, programs, and admissions requirements.
Of course, any expanded effort in Dubai assumes that it will be done with the MSU values of inclusion and engagement – and with the goal of assuring interconnectedness between instruction and research. With this shaping our vision for the future, the best MSU ideals will continue to guide us, wherever we are across the globe.
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