Living, shopping, eating — MSU’s best, named by you
Force behind MSU dance program takes final bow
Neal prepares to represent MSU in gymnastics NCAA
SECTION B
FEATURES, PAGE 5A
SPORTS, PAGE 6A
Weather Partly cloudy High 39° | Low 25° Michigan State University’s independent voice | statenews.com | East Lansing, Mich. | Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Three-day forecast, Page 2
H E A LT H
A D M I N I S T R AT I O N
Don’t sweat: Spring fever experts give tips to focus
$24.5 MILLION GRANT TO MSU FOR SOLUTION FOR HUNGER
By Darcie Moran
By Samantha Radecki
morandar@msu.edu
radeckis@msu.edu
THE STATE NEWS
THE STATE NEWS
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With spring in the air and about 20 days of classes left until exams, experts said students can be their own worst enemy when it comes to finishing off the semester well if they check out early. Whether spring fever is causing distractions from studying or the pressure of grades is weighing students down, nationally recognized clinical psychologist Nancy Berk said there are tactics students can use to keep their head in the game without getting overwhelmed. “It’s important to recognize the potential for it because it allows you to prepare for it and take steps to avoid the problem,” said Berk, author of “College Bound and Gagged: How to Help Your Kid Get into a Great College without Losing Your Savings, Your Relationship, or Your Mind” and blogger for USA Today College and The Huffington Post. “When you have spring fever and the weather’s beautiful, everyone goes out … It gives you that vacation feel that makes it tempting to put off some of your pressing obligations.” She added that at the other end of the spectrum, students might feel extremely stressed because it’s the time of year when big decisions, such as summer employment and majors, must be made. Economics professor Steven Haider said springtime can bring a heavy amount of stress for students attempting to improve low grades, but said even if students don’t have enough time to bring grades up, it’s important to keep things in perspective. “It’s not about a college term, it’s about a college career,” Haider said. “If you See SPRING on page 2 X
time. “People got the idea, ‘Here’s a place to send those damn comics that I’ve had in my attic,’” Scott said. “We made a lot of enemies of the kids because their mothers sent us their comics.” Today, the collection is the biggest in the world, according to Scott. It features about 250,000 comics, and 6 million newspaper comic strips, mostly because of Scott’s dedication to enlarging it. Scott now works as assistant head of Special Collections at MSU Libraries. “I’m always begging,” he said. “I beg people for donations, and I beg my bosses for more money. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Mostly, it works.”
Scott took the position of assistant head of Special Collections in 1992, but he’s had an interest in comics since he was a kid. Scott started working at Curious Book Shop in 1970, where he became interested in science-fiction novels. Curious Book Shop owner Ray Walsh said Scott was his first employee. “He sorted comic books and did retail sales,” Walsh said. “We basically winged it and figured out what was a fair price on things.” Scott left Curious Book Shop in 1973 to work as a typist for MSU’s Main Library. Back then, the Comic Art Collection was a mere 6,000 comics and were from the 1960s, donated by a professor
Yesterday, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, announced and awarded MSU researchers $24.5 million toward the USAID’s MSU-led Feed the Future Innovation Lab for its international research on grain legumes and sustainability. Horticulture professor Irvin Widders, the director of the Legume Innovation Lab at MSU, said his lab works with other universities across the country and the world to find solutions for hunger — and one of their solutions is grain legumes. He said grain legumes, such as kidney beans and black-eyed peas, are a protein and nutrient-rich food source that are cost effective to grow and harvest. Widders said grain legumes are very important crops for smallscale farmers in underdeveloped rural and urban areas in some African and Latin American countries. “It’s a crop that is fundamentally grown by poor working families,” he said. “Rural women in poverty find themselves locked in poverty — a vicious cycle — and beans can provide a way that can tangibly benefit them.” The research lab, formerly known as the Dry Grain Pulses Collaborative Research Support Program, is involved in Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, Nicaragua and Haiti, among other African and Latin American countries, he said. The entire project will fund at least 12 sub-projects, ranging from developing more climate-resilient plants to distribute to farmers, and conducting nutritional research involving how grain legumes
Expanding strips
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K ATIE STIEFEL/THE STATE NEWS
Comic art bibliographer Randy Scott poses for a photo Thursday at the Main Library. The library is home to one of the largest library collection of comic books in the world.
Collection of Dedication
One man’s dedication has taken MSU comic books into one of the world’s largest collections By Omari Sankofa II sankofao@msu.edu THE STATE NEWS ■■
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andy Scott always had loved comic books. As a typist for the Main Library in 1974, he spent his lunch hours volunteering at the library’s Comic Art Collection, which only had 6,000 comics at that time. After the first edition of Spider-Man was stolen, Scott swung into action. Despite tracking the comic to Curious Book Shop, 307 E. Grand River Ave., it was too late — the comic had been sold and there were no markings to identify it as a part of MSU’s collection.
The experience convinced Scott and Special Collections to create a stamp for the comics — preventing another incident from happening again. It also convinced Scott to go to graduate school before returning to the Comic Art Collection and seeking a larger role. In 1980, a library trustee found out the library had received a donation of 1,000 comic books. But the library initially was reluctant to promote the growing collection. “The library wanted to keep it on the down-low because they weren’t too sure that the world would approve of comics in a formal, academic library,” Scott said. Eventually, the library sent out a press release that reached newspapers across the country. From there, things blossomed. The department sometimes received tens of thousands of comics at a
More online …
To see an interactive graphic of the comic book collection, visit statenews.com.
Next two weeks celebrate graduate, professional students By Robert Bondy bondyrob@msu.edu THE STATE NEWS ■■
A week devoted to recognizing graduate and professional students kicked off yesterday with the Council of Graduate Students, or COGS, rolling out numerous events to recognize graduate students. Free MSU Dairy Store ice cream and cooking demonstration are a few of the events COGS is providing to graduate and professional students, which include students earning their doctoral or medical degrees. “There’s a whole range of different things that will be going on, so we’re very excited about that,” COGS President Stefan Fletcher said. Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week runs as a national event from April 1-5 , with universities showing their gratitude for the services graduate and professional students provide. The event was created by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students.
PHOTOS BY K ATIE STIEFEL/THE STATE NEWS
Corporate Chef Kurt Kwiatkowski shows graduate students the proper way to roast a red pepper Monday at the McDonel Hall Community Kitchen. It is national Graduate Student Appreciation Week until April 5.
While events at a national level run until Friday, the event will extend until April 11 at MSU, COGS Director of Event Planning Lexi MacMillan said. “We put in a lot of work into this year’s (event),” MacMillan said. “We were just trying to come up with almost as much as we could for the next two
weeks.” Fletcher said this year will have more activities for students to engage in, deciding to more than double last year’s five days of celebrations. The decision to add more activities and giveaways to the event was made after Fletcher took a trip to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to take
Corporate Chef Kurt Kwiatkowski places ingredients into a food processor on Monday at the McDonel Hall Community Kitchen. Free cooking lessons were provided to graduate students.
part in their graduate student appreciation week festivities. “I met with my counterparts out there and really saw that they had put on a stellar offering,” Fletcher said. “COGS hadn’t really done much before for that week, so really we’ve been the last couple years (stepping) up our game.” For graduate student Rui
More online …
To see a list of events for graduate and professional students throughout the next two weeks, visit statenews.com.
Chen , the appreciation week is something he plans to fi nally take advantage of after four years of not doing so and is excited to get out of the lab for some fun. “I’m defi nitely really hon-
ored,” Chen said at the appreciation week’s opening cooking event. “It’s a change in the environment (and is) something fun so we’re not always in our data or experiments.”