User:Lovelac7/Michigan State University academics

Michigan State University has over 200 academic programs on its East Lansing, Michigan campus. MSU is well known for its academic programs in education and agriculture, and the university pioneered the studies of packaging, horticulture and music therapy. MSU has the premier hospitality school in the United States, and the study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation, offering more than 200 programs in more than 60 countries on all continents including Antarctica.

As a research university, MSU is one of 60 members of the Association of American Universities. Since its inception as a small agricultural college in 1855, MSU has put a strong emphasis on research. Important discoveries made at MSU include hybrid corn, homgenized milk antio-cancer drug cisplatin, and Germanium isotope Ge-60. Like other large American universities, MSU has a large number of teaching assistants teaching upper-level courses. This led The Princeton Review in 2005 to rank MSU eleventh worst in the category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper-level courses".

Demographics
Michigan State has the sixth largest student body in the U.S. There are 45,166 total students, with 35,678 undergraduates and 9,488 graduate and professional students. The student body is 54% female and 46% male. While 89% of students come from all 83 counties in the State of Michigan, also represented are all 50 states in the U.S. and about 125 other countries. MSU has about 4,500 faculty and 6,000 staff members, and a student/faculty ratio of 19:1. Like other large American universities, MSU has a large number of teaching assistants teaching upper-level courses. This led The Princeton Review in 2005 to rank MSU eleventh worst in the category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper-level courses".

Rankings
Michigan State ranks 77th in the world, according to a Shanghai Jiao Tong University study, with U.S. News & World Report's ranking MSU 74th in the U.S. With over 200 academic programs, MSU has several highly-ranked programs. U.S. News has ranked MSU's graduate-level elementary and secondary education programs number one for the last eleven years. In 2006, U.S. News ranked nuclear physics programs, MSU ranked second behind only MIT. Indeed, MSU’s entire Physics & Astronomy department ranks highly based on the number and impact of publications by its faculty. A ranking by the National Communication Association ranks MSU doctoral programs as the nation’s most effective in educating researchers in health communication and communication technology. MSU also is ranked in the top four in several other communication fields, including international/intercultural communication, mass communication and interpersonal communication. Other programs of note include criminal justice, music therapy, packaging,,and communications. MSU's study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation with 2,461 students studying abroad in 2004–05 in over 60 countries on all continents, including Antarctica.

Research
The university spent $289,787,000 on research in 2002, capping a long history of productive research. In 1877, botany professor William J. Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses to produce hybrid corn, which led to increased yields. MSU dairy professor G. Malcolm Trout invented the process for the homogenization of milk in the 1930s. In the 1960s, MSU scientists developed cisplatin, a leading cancer fighting drug. Today Michigan State continues its research with facilities such as the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and a particle accelerator called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. In 2004, scientists at the Cyclotron produced and observed a new isotope of the element germanium, called Ge-60. In that same year, Michigan State, in consortium with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the government of Brazil, broke ground on the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The consortium telescope will allow the Physics & Astronomy department to study galaxy formation and origins. Since 1999, MSU has been part of another consortium called the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, which aims to develop biotechnology research in the State of Michigan.

Endowment
MSU's endowment started in 1916 when the Engineering Building burned down. Automobile magnate R.E. Olds helped the program stay afloat with a gift of $100,000. While this opened the door for other types of private donations, MSU has often lagged behind peer institutions in terms of endowments. As recently as the early 1990s, MSU was last among the eleven Big Ten schools, with barely over $100 million in endowment funds. However, in the early 2000s, the University started a campaign to increase the size of the endowment. At the close of FY 2004–05, the endowment had risen to $1.325 billion, raising the University to sixth of the 11 Big Ten schools in terms of endowment; within $2M of the fifth-rated school. The rapid increase in the size of the endowment will help to improve outdated facilities, such as the Music Building, which the music department hopes to soon replace with money from its alumni fundraising program.

Residential College for Arts and Humanities
In 2007, Michigan State University will accept its first class of students for the Residential College for Arts and Humanities (RCAH). The program will offer approximately 600 undergraduates (150 students per undergraduate class) the opportunity to examine the liberal, visual and performing arts in an integrative and broad-focused manner, while creating an individualized curriculum that allows students to draw from the vast resources of MSU. While all students in the program will graduate with the same degree, only the first year programs and the broad MSU distribution requirements are mandatory for graduation. Double-majoring is encouraged, through "pathways" that include such combinations as Art and Public Life, Childhood and Society, or Art Education.

Accompanying the academic structuring of the new college will be a complete renovation of Snyder-Phillips Hall, one of the oldest residences on campus. It will include a 150-seat multipurpose classroom and performing arts space, a student art gallery, a wireless coffeeshop, music practice rooms, language profiency center (which is part of the RCAH program), and a new dining hall.

MSU College of Law
Michigan State University College of Law is a private law school. Founded in 1891, and originally named Detroit College of Law, the school was the first law school founded in Detroit. Detroit College of Law became affiliated with Michigan State University in 1995 (changing its name to MSU College of Law), and began offering joint degree programs, including JD-MBA and various LLM programs. Students attending MSU College of Law come from 42 states and 13 countries, with applications tripling since affiliating with MSU in 1995. Full-time and part-time (night) students can participate in 8 concentrations, including the Trial Practice Institute. The law school publishes the Michigan State Law Review and several journals.

The first trial practice institute in the United States, the Geoffrey Fieger Trial Practice Institute, started at Michigan State University College of Law with a grant of $4 million from Geoffrey Fieger. The Intellectual Property and Communications Law program is ranked number 1 among law schools in the Big Ten Conference, and number 17 in the United States. In addition, MSU College of Law's Indigenous Law Program offers an Indigenous Law Certificate Program.

Eli Broad College of Business
The Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, ranked 11th among public institutions and 29th nationally by Business Week magazine, offers 3 MBA programs, Full-Time MBA, Weekend MBA, and Executive MBA. The school also offers joint degrees with the law school. There are four departments (Accounting and Information Systems, Finance, Management, and Marketing and Supply Chain Management), and one independent, industry-specific program, The School of Hospitality Business. The school has 4,775 undergraduate students and 776 graduate students.