Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.
You're listening to the Spartan orientation station on Impact eighty nine FM, the podcast by students for students. Now this week's episode.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Spartan orientation station. My name is Andrew, and I'm a student coordinator with new student orientation majoring in political science prelaw and history.
Speaker 3:And I'm Jonah, also a student coordinator here at NSO, and I'm majoring in advertising management.
Speaker 2:Today, we're here with Carissa and Corey from La Casa.
Speaker 3:Could you guys start off by introducing yourselves and your roles in La Casa?
Speaker 4:I guess I'll go first. My name is Corey Deans. I am a human resource and Spanish major, and my role at La Casa is DEI chair.
Speaker 5:My name is Kerissa Zarate. I am also a senior here at MSU. I am majoring in Spanish, minoring in and Latino studies, and I am the partnerships chair for La Casa.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well, thank you both for joining us today. What is La Casa, and what makes it unique compared to other living and learning communities here at Michigan State University?
Speaker 5:I would say that La Casa is unique because it is it is completely student led and student developed. It is by students for students. Previously, in the past, La Casa was not able to sustain itself because there was a faculty student disconnect, So now we're hoping that because it is by students, for students, there will be a long sustaining program and that we are able to keep in touch with the students and just keep the program going.
Speaker 4:I think this is really, special because it's a designated space for Spanish learners of all levels, and it brings in a lot of different faculty and outside resources so we can help cultivate, like, holistic learning of the language.
Speaker 5:In addition to that, there is many spaces for Latinx students, Hispanic students. La Casa is special because you don't have to be a native speaker. It's if you're a barely beginning, you're welcome to join La Casa. If you are a native speaker, you're also welcome to join La Casa. It's for everybody, and it's not just for Spanish majors or anything like that.
Speaker 5:It's for anyone who has an interest in Spanish.
Speaker 2:So it's really interesting. You mentioned that it's student led. So you both mentioned your roles at La Casa. Is that sort of like an e board?
Speaker 5:So we like to refer to ourselves more as a working group. We work within four chairs. It's me, myself, Carissa. My, co chairs Corey, Anna, and Abby. And we work under the supervision of Jennifer Gensler.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. So we
Speaker 4:were hired by the Department of Romance and Classical Studies. So we're not a student organization. We're actually, like, employed by the university. On our board, we're allowed to make proposals, and we are overseen by an advisory board.
Speaker 2:But
Speaker 3:yeah. So you mentioned that La Casa is a living learning opportunity. Where on campus is La Casa located?
Speaker 4:La Casa is located, in one of the floors on Shaw.
Speaker 2:Could you talk a little bit about why La Casa was created, and what gap does it aim to fill here at Michigan State?
Speaker 5:So, La Casa existed in the early two thousands but dissolved in 02/2010 when MSU adopted the neighborhood model. In spring twenty twenty four, the Department of Romance and Classical Studies commissioned special specialist adviser, Jennifer Ganzer, to assemble student board to rebuild the program. With guidance from an advisory board and support from campus partners, La Casa plans to open in 2025.
Speaker 4:And I think one of the major gaps that it's helping to eliminate is these silos that exist in the Spanish learning space. Often in this classroom, there's a divide between native or heritage speakers, and people who are learning it as a second language, they rarely interact with each other. And we're really hoping to eliminate that with special interest groups, different activities, so people all learn together.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And there's been, several students that they see that they they don't have a place at MSU campus, and they've reached out to us saying, like, hey. La Casa sounds like a great opportunity for me to find my space. So just us creating spaces for those students is really what we aim for.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a perfect segue into our next question.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Do you have to be fluent in Spanish to participate?
Speaker 4:No. You don't have to be fluent. You can be at a very just pretty much basic beginner level of Spanish, and that's one of the things we're excited about because we know there's a lot of people in engineering and science majors that really don't have time to take on an additional minor, but they do want to improve those skills, and this will give them an opportunity.
Speaker 2:Right. So you mentioned that La Casa is an area where both fluent speakers and then people just trying to learn Spanish can come together, live and learn together. What kinds of events or activities can students expect to have as a part of the community?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So the resident experience would include providing us providing daily experiences for them to practice their language skills. We we have partnerships with crew. We have partnership with partnerships with camp, partnerships with anybody else?
Speaker 4:I think we've worked with a lot of different people across campus, and I think we have, like, support from the residence hall association. So we have members representing them on our advisory board. So I think we'll just have a lot of different a mixed bag of different cultural events, cooking, stuff like that.
Speaker 5:Yeah. We are thinking of a bunch of collaborative events with a bunch of different clubs here on campus, organizations and stuff.
Speaker 3:So for all the students who are interested in everything that La Casa has to offer, how can students get involved or apply to be part of it?
Speaker 4:I think you can explain it best. We do have a lot of social media outreach, if you wanna go ahead. Yeah.
Speaker 5:So a way students students can get involved or apply to be part of La Casa, right now, well, this is, you know, we're recording in April and our applications are still open, and we are still taking students in. But in terms of that, they can start by either following us on on social media or Instagram. They can even join to be part of La Casa, and that's how you can even get more opportunities to be on the board.
Speaker 4:We are hiring new, a new DEI and programming chair for the fall because I'm about to graduate, and one of my other coworkers is about to graduate. So that's another opportunity to get involved.
Speaker 2:So I am, just a little bit curious. You mentioned crew and camp are partnering with La Casa for various events or activities. Could you talk about any other ways that they may be participating in the community?
Speaker 5:Crew and Camp, they provide us with the with the access and resources to, like, the native students. So students that come from all over the states, not just here from Michigan. I know camp students come from Florida, Texas. Giving the students here at MSU an opportunity to hear even those dialects from Florida, from Texas, from California, those are skills that you don't get in an everyday day to day classroom. It's something you can really only get outside of a classroom talking on a contemporary basis with a friend or with a with a peer.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well, thank you. That is really interesting having that different perspective when you're learning the language. It could be really helpful, I feel like, to have that fluent influence or native influence when you're learning. Could you talk a little bit more about the educational aspect of La Casa?
Speaker 2:So how does it look in terms of lecture or maybe different courses that students will be taking if they're in this LLC? Do you think there'll be commonalities among the courses that they're taking here at MSU?
Speaker 4:So one of the things about La Casa is we want it to be a really immersive experience. So using our use of the Spanish language is prioritized within the community, but we also know that not everyone is at the same oral proficiency. And so there won't be directly courses that students are taking, but we want it to be as much of different events and opportunities to connect, like special interest groups. So there might be students who like romance movies, but they'll be watching romance movies in Spanish. And then people are coming together just with that shared interest.
Speaker 4:And so I think we'll also have faculty speakers that'll talk more about their background and anything else.
Speaker 5:We also said that we wanted to keep it away from, like, the not keep it away, but, we wanted to not make it because since you don't have to declare a major to be in La Casa a Spanish major, we also don't have any required courses or anything like that. So it's pretty much just you're learning on a day to day basis with the people you're interacting with every day. I know we mentioned that maybe some years in the future, we could create little, like, interest niche groups on within La Casa, where they like comic books in Spanish, movies in Spanish, just so they can find, you know, some sense of community here at MSU.
Speaker 2:Alright. That's really interesting. Just a very immersive environment overall for language learning. I honestly tried to learn a language in high school, did not have that sort of environment, but I could definitely guess it would have helped. So that is awesome.
Speaker 5:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. And then where can students reach out if they have questions? Do you have social media or a way for students to contact you?
Speaker 5:Yeah. We you can find us on Instagram at la casa m s u. You can email us at lacasallc@msu.edu.
Speaker 4:We do also have a website that's la casa m s u through RCS that has, like, all of our information, mission, vision, values, and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 3:Alright. Well, we wanna thank you for being with us here today. Before you go though, we have one more question. Just what are you most excited for with La Casa opening in fall of twenty twenty five?
Speaker 4:I'm most excited about seeing that something that we created from the ground up and see it being implemented, and most of all, just the diversity of people from different racial, ethnic backgrounds that just all have a passion for learning the language.
Speaker 5:Yeah. In addition to that, I'm also very excited to see students just enjoy these spaces and embrace these spaces that we that we are happy and creating for them. We hope that every student can take advantage of all opportunities La Casa has to offer, all the events, and everything like that.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time here at the Spartan orientation station.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spartan orientation station on Impact eighty nine FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at MSU underscore NSO.