President Stanley reflects on MSU’s 167 years of “making a difference”

<p>This month Michigan State University marked the 167th year since its establishment by the State of Michigan. From the 63 students, five faculty members, and three buildings on campus when we opened our doors in May 1857, we now enroll almost 50,000 students, boast 5,700 faculty and academic staff and 564 campus buildings. </p><p>“These kinds of anniversaries are helpful in allowing us to take stock of where we're going as an institution,” Stanley says. “The founders would be very pleased with what they saw from Michigan State today. We’re a top-100 ranked global university with half a million degreed Spartans who bleed green in our alumni network around the world. And all 83 counties in Michigan are being served by MSU. Those who envisioned this land grant mission would see it fulfilled on the state level as they wanted, but they would also see the impact MSU has on the national and international level as well through our work. We're taking the mission and working exponentially to expand it to be an institution that touches peoples' lives in so many different dimensions in so many ways.”</p><p>President Stanley talks about recognition for MSU faculty from the <a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2022/record-year-for-spartan-scientists">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a> and the <a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2022/spartan-sloan-research-fellowships-2022">Alfred P. Sloan Foundation</a>. </p><p>“We have outstanding faculty who are really the lifeblood of what we do at MSU.”</p><p>MSU has a new dean of our renowned Lyman Briggs residential college in the sciences, <a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2022/new-lbc-dean-cheruvelil">Kendra Spence Cheruvelil</a>, who has served as interim Dean of Lyman Briggs College since December 2020. </p><p>“Dean Cheruvelil has really made a difference in her interim time and there was extraordinary support in Lyman Briggs for her elevation to the role of dean. She's very much deserving of that. She's an internationally recognized ecology