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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. On this week's episode of our living community series, we are featuring James Madison College, also called JMC. JMC is a residential college at Michigan State focused on creating an inclusive learning community that empowers students to pursue equity and justice through public service and civic engagement. Hi. My name is Kirsten, and I am a student coordinator for NSO.
Speaker 2:And I'm one of your hosts today.
Speaker 3:Hello. My name is Mattis. I'm also a student coordinator for NSO, and I'm gonna be your second host today. And today, we're welcoming Joshua from JMC to discuss all things James Madison. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Do you wanna give a quick little introduction?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Thank you for having me. My name is Joshua Smith. Am an MSU alumni, class of 02/2008, stand up. Also, Impact eighty nine alum as well.
Speaker 4:And I am the outreach and recruitment coordinator for James Madison College.
Speaker 2:Great. So what majors and minors are housed in JMC, and what's the difference between them?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Great question. So our four majors are all interdisciplinary in nature. They are social relations and policy, international relations, political theory and constitutional democracy, and comparative cultures and politics. Now, between the four, when we give presentations about our majors, we have a shield that shows how at the base, there's always an element of public affairs.
Speaker 4:Two of our majors are international in nature, quite obviously international relations, and then comparative cultures and politics. Two are domestic, and that's social relations and policy and political theory and constitutional democracy. I'm going to use acronyms from here on out. But when you see some really cool, things in common, SRP and CCP looks at the individual. So with social relations and policy for students who are interested in learning more about power dynamics, identity, justice, social policy and systemic inequality in relation to our history with our American government, they may look at social relations and policy.
Speaker 4:Whereas with comparative cultures and politics, they'll be looking at the individual in terms of culture, globalization and its effects on people, other grassroots movements and postcolonial theory. That's great for students who are interested in global advocacy, transnational movements and other cultural studies. And then if you have students who are really interested in looking at systems, maybe they'll look at PTCD. That's more of your political thought, constitutional justice, liberty, the good intrinsic rights for all citizens. And then for international relations, they're looking at global conflict, diplomacy, the world economy, security on that foreign and systemic international level.
Speaker 3:Wow. That's really interesting. I'm for sure gonna have to check out JMC a little more, especially their majors and minors because I personally haven't explored that much about them yet. But lead kinda leading into new students, are there extra steps to becoming a JMC student, or can you join JMC at any point in your time at MSU?
Speaker 4:So I would say for any prospective students who are listening, it's as simple as choosing James Madison College, no preference, or one of the four majors in your major portal, or the major preference option in your student portal. For those who are perhaps, students in different areas of interest who are current MSU students, it's a little bit trickier, and the main difference is the housing element since we are a residential college. A student can join James Madison College as a primary major after May 1. That's typically handled through new student orientation, and they'll work with one of our specific advisors, Amelia Hammond, who oversees students who are transferring into the department. Essentially, all a student needs to do as a prospective student is apply to MSU.
Speaker 4:And if they're accepted and JMC is their major, they're set to join us in the fall. If they've already been accepted into MSU, once they go through that major change process, which can also take place at any point during their subsequent semesters as freshmen. I've even seen second year students transfer into JMC as well. Typically what we ask for for a first year student who may be interested in joining our major in the second year is that there be a writing equivalent as well as ISS courses.
Speaker 3:As you know, MSU is obviously a huge campus, and you know that there's so many different places that you can live in and so many different neighborhoods. So we kinda wanna talk about what residential hall is JMC located in? Are your classes gonna be in
Speaker 4:the same building? And are there any other resources that are located in this building? So James Madison College in its entirety is housed in Case Hall, which is in South Neighborhood at MSU. Other resources that would be located in Case Hall. On the Third Floor, you have the offices of your deans, so the leadership of the program, your advising staff, your other career services and experiential learning advisors and staff are located there, and the offices of all your faculty, and then most importantly, your classrooms.
Speaker 4:With one exception for any student who has ever taken MC201 knows that because we do not fit a whole lecture hall into Case Hall, we have that class in Wilson, which is you have to be working very hard not to make it to Wilson Hall in less than two or three minutes. So those resources are there. We also have the Reading and Writing Consultancy Center and Math Consultancy Center, which is part of our Learning Lab at JMC. So that's kind of in house tutoring special for our students in those areas. The Reading and Writing Consultancy Center is very important because it's such an integral part of our curriculum, but we also want our students to do well in those areas of math and economics.
Speaker 4:So that was an innovation we were able to add in over the last year. We also have the JMC Express Advising Center, and that's for students who need those more acute advising needs, something that you may not want to wait for, an appointment to have addressed and perhaps rectified, the average wait time for students who use the Express Center would be less than three minutes.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting. So when you're talking to maybe new JMC students or incoming JMC students, what is that one thing that you want every single student to know and take advantage of at their time here at MSU or at their time in JMC?
Speaker 4:Every first year student at James Madison College should visit the Experiential Learning and Career Services office. I see this more as a recruitment and outreach coordinator than I've ever seen or recognized as a student. I think students are a lot more anxious that the major that they're interested in will lead to the career that they want. MSU has a lot of great customization options, both in and outside of James Madison College. And the key to it is taking the classes and building the experiences that reflect that's what you're interested in.
Speaker 4:You may one day see yourself doing sports finance, but if that class doesn't exist at MSU, it doesn't mean that you can't take finance classes and take sports management classes as an example. So the same applies to James Madison College where I think that students who are wondering, How do I become a lawyer? If I want to run for office one day, maybe I want to work for an NGO or a nonprofit, I want to do Peace Corps or something global in nature. The Career Services Department has information on what current students are planning to pursue, what alumni have already pursued, and also the year to year data that we call the Destination Survey that shows where each of our graduates land. And with a placement rate of over ninety percent, we do a really good job, some of the best amongst the university, in helping students find that first job and that first step towards their ultimate career.
Speaker 4:But a lot of our alumni share that their first job was not their dream job, but they saw that as, a stepping stone towards building what they wanted. And sometimes they were really interested in one area, but went into a completely different area of focus because their degree is malleable enough to do so. The experiential learning and the career services, knowing what internships are out there if you want to study abroad, and also knowing where first landing outside of your undergraduate experience will be, I think is really crucial for students to make their own informed decision if JMC is the right place for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. So I know you touched on this earlier, but what does class size look like for JMC students? What does a class structure look like? Is it lecture based?
Speaker 2:Discussion based?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. So outside of MC two zero one, which is anomalous in being the one course that is somewhat situated outside of CASE, although it's next door, think of like taking a class at your next door neighbor's. The majority of our classes are discussion based recitation style classes with that small exception of MC201 being lecture and recitation. Average class size at JMC is 15 to 24 students. This is really meaningful, especially from your first year courses through your senior seminar, just so you're getting a much more knowledgeable feedback, not just in terms of rate, but in terms of quality from your faculty instructors.
Speaker 4:Those classes are also only taught by faculty members with much respect to the work that graduate assistants and teaching assistants do. And we do have teaching assistants in some of our JMC courses, you can rest assured that your recitation will be led by a faculty instructor. And so everything from not just getting feedback on a paper that may be due, but actually coming up with the thesis, coming up with the sources necessary to when you're citing your work in your paper, that smaller class size really helps our students flourish in that regard.
Speaker 3:So I know you talked about you just talked about how, the class sizes and, like, people that will be in the same classes together. But is there a way to get connected with other JMC students if you're not in one of their one of those classes or one of those smaller classes?
Speaker 4:I would say so, and I I think that speaks to the large number of friendships I see with students who are not in the same major but have the same interests. You have some pretty centralized student groups like JMC Student Senate is our our in college student government and advocacy group. But whether that's activism, whether that's affinity groups like such as, Du Bois Society or Latino Leaders in Policy that are not exclusive to James Madison College students, but often led by James Madison College students, there's a lot of overlap where students are connecting based on their interests. I would even say some of institutional work that we do as advisors and in my office where, as it pertains to outreach and recruitment, are also designed to bring together students from different, academic backgrounds, sometimes just they're from different areas and may not even know that the person that they're having a great conversation with existed before that conversation. One of my favorite things is the sheer number of student coordinators that I've had over the last year meeting each other for the first time.
Speaker 4:And sometimes those are juniors meeting other juniors. Sometimes it's juniors mentoring freshmen. We started the Wednesdays with Madison initiative this past year, where just about every Wednesday in the fall and spring semester, we hosted our own JMC sponsored programming. And that was everything from our embrace dialogues, which I personally oversaw, to a JMC trivia night and open mic night. Things like the JMC library session, which was more or less our take on a policy infused tidy desk concert.
Speaker 4:There are so many different things that I would really spend the whole rest of our conversation talking about, how not just students, but also how they connect with faculty and staff members outside of those designated areas. There are a lot of great connections and relationships between faculty and students because both sides give each other a chance to know each other a little bit more personally through some of those, extracurricular event.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So moving kind of back into the academic side, what does advising look like? And do you stick with advisor for your entire time at JMC, or can you kind of bounce around?
Speaker 4:This is a good frequently asked question, and is that, does the person that I got assigned to have to be my sole advisor? So I'll start with that. No. We have an advising team. If one of us is available, you can meet with us.
Speaker 4:We utilize the, student information system, which we all have access to both as students and as advisors, to keep track of notes. So if I meet with a student and another advisor needs context of what a prior conversation looks like or needs to know that information to help better serve the student, there's a record of that. We also do what we call academic progress plans. Plans. So this gets into what does advising look like.
Speaker 4:I will say that every advisor has a unique perspective that affects their advising, or maybe affects not, is not the word, enhances their advising. So Lindsay Snyder is our assistant director of undergraduate affairs. Amelia Hammond is our assistant director of student services. I oversee outreach and recruitment. We have one of the only deans in the university that I know of that has an active advising course load in Jeff Judge, who's our Dean of Student Affairs.
Speaker 4:Abubakar Idris oversees the first year mentoring program and also helps with the consultancy centers. So if you were interested in advising from say a specialist perspective, that kind of breaks down, as well as Lauren, who is our aforementioned experiential learning coordinator, you can kind of know who to see about the specific thing. So for example, if you come to talk to me about study abroad, I can give you entry level information, but Lauren can give you programs specifics. Where my advising maybe comes in hand is that I meet a lot of prospective students before they come to the university, so we already have that established relationship, and I have a sense of where they're from, what they're academically interested in. So in a lot of ways, my specialty is working with first and second year students because I'm used to answering a lot of those questions.
Speaker 4:But we all have expertise in different areas. So whatever the topic is, even with some of the more social emotional things, students come talk to us, but I always give the warning that we are mandatory reporters, which is not something that should be ominous, but more so to let you know that you are safe when you talk to one of us. So that means advisors also have connections with our community director, Caroline Murray, as well as her, residential team at Case Hall. And we're also connected with faculty and leadership. We kind of are the, dot connectors of the college just because we need to know how to serve our students through those advising sessions.
Speaker 4:But that can be anything from class enrollment is a big part of that. We will work with the students who are transferring in and out of the college. We also work with, credit and preparing students for graduation. Sometimes it is coming in and just needing to hear, have an, open ear hear what may be frustrating about anything in and out of the classroom. So advisors, we kind of do everything.
Speaker 4:We are jacks of all trades, but also experts in some areas. Together, I think we are a very mighty advising force.
Speaker 3:It's really good to hear that you can meet with more than one adviser because I know that especially around enrollment for classes, it gets super, super busy, and it's also good to see those different perspectives. You know? So moving on to our last question, a little bit about you, I guess, is what is your favorite part about working with JMC?
Speaker 4:That is a great question. My role is so customary. I love that I am the person or at least what I perceive my role to do for students is what I wish I had as a student, which was someone and is someone who knows the value of helping students feel comfortable and belonging before they get to the university. A large part of my experience before I took on this role was learning that on the K through 12 side of higher education. So how are we preparing students for college?
Speaker 4:So now being a recruiter, I take this word that can sound very disengaged, very matter of fact, and making it something with an actual personality to it. And the large part of that is the work with my student coordinators because they're the ones who really make the programs come alive. So when you meet with a student on a tour or when you meet with a student at a prospective student event, you're talking to students, of course, they're biased because they're JMC students. So they want to tell you how great their experience has been. But we also come with an level of authenticity as to not lie about some of the challenges and some of the accomplishments.
Speaker 4:And I feel like so many different places, I won't say at MSU, but definitely different, not just higher education, institutions either, but companies or programs are people always wanting to accentuate the positives and hide the negatives. Students won't see some of the more crucial conversations that we have at James Madison College, whether that's a hotly contested debate in a classroom or some of the ways that we have to work together as administrative staff, faculty, college leadership, and student leadership to serve students. They don't always need to see that, but what they do need to see is the work that comes out of those conversations. And my role gives me a unique opportunity every day to be invested in student success and work towards those solutions.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. A huge shout out to those student coordinators. They helped me solidify my decision to get into Madison. So that's all we have. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Please check us out next time for our next installment of the Spartan orientation station. Bye.
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.