Michigan State’s Independent Voice
DIVERSITY IN JAMES MADISON Lack of diversity in MSU’s college of public and international affairs presents challenges for students. PAGE 2
SPOTLIGHT
SPORTS
CULTU RE
Women on MSU’s Board of Trustees reflect on their experiences as the 1st female-dominated board
From Lansing to Beijing, Olympic ice dancer Madison Hubbell reflects on her career
Stress, money and LinkedIn subtle-bragging: MSU students talk internship application season
PAGES 4-5
PAGE 6
PAGE 7
T U ES DAY, M A RCH 29, 2022
@THESNEWS
STAT E N EWS.COM
CULT U R E
Lack of diversity in James Madison College presents challenges for students By Amalia Medina Amedina@statenews.com Entering her freshman year, social relations & policy and comparative cultures & politics junior Madison Gladney wasn’t expecting the Michigan State environment to be particularly diverse. She came from a predominantly white high school, and anticipated MSU would be the same. Her expectations were accurate: Gladney, a Black woman, felt outnumbered at MSU. Although the 2020 Census reported the U.S. population is 61.6% white, and the Education Data Initiative reported that 54.3% of college students in the U.S. are white, MSU’s 2020 Diversity Report recorded that white students comprised 73.2% of the student body. The MSU faculty was 78.1% white in 2020. This over-representation affects all students at MSU, but in the James Madison College, or JMC, it plays a larger role. JMC is the college of public and international affairs at MSU. Many of the college’s classes focus on or discuss institutionalized racism, white supremacy and other topics pertaining to race and identity. Gladney said she sometimes feels pressured to speak on behalf of her race, which puts her in an uncomfortable position. “I try to speak at least from my perspective on things because I think the issue with James Madison — and probably MSU, even social science, liberal and history classes as a whole — is white students don’t really realize that these are people’s life experiences when they read about racist things that the United States has done,” Gladney said. “This does not exist in a void.” When Gladney does share her thoughts in class, she tries to make clear that she is offering her own perspective. However, in the context of a white classroom, her experience can be interpreted as representing all Black experiences. Other times, white classmates misinterpret her points or just repeat her comments and pass the ideas off as their own. Comparative cultures & politics sophomore Mena Murrani and international relations and comparative cultures & politics freshman Hanaa Yoo had similar experiences. Murrani sometimes feels as though it is her job to defend her background. “The past topic (in my class) was the Middle East, and I am Middle Eastern, and I think I was the only Middle Eastern woman in there,” Murrani said. “So I felt like I had to kind of defend my ethnicity to a bunch of random people that
I didn’t know. It was just really uncomfortable, especially because you could hear people talking about it, and they’re kind of talking about you, but they’re not talking about you, so you’re just put in a strange place.” Yoo said she uses that as a chance to educate the rest of her class. However, she’s not always met with understanding. When a white professor used what Yoo said was a racial slur in class, she decided to speak to the professor about it, but the professor did not own up to their error and became defensive. From then on, Yoo felt robbed of her security and comfort in the class. The burden of having to educate fellow students falls heavily onto the shoulders of the few students of color in each class, and Yoo said a student of color calling out a white person gets a different response from a white student calling out another white student. “Constantly having to address those things … shouldn’t be placed on the backbone of students of color, because it just makes life so much harder,” Yoo said. “But then you come up with this (thought) like … I know it’s not the best mindset to have, but you live in America, how much is it going to change? You have to deal with it all through your life, and that’s what the opposite of white privilege is, like not having to think about it.” Murrani, Yoo and Gladney said this problem boils down to a lack of diversity in the classrooms. “I think because we don’t have as much representation, the conversations kind of become abstract,” Murrani said. ”We’re theorizing about groups of people we can’t even hear from. Then it’s kind of a dangerous game to play because we could be taking on their voices for them. So, we have to be really careful because we don’t have that representation yet, and we’re not really doing a good job at pulling in that representation.” Despite having read a significant amount of class content from scholars of color, Yoo and Murrani’s professors in JMC classes have all been white. Gladney, two years ahead of them, has taken more classes; thus, she has had a few professors of color in the college. Though a professor’s race may not be an important factor to white students, to these three students and many other students of color, it plays an important role in their education. Yoo said having professors of color helps her feel seen and supported on campus. Additionally, having a professor of color can add an important perspective to the class — which is especially
Michigan State University Chapter of
congratulates the 2022 initiates, who will be inducted into the Society at a ceremony being held in their honor on Saturday, March 26th. Undergraduate Initiates Faith Arnott Bella Bankstahl Emily Cohen Matthew Fular Elizabeth Green Eliot Haddad Mika Hirata Macken Keefe Brendan Key Max Knoer Alixandra Krawcke Julia Matalon Ramzee Miller Kathryn OConnell Kaila Pruitt Rishabh Rai Gabrielle Sanchez Zachary Sebree Arnav Sharma Vidhula Srinivasan
Mikayla Stokes Ying Sun Ahnna Swanson Carolyn Taylor Alexandra Travnik Lauren Walkon Graduate Initiates Scott Agrella Kate Alexander Benjamin Armour Ahmed Atwa Kasandra Barrow Jennifer Biggar Emily Bowen Brittany Brewer Elaina Burress Samantha Campbell Rachel Carson Brandi Drent
Tracy Edwards Benjamin Fairbotham Kandis Ferdinand Anne Frank Raneen George Mark Gittman Phoebe Gohs Joshua Hall Alexa Hardy Ursula Heder Steven Holmes Diane Huhn Traci Husse Nikolay Ivanov Cara Jacob Mona Jahani Katherine Johnson Yolanda Koszela Archie Lidey Jessica Lundy Alaa Makke
Goheth Siddanth Motamarri Annisa Ratri Ramya Ravi Christina Richard Michael Serikow Sarah Shell Sufwan Shtawi Jordan Sousa Kevin Sullivan Vanessa Sullivan Sarah Swarthout Kaitlin Tang Ann Taylor April Townsend Kyle Tyburski Heidi Walker Bradford Weeman Tatiana Wypych Qijia Ye Bobicheng Zhang Aaron Zynda
Faculty, Administration, Alumni Initiates Susi Elkins Carolina Restini Award Recipients Excellence Award in Interdisciplinary Scholarship Sustainable Climate, Agriculture, Landscapes, and Energy (SCALE) Graduate Fellowship Nominee Eliot Haddad
Founded in 1897, the primary objective of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is the recognition and encouragement of character, who have excelled in scholarship, that others will be stimulated to similar goals of excellence.
2
T HE STAT E NEWS
TU ESDAY, MA RCH 29, 2022
James Madison College sign directing to Case Hall on March 24. The Hall holds much of the coursework for James Madison, Michigan State’s college of public affairs. Photo by Jared Osborne
important in JMC when classes discuss race. Comparative cultures and politics assistant professor Sejuti Das Gupta is one of JMC’s professors of color, and while she has seen the numbers of non-white faculty growing in the college since her hiring in 2017, those professors — especially the female professors — often carry additional responsibilities. “The one thing that I certainly have realized over the period of time is that when you have students of color, when they tend to go through issues, which can be both personal and professional … they tend to come much more often to faculty (members) of color, and we do carry that extra work that we do,” Das Gupta said. “It is a very important thing to do for the college also because that’s something that in turn helps retain those students. Learning is, of course, in the classroom, but it is also about feeling like you belong to the community. So, in that sense, we do play a crucial role in connecting the students to the community.” Das Gupta served on the College Inclusion Committee, or CIC, which has been considering ways to compensate professors for these additional hours. She tries to make her classroom comfortable for students of color and is receptive to their feedback. She recalled one of her first classes in which one of the few students of color had to defend their talking point to their white peers. Das Gupta realized that a student was carrying a disproportionate burden of having to educate the class. The next time she taught the course, she added required videos based on that student’s viewpoint. Operating a classroom like this can create a healthier environment for all students, and it can help retain students of color in the college. To improve retention rates, many students of color are actively trying to improve the JMC experience for each other. For Murrani, this meant signing up to be an intercultural aid to serve as a live-on aid for students of color next year. “You get to talk to people like yourself and kind of create a safe community, especially in such an uncomfortable place,” Murrani said. “We’re basically taking care of each other as communities of color. … We kind of have to stick together and
take care of each other to build each other up.” For Gladney, joining the W.E.B. DuBois Society has allowed her to feel a sense of community and to have an active role in changing the JMC environment. Gladney serves as the W.E.B. DuBois Society’s student representative on the CIC. As a representative, Gladney helped create JMC’s reading consultancy to help students from different educational backgrounds with their classwork. These actions have helped JMC students of color as well as white students, but there is still work to be done. JMC Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, Brian Johnson said much of the work is in the hands of the two DEI planning groups: the CIC and another committee established by JMC’s Strategic Planning Committee. The college is still in its early stages of developing a strategic plan, but for the past few years, the CIC has been working on the college’s DEI strategic plan. That plan is being edited, and then it will be shared with the college for feedback, followed by final edits. CIC Chair Mark Axelrod said the plan focuses on diversifying the student body, faculty and staff, considering curriculum opportunities across the four majors in the college, and continuing to strengthen the college’s inclusion. Because JMC’s curriculum seeks to challenge students to explore topics and perspectives that many shy away from, Johnson said some will inevitably feel uncomfortable. However, he continued, the college must find more ways to offer students and faculty the tools to better navigate these conversations, helping to prevent people from feeling uncomfortable or ostracized. By creating experiences where people learn to do better, they can be better, he said. “Our priority is to serve all students interested in pursuing a James Madison education,” Johnson said in a written statement. “The strengths of the college come from the people who make up this institution. We are stronger when we have greater representation. That is always the goal. … There is always work to be done to create more inclusive spaces. I am excited for the possibilities that lie ahead here at JMC; we will continue to engage students, faculty and staff and alumni to be active participants in DEI-positive initiatives.”
Vol. 112 | No. 15
TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Karly Graham MANAGING EDITOR Jayna Bardahl COPY CHIEF SaMya Overall
CITY EDITOR Griffin Wiles
CONTACT THE STATE NEWS
CULTURE EDITOR Noah Edgar
NEWSROOM/CORRECTIONS (517) 295-5149 feedback@statenews.com
SPORTS EDITOR Eli McKown
GENERAL MANAGER Christopher Richert
CAMPUS EDITOR Wendy Guzman
MULTIMEDIA EDITORS Devin Anderson-Torrez, Rahmya Trewern
DESIGN Maddie Monroe Madison Echlin
SOCIAL MANAGER Stephanie McCullum
COVER: Michigan State James Madison junior Madison Gladney walking down the halls of James Madison College on March 24. Photo by Jared Osborne
Michigan State celebrates their win after the game ended due to the mercy rule. The Spartans shut out the Chippewas, 8-0, in a six-inning game on March 22. Photo by Lauren DeMay
The State News @thesnews
@statenews
@thesnews
FE E DBACK@STAT E N EWS.COM
The State News
T U ES DAY, MARC H 29, 2022
(517) 295-1680
ADVERTISING M-F, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The State News is published by the students of Michigan State University every other Tuesday during the academic year. News is updated seven days a week at statenews.com. State News Inc. is a private, nonprofit corporation. Its current 990 tax form is available for review upon request at 435 E. Grand River Ave. during business hours. One copy of this newspaper is available free of charge to any member of the MSU community. Additional copies $0.75 at the business office only. Copyright © 2022 State News Inc., East Lansing, Michigan
@statenews
STATEN EWS.CO M
3
SPOT L IG H T
WOMEN OF T Women on Michigan State’s Board of Trustees reflect on their experiences as the 1st female-dominated board
By Maddy Warren and Morgan Womack mwarren@statenews.com | mwomack@statenews.com
Photo by Sheldon Krause
Photo by Devin Anderson-Torrez
DIANNE BYRUM
Board of Trustees Chair Dianne Byrum was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2016. Before her election, Byrum served as a state legislator in the house and senate for over a decade. She also served as the Michigan House Democratic Leader, making her the first woman to lead a caucus in the state. In 2021, Crain’s Detroit Business named Byrum one of the most influential women in Michigan. “I think my service on the board has been some of the most difficult and also rewarding service in my career,” Byrum said. “I came from many years as an elected official, so my adult career has been in public service.” As a Michigan State alumna, Byrum said her service on the board is motivated by the ability to give back and ensure others have the same opportunities she did. “Attending and graduating from Michigan State really changed the trajectory of my life,” Byrum said. “It created a lot of opportunities that opened a lot of doors for me that otherwise would not have been there had I not had that opportunity to go to Michigan State. So for me, it’s giving back, making sure that those opportunities are still available for others to follow.”
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Byrum said she always encourages women to take risks, including seeking positions of power. “Take the risk, open the door and walk through it because you don’t know where that path is going to go,” Byrum said. “Even if you’re not successful, yet, you will be the beneficiary of having taken that risk, because new opportunities, new doors will open for you.”
4
T HE STAT E NEWS
MELANIE FOSTER
Trustee Melanie Foster was first appointed to the Board of Trustees in 1991. She also previously served on the Central Michigan University Board of Trustees. Foster transitioned into working for her family’s landscaping and farm business after her dad passed away when she was 15 years old. She grew the business into a commercial landscape contracting business, completing projects with places like Walt Disney World, FedEx and downtown Detroit’s Renaissance Center. “I was a bit of a trailblazer,” Foster said. “There weren’t many commercial landscape contracting firms that women ran, especially of the size of my company.” As current chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, Foster feels her business background transferred well to her position. “Being a business person who had to adhere to budgets (and) to bring in multimillion-dollar projects on time and within budget, make payroll, gave me a skillset, particularly, to chair the Budget and Finance Committee here,” Foster said.
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Foster said although society has made great strides with putting women in positions of power, there’s still work to be done. “Believe in yourself,” Foster said. “Network as much as you can. Never stop being inquisitive.”
TU ESDAY, MA RCH 29, 2022
Photo by Devin Anderson-Torrez
RENEE KNAKE JEFFERSON
Renee Knake Jefferson was appointed to the board in 2019 to complete former Trustee Nancy Schlichting’s term after Schlichting resigned. Jefferson is a professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. Prior to her time at the University of Houston, Jefferson spent over a decade at MSU, where she received tenure at the College of Law and taught at the Eli Broad College of Business and Honors College. “I was a faculty member at Michigan State for a decade,” Jefferson said. “It’s very different to be a part of Michigan State on this side of things, and so I’ve found that to be rewarding, especially when, as a trustee, I can sort of behind-the-scenes, ask questions or connect to people and make something happen. I call it like my trustee superpower.” Serving on the board with incredible women is very inspiring, Jefferson said. “I think something that’s really special about our Board of Trustees that we have — not just that it’s a majority of women, but that the women are all very diverse in our perspectives and our backgrounds and in terms of what led us to our place on the board,” Jefferson said. “We don’t always agree and that’s okay.”
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Jefferson said women should put themselves out there for a new position or new role, regardless of whether they get it. “You may or may not get it, but you want to make sure that you have learned something; that you come out on the other side better than before, that you’re growing in that process,” Jefferson said. Jefferson also advised women to not wait until they think they’re qualified for a position. “Go get it and in doing it, you’ll become qualified for it,” Jefferson said.
S POT L I G H T
THE BOARD Prior to January 2021, the Michigan State Board of Trustees never had a female-dominated board. Now, six of the eight trustees are women, each with a diverse background.
Photo courtesy of the Board of Trustees office
BRIANNA SCOTT
Brianna Scott was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2019. She founded the first African-American and female law firm in Muskegon in 2005. During her experience working in the Muskegon County prosecutor’s office, she worked on neglect, abuse and criminal sexual conduct cases. Scott came onto the board when there was turmoil and turnover due to conflicts with the Larry Nassar investigation. She now serves as chair of the board’s Student Life and Culture Committee. “I came in and it was like fire from the first meeting,” Scott said. “I’m just now feeling like things are settling down and that we’re really getting into being able to not just react, but now be proactive in things that we can do to make the campus and our community safer, a better place for one and for all.” Scott said having a majority-female board with Byrum as chair created a paradigm shift. “As women, we really started to understand the power that we wield,” Scott said. “Also understanding that collectively, we all had a very common desire to make sure that women were heard, we were valued and that our feelings were not just put to the side.” She said each of the female trustees hold different strengths and perspectives. “None of us were the pushovers,” Scott said. “I think that kind of rocked the boat a little bit and people had to get used to the fact that women are coming in and we are demanding to be heard and to be respected.”
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Scott advises women to follow their passions and use their talents to make a change. “We’re ushering in change, and with that, things will be uncomfortable,” Scott said. “But don’t shy away just because you’re rocking the boat or things are uncomfortable. That tends to be where you see the most effective change.”
This Women’s History Month, campus reporters Maddy Warren and Morgan Womack sat down with the women on the board to hear about their experiences serving in positions of power.
Photo by Sheldon Krause
Photo by Sheldon Krause
KELLY TEBAY
Kelly Tebay was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2019. She is also a senior aide for the U.S. House of Representatives. She was drawn to run for the board when MSU was dealing with the Nassar investigation. “As leaders, this happened on (our) watch,” Tebay said. “That really upset me, watching an institution that I love so much go through this painful experience and the leadership really just not recognizing what they needed to do at the time.” As a survivor of sexual assault herself, Tebay applies her personal experience to advocate for creating more resources for survivors and puts a focus on student health and wellness. She said having diverse representations of age, race and gender on the board can provide different perspectives. “I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I find myself apologizing for it a lot, but I also feel like that is a perspective and a sort of uniqueness that (the board) hasn’t experienced,” Tebay said. “For many generations, that’s seen as a negative and I think that it can also be seen as a strength.”
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Tebay said there is still a culture of women in positions of power not being listened to. She encourages other women to listen to their gut and continue to ask questions. “We shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions and question why things are done a certain way,” Tebay said. “Make sure you’re always keeping your eyes opened at opportunities as they come.”
REMA VASSAR
Trustee Rema Vassar was elected in 2020 and has served on the board for just over a year. She is currently an associate professor in the College of Education at Eastern Michigan University. Vassar also served in K-12 public education for over 20 years. “Although we are in an institution of higher education, where patriarchy is still an issue, ... my colleagues are women who think intently about what it means to be a woman in these spaces,” Vassar said. “I haven’t had any negative issues in terms of being a woman, I’ve only felt empowered.”
ADVICE FOR WOMEN
Vassar said she does not think of power in the traditional form, but rather, as a distributed, shared construct that allows for more voices to be heard. “Women are not necessarily coming to get power, but they’re coming to share power, which has not been normally what happens in these spaces,” Vassar said. “Getting other women into leadership roles is so critical.” Vassar added there is still work to be done in terms of women serving in positions of leadership, and that society will have evolved when articles on Women’s History Month are not necessary. “As long as there’s been civilization, there’s been women,” Vassar said. “There would not be civilization without women. So, the idea that we have to spotlight women means that we have so much work to do still.”
T U ES DAY, MA RCH 29, 2022
STATEN EWS.CO M
5
SPO RTS
From Lansing to Beijing, APPLY TO BE THE FUTURE Olympic ice dancer Madison EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Hubbell brings home the bronze FALL 2022-SPRING 2023 If you’re an MSU student with a desire to lead an organization of 50+ staffers, are an agent of change and describe yourself as a news junkie, then The State News Board of Directors would like to talk to you. We’re looking for someone who has visionary thinking, strong organizational skills and an ability to communicate with diverse groups of people around MSU and East Lansing.
Experience at The State News is not a requirement but proven leadership is.
Apply today at statenews.com/enc Deadline for applications Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 5 pm Interviews will be Friday, April 22, 2022 | 1-3pm
Art by Madison Echlin
By Jenna Malinowski Jmalinowski@statenews.com Olympic ice dancer Madison Hubbell just finished her career at the 2022 Beijing Winter Oly mpics. She, alongside partner Zachary Donohue, took home the bronze medal in the pairs ice dancing event and placed second in the team event with the rest of Team USA. Before she was an Olympian, Hubbell was born in Lansing and raised in Okemos. She got her start at the Lansing Skating Club. “I had kind of a fairytale childhood, to be honest,” Hubbell said. “I had two older brothers, and I started skating when I was five years old, but nobody in my family had any experience with ice. I just had seen it on TV, and so I started at five at Lansing Skating Club and right away found my little group of friends, my community, my skating coach.” It quickly became clear she would go far in the skating world, causing her to choose homeschooling at an early age. After skating in the morning, she would follow her parents to work to complete her school work. Her mom owned a rubber stamp shop, while her dad owned a comic book store in the downtown Lansing area. Because of her Lansing upbringing, Hubbell figured she would follow in her parents’ footsteps and attend Michigan State to pursue a degree in forensic pathology. However, instead of college, Hubbell continued to train for her eventual goal of competing at the Olympics. She got her first taste of pairs ice dancing by competing with her brother Keiffer Hubbell. After a while, he decided to 6
retire and they officially ended their partnership in 2011. It was time for Madison Hubbell to find someone new to skate with. The choice was clear, just maybe not to her. Donohue was her rival, as they had previously competed against each other for Team USA with different partners, but their coaches saw something the two of them didn’t. “He came to the rink where I was training which at that time was in Detroit, and he walked in,” Hubbell said. “I did not want to try out with him because he was my rival. I was not ready to skate with anyone except my brother, and our coaches kind of forced it. I think they knew that we would be a good match for each other.” Quickly, it became clear to both of them their coaches made the right decision, and the beginning of an Olympic partnership was born. “We had both competed internationally,” she said. “The selection of who to skate with is already quite slim, and then when we started skating together, it’s true that our styles suited each other, so, at that point, we knew pretty quickly and in a matter of days, we made the decision to start the journey.” He r pa r t ne r sh ip w it h D onohue i sn’t t he on ly relationship Hubbell formed through ice dancing. She is currently engaged to Spanish ice dancer Adrián Diaz, with plans to tie the knot this summer. The two met due to their involvement in the tightknit figure skating community. “It’s like this small little group,” Hubbell said. “It’s very common that around
T H E STAT E N EWS
your mid-20s, you’re looking for more serious relationships. You say, ‘I’m not going to settle down with a skater,’ and, ‘I’ll find somebody outside of the skating world,’ and then almost all of us end up finding someone within our own world.” Diaz also competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympic games in February, making for a memorable trip for the couple. “We’re each other’s biggest cheerleader, and it was a really big goal for us to be at the Olympics together,” Hubbell said. “He did the Olympics in 2014 and then he was trying to make it as well in 2018, and he didn’t qualify so it was really hard to leave for the airport and leave him behind, so to be able to travel together in those three weeks be there together, and he also skated really phenomenally so it was a great way to finish my career.” Hubbell plans to stay in the figure skating world, taking on the more creative side of the sport, despite entering retirement. “For the very near future, I am going to be doing a lot of shows,” she said. “We’ll start our tour, ‘Stars on Ice,’ in midApril, and we go to 24 cities including several in Michigan. ... That’s kind of the plan is to continue doing shows as long as we can, experience what it is to perform with no rules, with no judges and enjoy that side of it.” Of course, Hubbell also has a wedding to plan. She and Diaz plan to marry in Spain this upcoming summer. While they both have busy schedules with their ice dancing commitments, the pair couldn’t be more excited to plan the ceremony and enter this next stage of their lives together.
TUES DAY, M ARC H 29, 2022
CU LT U R E
STRESS, MONEY AND LINKEDIN SUBTLE-BRAGGING: MSU STUDENTS TALK INTERNSHIP APPLICATION SEASON By Lily Guiney Lguiney@statenews.com Supply chain management junior Grace Clark applied for six internships this semester — all of them offered her a position. Despite clear success, she still didn’t feel like she was on the right track compared to her peers in MSU’s Broad College of Business. “At the beginning of this process, opening my LinkedIn was very scary,” Clark said. “I felt pretty behind accepting an offer in the spring semester when all of my friends in Broad and my peers have been accepting offers since September.” Clark will complete a demand planning internship at Hershey in fall 2022, and she said she’s happy with where she ended up in spite of the stress it caused her along the way. Her experience of applying and interviewing for several internships at a time is standard for many MSU students who attend hiring fairs or other job placement opportunities on campus. The anxiety and self-comparison which accompanies the experience is also a common trend. This isn’t an issue isolated to students in one area of study. According to MSU’s Career Services Network, 75% of undergraduate students will complete internships before graduation. Several programs at MSU require completion of an internship, or ‘field experience,’ in order to graduate. While some students begin the internship application process as early as November or December of the year prior to the actual job window, spring semester is recognized by many as “internship season.” Clark said the added stress of internship applications on top of her course load led her to fall behind in her schoolwork.
“It’s also pretty time intensive — I had a bunch of rounds of interviews, and to balance that during school is pretty difficult,” Clark said. “I did not focus as much on schoolwork as I should have during that time period. I secured the internship that I wanted, so it did pay off, I’m just playing a little bit of catch up in school now.” International relations sophomore Kyle Korte echoed these sentiments. “I had two different appointments with a JMC career consultant, and those are all half-hour appointments,” Korte said. “That plus the time I put in outside of that working on cover letters, resume, writing samples that I submitted. It probably took five or six hours over the course of a week. So it definitely was very stressful trying to get all that in and meet the deadline for the application.” After submitting several applications and being reassured by a career consultant that he was a competitive applicant, Korte said he hasn’t heard back from any of the places he applied. “I feel a lot of pressure to have an internship because I do see a lot of people, even just my friends, casually talking about themselves applying and their processes,” Korte said. “And when they do get internships, it definitely makes me feel like I’m a little bit behind.” The rise in the usage of apps like LinkedIn encourages students to post about their professional achievements, leading to an influx of social media posts in the spring months announcing summer plans for exciting job opportunities at sought-after companies or organizations. Political theory and constitutional democracy junior Rachel Vinarcik said she often experienced feelings of inadequacy when looking at her peers’ LinkedIn posts announcing their
summer plans. “I feel like I can’t go on LinkedIn without seeing ‘I just accepted this position for spring or this one for summer, ... or I work on this, this and this,’” Vinarcik said. “And I feel like people are pretty supportive about trying to find a job because we all kind of get that it’s tough, but at the same time, there’s definitely an underachiever complex.” Adding to the stress of finding an internship itself is the fact that many of the jobs offer little or no pay. According to a database of American undergraduate jobs compiled by Chegg Internships, around 60% of internships offered to undergraduates are paid, and only 59% of internship employers offer any sort of housing assistance for students who relocate for their summer jobs. The prevalence of unpaid internships often makes them exclusionary to low-income or first-generation students who may not have the financial means to relocate for a job that pays less than many retail or food service positions. Vinarcik said her job search was constrained by unpaid openings, and the corporate government affairs internship she accepted for the summer wasn’t exactly what she was hoping for. “There were a bunch of jobs that I like ‘Oh my gosh, this is like my dream internship,’ and then I clicked on it and it’s unpaid,” she said. “It’s like, well, can I afford moving somewhere? Can I afford living and all these expenses if I’m not being paid?” In the midst of job-hunting many students find themselves stressed, but don’t provide as much attention to their mental health as they would academics or student life. “If I would have had someone being like, ‘Here, it’s going to be okay. Just don’t stress. Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,’ that would have been really helpful,” Vinarcik said.
VOTE FOR THIS YEAR’S EAST LANSING FAVORITES VOTING IS NOW OPEN! STATENEWS.COM/BESTOF
BEST OF 2022
T U ES DAY, MA RCH 29, 2022
STATEN EWS.CO M
7
BEST PROVISIONING CENTER
WWW.PUREOPTIONS.COM @pureoptionscannabis FRANDOR • LANSING SOUTH • LANSING NORTH • LANSING EAST • MT. PLEASANT • MUSKEGON
8
T HE STAT E NEWS
TU ESDAY, MA RCH 29, 2022