MSU President Stanley’s November 2021 Spartan Community Letter

MSU Today with Russ White

Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D.

“Well, thank you so much, Russ. Happy holidays to you and everybody listening out there. And I hope it's a very restful and peaceful one for all of us.”

The most important thing we do at this university is educate our students. And Michigan State University's graduation rate is up for the seventh straight year. The rate for first time, full-time students entering MSU in 2015 increased from 81.3% last year to 82.1% this year. What's significant about that, and what does that six-year graduation rate indicate?

“It's very significant and something we really should celebrate on campus. It really represents the work of an extraordinary number of people who are very dedicated to seeing that number increase. And just to put it in perspective, even though that's 0.8% increase, that's about 53 students. That means there are 53 more students who graduated from MSU who wouldn't have graduated if they'd entered at another point in time who are going to get that MSU degree, go out into the world and make a difference and have lifetime earnings that are about a million dollars higher than students who don't complete a college degree.

“So, from the state's point of view and from a human endeavor and potential point of view, it's wonderful to get students through and help them graduate. We've had a very steady ascent on this. We do much better than would be anticipated in terms of our graduation rates. They’re higher than one might predict based on the GPAs and SATs and ACTs of students coming in. We make a point of really helping students get through. And I'm very excited about it. I think that's the good news. And we are seeing those increases for all students. So all of our students showed an increase in graduation rates. No students have been left behind.

“The one challenge we still have, and we talk about it a lot in our strategic plan, is to narrow gaps between groups. Because we still have groups, for example Pell eligible students, who are graduating at lower rates than non-Pell eligible students. So, we are now laser focused as an institution on narrowing those gaps while at the same time elevating everybody's success. But it just makes a huge difference. And I'm very grateful to all the people who put the hard work in, including the students, of course, who did that great work of continuing and succeeding.”

And sir, we're in the middle of a very enjoyable football season. Tom Izzo's got his group started. But there are some other things happening in our athletic department. The men's water polo club team won the men's collegiate club national championship.

“It's always busy over there and there are always exciting things happening. I'm proud that not only have we been competing, but we've been competing safely. And I just want to give a little shout out to the fans who've been coming to the football and basketball games and thank them for wearing their masks and really following our rules. We have not seen outbreaks of COVID associated with our sporting events. We want to keep that. So I encourage everybody to keep those masks on indoors. Those are our rules on campus. CDC now is advising people do that around the state. So I really appreciate people sticking with the safety. Because we want to be able to enjoy Tom Izzo. We want to be able to enjoy Suzy Merchant's team on the court. And of course we've had some amazing success in football. And I'm very excited about this game coming up on Saturday against Penn State, which will say a lot about our season and our bowl opportunities.

One of the fun parts of everybody coming back to campus is we've been able to experience Michigan State sports. And I do thank you again for reminding me of the tremendous success of our cross country team. Our women's soccer team has had a very good season. There's been a lot of success on the field and on the court. And as we just heard, in the classroom for MSU.”

And there is more support coming from our donors. You recently had the chance to thank Greg and Dawn Williams, who made a generous $10 million commitment for expansion and renovations to the Tom Izzo Football Building.

“And how fun it is to say that: the Tom Izzo Football Building? Everyone knows Coach Izzo is such an incredible fan of football. And of course, he's had great success in the basketball program, which other people have supported very much as well. Yeah, I really thank our donors. They've really been stepping up. I think we're going to set some records or come close to it in terms of athletic donations for this year. And again, I think people are really recognizing that sports are something that really unites the university and can bring us together in some very important ways.”

And to get a little bit more serious for a minute, sir, the October 29th campus disappearance of visiting student Brendan Santo gained widespread notice and led to questions and concerns from students and others in our community. MSU Vice President for Public Safety and Chief of Police Marlon Lynch and Senior Vice President for Student Life and Engagement Vennie Gore held a town hall recently, which can be viewed on the MSU Student Affairs and Services YouTube page. What came out of the town hall? And what would you like people to know right now about campus safety?

“My heart goes out to the family of Brandan and their efforts to return him. And our efforts to return him to the family have been paramount in our mind from the beginning. This is something where tremendous resources have been devoted both by the police on our campus and external support from other agencies like the FBI. People from Grand Valley have been coming to help. Citizens have been coming on weekends to look. There's been a concerted effort to find Brandan and return him. I think at this point in time, I want people to know that we believe the campus to be safe. There's no evidence that this was foul play and the law authorities have been very clear on this. We want to focus on returning him to his family right now but also be aware of ways in which we make campus more secure.

“One of the things that's brought up is the fact that we did have a camera that wasn't working at Yakeley Hall at the time. That's been reported. We wanted to make sure that we now have spares available and can really deal with the cameras that are out of service in a more rapid way. As everyone has learned, we're adding 300 additional cameras to the campus to help improve security there. But overall, I believe it is a safe campus. There are things we should do and continue to work for continuous improvement in that area. It's very important to us going forward.”

President Stanley, what are the plans related to COVID for next semester?

“It would be nice if I could tell you that COVID was going away, and I thought we'd have no cases coming into spring. But this is a disease that continues to be resilient, if you will, in terms of its ability to stay among us. Part of that is based on vaccination. P...