The 1909: Handling the cold weather and stress during this time of year

Show Notes

Get well soon Lily! While our usual 1909 host is sick, the lovely Liz Nass takes her place to talk about the usual news recaps and handling the cold weather and stress during this time of the year.

The 1909 is a weekly podcast recapping the week's news publishing every Monday.

What is The 1909 from The State News?

Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.

All right. So welcome to the 1909 your home at the sea news for everything happening on campus. And around Lansing. I'm not your host Lily Guiney. I'm actually Liz Nass. The host of house lights here your one stop shop for everything you need to hear about and entertainment that week.

But Lily is out sick, so I am filling in for her. We love the 1909 here, so obviously I had to say yes. All right, so let's get right into it. We're gonna start today with Alex Walters story on MSU, obtaining rare Emergency Readiness accreditation. MSU is the only university in the Midwest or the big 10 that holds this accreditation, which means we are super safe. And so we're super prepared and all safety crisis's, such as you know, mass shootings natural disasters. And of course, as we have seen public health crises such as COVID-19. This is a second accreditation that we've gotten and each accreditation lasts for about five years. And apparently it's harder to get for the second time. So definitely good on us. MSU Police Department spokesperson Dana White said the reason why accreditation is important to us is that we want to have our campus, you know, feel safe and know that we're making these efforts toward improving our safety responses. And you know, the accreditation doesn't just come from our preparedness for, you know,

future crises. Some of them come from even just small efforts not related to that, such as security of football games, or COVID-19 centers that we've had at the Breslin in the past. So you know what, congratulations MSU on that fantastic job. This one's fun. This is Maggie Georgia story on how students can take care of themselves during the winter semester. So obviously, stress is coming in now that winter break is far gone. And we are far within the spring semester. So our public health and mental health reporter is going to tell us how to take care of ourselves physically and mentally. Health is the capacity of an individual at any given time to be in this world, to interact with the world. And to give back to the world director of health promotion, Dennis Martell said around 10,000 Students MSU sort of claimed they had that, you know, the first sign of stress and such and such is the sleep problems. So that sort of you know, plagued them and sort of made their health you know, start to decline. And Marta will explain that if you don't catch up on sleep, it will catch up on you. Other

problems in health that we start to see in the winter semester is eating habits. And Martel also said the intuitive eating easy to take place with students more often because you need to reject the mentality that food is either bad or good for you. But eating but you need to eat what you know, you crave to fuel your body. And another thing is that you need to have a mindset to achieve good health or at least a high capacity of it. That the needs of your mindset that food is nourishment a source of energy, not something that you should be shamed for which I think a lot of you know college students feel on this campus. Also apparently cold weather then that Michigan winters can bring brings cravings for carbohydrates. And that's you should be reaching for carbs from fruits and vegetables to keep their energies, their energy levels from crashing. So that's a fun little tip. George also wrote about you know,

coping mechanisms during this time with stress and such, and how you know, it's good to have coping mechanisms, but only if they're healthy to your body like playing sports, meditation, reading a book, etc. You know, and and if coping mechanisms are going to become unhealthy to you, then it could you know, stand in the way of your success as a student, or just you know, as a friend, as a person. Martell talk kind of about what success looks like compared to your well being he said What does success mean? Doesn't mean you're gonna go without sleep, go without food, or go without resting your mind so you can get a 4.0 I think that's a really good question to bring up, you know, as we get really wrapped up in you know, the superficial things that you know, make or break our semester, but really, it should be about taking care of yourself and such and I think that's what Maggie sort of gets in this article.

And she also talks about the educational system may just not be set up for you know, success in your in your personal life with consistent undersleeping or undereating or overeating, whatever it is. But it's constantly in college life that we are being put under the stress that pushes back our you know, mental or physical health in the priorities, you know, you know, below a book review or whatever. And though it may be intimidating, well, you know, Maggie and the other and Maggie and the sources in the article sort of invites students to strive to feel well, in a system that at times, you know, punishes those who prioritize themselves so I thought that was a really important article this week. Another article

from city our city GA Kelsey Dantuma wrote a story on Lansing Last week being placed under Code Blue, and local shelters being open to help people stay safe from the cold weather. Mayor Andy shore enacted the code blue on Tuesday, January 31, at 5pm. And it should end around Sunday, February 5. The cold weather response plan is to help those who may be endangered by the weather. I'm gonna need warming centers in Lansing to get through the five degree weather predicted this week, which is insane. So just some information on some of those shelters if it's needed Wednesday through Friday shelter locations during the day, or it can be found at the Holy Cross services or New Hope Community Center located on 430 North large Street. And then at night, Holy Cross services in the New Hope Community Center are still open, as well as the outreach drop in center and the city rescue mission of Lansing for Saturday and Sunday ones on the weekend, the day one that you can visit as the admin house ministries. And then at night it's the outreach drop in center again and the city rescue mission of Lansing Would you come also wrote this week that there was no foul play suspected in the Nob Hill apartment fire that happened on December 21.

The meridian township Fire Department has included that the cause of the fire was undetermined, with no showings of foul play whatsoever. So no suspicion of any sort of crime that led to this fire. The origin of fire did start on a couch in the garden-level apartments. But there was no showing of anything that was wrong with it. So at least there's no there's going to be no criminal charges pressed against that sort of fire that took one person's life. The next story is from me, yeah, on the East Lansing school board, emergency meeting on school safety. So basically, I'm writing a really long form story on all the school safety problems at East Lansing high school. So I like I have a lot of knowledge on this subject. But here's kind of like the rundown of what happened at the over three-hour school board meeting that I attended, because of the multiple Shelter in Place lockdowns that have happened due to the threat of gun violence, as well as just a series of fights between two groups of students that have occurred over the last couple of

weeks. And I mean, these fights are at the basketball games at school during passing periods. There's one after the basketball game led to a gun falling out of someone's backpack. So, you know, obviously, there's a lot of fear around that gun violence. So they decided to, you know, take a minute to look over why some of these things were happening and make changes, they were actually closed this past Friday, to you know, have meetings between all these departments to figure out what they think they need for safety changes at the East Lansing High School. Some of these immediate changes that they talked about, during the meeting included having only one door for student entry, and increased supervision, as well as a district wellness leader coming into the school to discuss mental health with students, short-term changes that will take about what they think is a month to implement, you know, including the reinstatement of a program or suspending students, will receive rehabilitative help and continue learning.

And the addition of increased alarm doors and security personnel throughout the building. And long term changes that will take more than a month, probably a couple months, aims to introduce the school, you know, with meetings of public safety, service sectors in the building, so they're gonna want to talk to the library, city council and all that to talk about, you know, what needs to happen city-wide, not just school-wide, as well as the removal of exterior doors that are out of use and staff de-escalation training. One of the things that, you know, I have talked about for this long form story is that one of the suggestions is bringing back a human resource officer, a lot of students are pushing for that, as well as some of the staff but they don't have any plans yet to put that into place. And even though these changes were the most pivotal parts of the meeting, I was more intrigued during the over two-hour-long public commute time, where students, parents and teachers all came to the school to you

know, give their piece to the, to the school board and sort of, you know, give their ideas as well as just their grievances and their fear. And many of them were rooting for Kath Edsel, newly elected president of the board to step down from her position due to insensitive comments that she made. And one of the last emergency meetings due to safety issues. She, I believe she told one of the parents that saying I'm scared wasn't helpful, which got her in a lot of trouble. Obviously, she

gave us a very teary apology to at the meeting, but obviously, that didn't go over well, because by the end of the meeting, those parents and those teachers kind of got what they wished. And she did resign. However, the most moving part for me was when the mother of one of you know, quote, unquote, problem students that were part of the fights came and spoke in the meeting, saying that the school, you know, was no longer including her on discussions about her son, as they have in the past, and that she sort of wished that the school would give him the social resources to thrive because she had pulled him out of the educational, you know, part of the school, and she put him on online school, and he was succeeding, and all of that, but unfortunately, he was brought back into this drama of the two groups of students. And he was snuck into the school. And he was, unfortunately, part of one of the fights, and so on. The school hasn't told her anything about this list, she claimed that they haven't. And she also one of the biggest parts of me is that she also condemned the parents, who are now you

know, blaming her child and sort of, you know, making him a villain in the story when, you know, they used to cheer him on at their sports games, along with the teammates that are actually the kids who are, you know, causing these huge fights. So I thought that was really moving. I also loved that a parent came in and gave a 48-page document with suggestions that parents had for the school board for School Safety. I thought that was really not funny.

But you know, just like a funny move to take, like, let me tell you how we're going to be able to solve this. So that was a great move. All right. The next story, we're going to talk about CMOD wrote about the behind-the-scenes of spraying sorority recruitment, with a more relaxed look at recruitment than it is in the fall. You know, with Spirit Day philanthropy day, I do want to let everyone know on this podcast that I did drop sorority, right after the first day, which I believe was Spirit Day, just wasn't for me. But you know what, it looks a lot more relaxed in the spring semester, because you don't have all those sort of days. But most people don't really know what the ins and outs look like to rush in the spring compared to fall.
Because fall is so you know, glamorized and spring is more low key, you know, but obviously, it's still sorority recruitment. And a lot of the people that Modi talked to, you know, said there's a lot of worry for girls that, you know, it'll look good enough or they aren't rich enough to be part of some sorority. But Alpha Omicron pi chapter, President Brooke Donovan said, We don't care what you look like, we really just want genuine valuable members who want to be leaders, and in general want to be here to contribute and have fun with us. Donovan also said they would rather focus on talking about philanthropy, and like the core values of the sorority, rather than just the surface-level things that you know, sometimes that's the only thing you can talk to with people and follow recruitment, because it's such a fast-moving process. So spring kind of allows sorority recruitment to be a little bit more relaxed, and be able to have those more important conversations on day one, rather than day five, when you've already decided what sorority when you want to get into. This is also a good time to recruit for girls who maybe didn't get a bid in the fall, or didn't maybe have the desire to rush with the whole, you know, week-long scenario.

So definitely an interesting story on recruitment because I feel like we don't talk about Greek like life enough around here. So, very cool. Amalia, wrote, this week for campus desk about the research team that's developing a voice-activated AI accessible to people who stutter. Dr. Nihar Mahapatra, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at MSU. First got the idea to, you know, create this AI for the project, when he heard about work on stirring on the radio inspired him to consider how he could use expertise to help people who stutter. He searched on the internet and found anecdotes from people who shared their frustrations with voice-activated AI that either cannot recognize their speech or didn't give them enough time to finish speaking. This new AI, you know, helps, you know, helps people understand those who stutter. And you know, allows for programs like Siri and such to get better designs to actually understand people who, you know, aren't able to communicate with AI the way that other people are due to a disability.

So, however, but it may be able to reach out to other places. One of the researchers said, you know, it's an endless opportunity to add stuff. Stuttering is what we're focused on right now. But speech differences are present across the board, from individuals who have had traumatic brain injuries, or a stroke to articulation disorders, or even cancer patients to more just everyday diversity and speech, such as English as a second language, and so many different dialects and accents and just AI has a lot of, you know, a long way to sort of catch up with all of that. So, AI is not that great at understanding dialects and such yet Um, so I, you know, this research is obviously looking to expand.

But I think that focusing on stuttering individuals and you know, individuals that have that disability will definitely be interesting to follow. And, you know, definitely noble for scientific discovery. Oh, and another story I'm covered on I'm so special thank you, Willie. I went to the anti-abortion rights protests for protect life, Michigan this past Saturday. They were basically kind of there to do two things. They were marching on the Capitol for two goals, to protest prop three, and also show that they're, you know, not going anywhere to Michigan politics, we've already, you know, kind of decided that they're not on an anti anti-abortion rights majority anymore. With the changing of the state constitution.

I believe that the executive director Kristin Paolo, quoted to me, we're going to hold their feet to the fire sort of thing, which obviously we haven't seen after Prop three yet. So it was interesting. I talked to a lot of young girls who are outspoken on how abortion can hurt their demographic and also the executive director is making sure that people know about their continuing fight to now put guardrails around prop three. The speakers were also outspoken, in a way comparing their fight against abortion, to the fight to end the Nazi regime and segregation. And advocate Scott clues and Dorf said out loud to the entire crowd. It was colder today, which today it was that past Saturday. Then Gretchen Whitmer is a reception at the pearly white gates. So that is something other people were just you know, there to show their solidarity and speak for the unborn. But that is all the stories today that we have time for. But thank you so much for listening. I actually think that I might be back on within the next week to talk about a story that I wrote.

So that is super exciting. But I have loved hosting the 1909 Even if it's just for you know one day but come back every Monday to hear the campus and City Stories from the state news with League winning and of course just a little self promo. Every Wednesday house slides entertainment. It's great. We have a fantastic time. All right. Have a great rest of your day and I'll and Lily we'll see you next Monday. Bye bye