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Host Lily Guiney recaps MSU campus and city of East Lansing 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.
Lily Guiney 0:10
Welcome to The1909 your home with The State News for everything happening on campus and around Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney. So we have come to our last episode of The 1909 for the fall semester and it has been a pleasure to bring you all these roundups and cool stories all semester. And I'm excited to say that we'll be back after the winter break with more content from The State News podcast network. So I'd like to give a big shout out to our podcast coordinator, Shakyra Mabone, our Managing Editor Dina Kaur, our Editor in Chief SaMya Overall for supporting a really fun and vibrant podcast setup here at The State News this semester.
I personally kind of love having a half hour each week where I just get to gab. So I was pretty happy when I found out that I get to do this again next semester.
So this week to take us out we're going to be recapping in East Lansing city council meeting. what winter break looks like for local businesses, a portrait unveiling ceremony announcement and University Housing woes.
I'm also introducing a segment to The 1909 that I'm hoping to continue in the new year called 'the couple of minutes of just good news.'
I know that staying informed and being engaged with news can be draining, especially when it seems like the world is sort of on fire and everything sucks. But we as student journalists have a bit more of an opening to cover positive, uplifting stories about cool people doing cool things. So I just want to make sure that we're highlighting that here.
Our first ever 'a couple of minutes of just good news' today will be the story of MSU Black Poets Society, which is creating a haven for black students to express themselves while building writing and public speaking skills.
This story is brought to us by our very own Jada Vasser and I can't wait to tell you guys more about it later in the episode.
Then to cap off the episode we'll be hearing from our environmental reporter Alex Walters about a history of divestment and MSU and how climate organizers hope they can use tools from the past to secure change in the future.
So let's get into it. The East Lansing City Council decided on December 6 to delay a vote on declaring the city a sanctuary city setting request to the city's legal team on effects the status could have and how the status would differ from East Lansing as current safe haven status passed in 2017.
The city's Human Rights Commission later joined by the university student commission passed a resolution last month asking the council to designate East Lansing as a sanctuary city.
The designation would mean city officials and law enforcement would not cooperate with federal and federal agents to enforce immigration laws.
Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg who is in favor of the resolution said she was in the audience during the council's 2017 resolution declaring the city as safe haven.
The original resolution to declare East Lansing a sanctuary city was softened due to the threat from the Trump administration to withhold funding from the cities that declared themselves as such.
However, at least for the next couple of years, the city won't have to worry about the threat of withheld funds as a result of the Biden administration stance on the matter according to East Lansing city manager George Lahanas.
According to Gregg East Lansing already upholds the policies that support the mission of a sanctuary city. However, it hasn't committed itself to the full sanctuary wording. Attorney Anthony Chubb said the 2017 resolution change policy to where the city refused to participate with federal authorities as it related to unfair treatment against people with immigrant or refugee status.
Under the new proposed resolution in 2022, the East Lansing Police Department would continue to operate as it has been since the 2017 policy change, which includes acting on violations of law or judicial orders like warrants.
According to Chubb, there is no statute defining a sanctuary city but the term was used to combine local governmental entities that aim to adopt pro-immigrant policies.
The Board of Trustees is set to hold a private unveiling ceremony for the portrait of former MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon on December 19. Simon's portrait was part of her 2019 retirement agreement with the board and the ceremony was not part of the agreement, according to Deputy Spokesperson Dan Olson.
Simon officially retired from the presidency on August 31 2019, after resigning in 2018 At the height of ex MSU Dr. Larry Nasser's sentencing. In November 2018, Simon was charged with two counts of lying to a police officer and a violent crime investigation and two counts of lying to a police officer in a four year or more crime investigation. All four of those charges were dismissed in May 2020.
Simon will be attendance at the ceremony according to Olson, Trustee Melanie Foster has said she will also be attending while Trustees Renee Knake Jefferson and Rema Vassar Simon do not plan to be present. In response to an email from The State News asking if she would be attending the ceremony. Trustee Brianna Scott said in all caps "No."
The rest of the trustees did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Olson said he had no comment on the reason for the ceremony and Board Chair Diane Byram did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In other MSU news, the MSU housing assignments office sent a message on November 17 to 95 incoming students telling them that they would not be provided housing in the dorms for spring semester. Prior to receiving the message incoming students who wish to live on campus filled out interest forms.
Although 70% of those students were given on campus housing, the other 30% were told there was not enough space for them and on campus housing and were given off campus resources.
Additionally, due to residence hall organization, the university was able to provide housing to all of the women's students but not men. Associate Director for communications and residents education and housing services Bethany Balks so the issue came from came down to an unexpectedly large number of spring admitted students.
This comes after the reinstatement of MSU new two year live on requirement, which requires freshmen and sophomores to live in the dorms. When alerted that their children wouldn't be provided housing, many parents took the MSU class of 2026 Facebook group to express frustration over the fact that MSU's new policy has seemingly backfired.
However Balk said the new policy does not change the amount of of available housing is the same number of people are still living in the dorms to ensure that new admits have space. The students who did not receive housing for the spring were told that their two year requirement would be waived.
In response to these complaints, The university sent out another email telling those students that they could still choose to live on campus for the fall of 2023. Balk said that the high number of students has been a trend since the pandemic many Big 10 schools she sad to have experienced higher numbers of students who wish to live on campus.
As a result housing has been meeting with admissions to determine what adjustments still need to be made to the system. Public Policy senior Skye Stillwell who works as vice president of membership for Spartan housing cooperative, said that they cannot meet student demands for housing. So well said that coops just aren't able to accommodate all of the students looking to find spring housing. She said quote, "we feel bad turning them away, but we don't have the spots to serve them."
Speaking of housing, we've got some helpful advice for you guys today. As the semester comes to a close, many students will be leaving they're on and off campus housing in that mass exodus back to our parents or families basements and childhood bedrooms. So before leaving here are several steps students should take to prepare their houses or apartments for the winter.
East Lansing landlord, Matt Hagan said that his association Hagan Realty sends out an email to all of its tenants before winter break listing preparation steps to take if they will be leaving at the top of the email in large, bold red text. It says "Do not turn your furnace off. Leaving your heat on is unnecessary because pipes can freeze and break without adequate heat," Hagan said.
He said his company has seen the consequences of residents turning off the heat during the winter. He recommends that the tenants keep the heat at a minimum of 60 degrees while they're gone. While slightly lower temperatures might be okay.
In some houses, Hagan said it's risky because not all parts of the house heat up the same and it's not worth taking the chance. The second tip that Hagan Realty gives tenants is to remove any hoses attached to the outside of the house. Similar to the inside of the house. When water isn't fully drained from the hose it can freeze in the pipes and cause them to burst when they warm back up.
The city of East Lansing has its own policies dictating when snow and ice need to be removed and students may be at risk for a ticket for not shoveling while they're gone on break. It can said his company offers to clear its tenant sidewalks for a small fee, which ends up being considerably cheaper than if somebody were to get a ticket.
If you have a driveway or sidewalk on your rental property, it's worth checking to see if your landlord offers a similar service. Since we all know how unpredictable Michigan's winter weather can be.
It's also important that tenants lock all their doors and windows and take home any valuables that are easy to move. Hagan said students should remove window air conditioners if they're still up because they can be easily removed from the outside.
He said that unfortunately all criminals and thieves know that the students are leaving as well and that quote this "time of year, that's when they come to town and we'll just steal stuff." If you still have your air conditioner and the first floor window they can walk up to it pull it out and gain easy access.
In that same vein as MSU students leave East Lansing to bring in the holidays, the cities bars, restaurants and shops are left having to adapt. Occupancy will fall short staff will be reduced and new ideas will be tested out from the New Year. Most local establishments will stay open during the break but expect to see some scheduled changes.
Barrio East Lansing's branch of the chain providing tacos and margaritas will be closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Other than that there'll be running as usual with a few changes. barrio manager Kelly Stall estimated occupancy will be 50% less over the holiday.
With that in mind the restaurant will be scheduling fewer staff members to work. During Thanksgiving break Barrio didn't cut down on staff as they believed occupancy could go either way. As it fell on the low side over the long weekend the staff learn their lesson install said.
Inventory will also take a cut so that less spoiled food will be thrown out and Barrio isn't the only establishment with new plans for the new year Max Sailor manager at Harper's restaurant and pub and P.T. O'Malley's has a few ideas up his sleeve.
In previous years the establishment has given back to charity during the holiday season and hopes to continue with it this year. In terms of occupancy sailor expects to see a decent drop some nights based on previous breaks.
To adjust in the decrease in customers staff members will be given a few days off during break. However, once New Year's Eve comes around, it will increase staff by about 50% Harpers expects to be open for all of winter break with a few exceptions like Christmas Day, it will be posting updates on its Instagram including ours and promotion.
For DBN Boutique a woman's clothing store located on MAC Avenue founder and owner O'Nyla expects to be open for most of the winter break except for a quick trip to New York City where she plans to meet with models and create more content. For that period. Tired emphasize the boutiques online store where customers can browse their selection. She plans to have a few promotions before break starts. And the store also plans have a sale but she's not dishing out details yet.
So now it is time for our couple minutes of just good news MSU hosts over 1000 student led organizations ranging from the arts to technology and everything in between the black poets, society or BPS is one of them with the primary mission of creating a safe space for students to build writing and public speaking skills in the form of poetry.
Psychology, Juinor Joya Bailey, president of the Black Poets Society said the organization promotes love and encouragement. Hosting a club representing black poetry can be challenging on a large predominantly white campus like MSU black students often find themselves as the only person of color in classes or clubs and recognition can be sparse.
"There are not many times I walk into a classroom and see people that look like me," Bailey sent an email to The State News. "Because of this, it's a lot harder to ask for help or form study groups within those classes. I organized this organization as a place people will be able to go to express the injustice as they might feel on a daily basis, and a place for people to share pressing feelings and meet people who are there to support them."
The Black Poet Society plans to soon host workshops and open mic nights tailored to helping students get comfortable with public speaking and embracing their creative side. So far, they've had general meetings and bonding opportunities to check in with members and help spread the word about the organization.
Bailey said the BPS has hopes of posting an open mic night next semester, as well as a poetry slam at the Wharton Center. Meetings. We'll also have guest speakers coming in soon to lead workshops and build connections with BPS writers. Advertising management, Junior Kaj McFarland said that spreading the word about poetry has been a smooth ride so far, and that she hopes more people will come out and see what the BPS is all about.
So if you'd like to follow along with the Black Poets Society or interested in getting involved, drop them a follow on Instagram, their handle is at BPS MSU. So now I'd like to reintroduce Alex Walters. Alex has been on The 1909 before but he's back to tell us about a recent story that I found pretty interesting. So Hi, Alex.
Alex Walters 13:01
Hi. It's good to be back on The 1909. Very exciting. Yeah.
Lily Guiney 13:05
So your story covered a fact about MSU. That could be called sort of a relatively unknown part of University history for current students. So tell us a little bit about South Africa divestment?
Alex Walters 13:15
Yeah. So I actually first came to the store. Well, I mean, I've been, you know, first of all covering divestment, since I started here at The State News with the current push, right, which is for divestment from fossil fuels. In 2018, MSU says, you know, we're going to divest, we're going to be like all the cool, great, sustainable universities.
And they do it most of the way, but they leave about $90 million in investments. And to this day, there's a group called Sunrise, which is part of this national environmental movement, and they're pushing for full divestment at MSU, even from private investments. And then a couple of weeks ago, I was in actually my MC 201 class, which you would know, Oh, yeah. And one of the lectures, Professor May, it was sort of a passing comment about divestment at MSU from South Africa, seven years, this is something I didn't know about. I don't think most students know.
Lily Guiney 13:55
It's definitely an under, under acknowledged fact, of our history here at MSU.
Alex Walters 14:02
And so as I was fascinated by it, you know, just turned divestment, I'm assuming that's for me. So I started, you know, looking into it, and reading these different historical journals that have been written about it.
And there's a lot of actually history, like, history work done about it, I think a lot of MSU historians, it's fun to kind of do, like, history work about a place that you know, so well, but just sort of reading about it.
And basically, it's, you know, it's the same thing as today where people are saying, you know, we want this university that we give a lot of money to, if they're going to invest that money, we want them to do it in a way that we're comfortable with ethically, not just what they think will make the most money.
And it's the same thing in the 70s. In 1972, a group of students and faculty come together, and they say, you know, we're super uncomfortable with what's going on. Like, we don't want you investing in apartheid. And so we want the board to divest invest ethically invest in communities that we care about. And yeah, and they were successful, actually.
Lily Guiney 14:48
Yeah. I guess Yeah. And they, they're, they're sort of fight for divestment from South Africa that took six years, six or seven years.
Alex Walters 14:57
So over the it was six years to get the board to do it, but they actually were also working on the city council and East Lansing at the same time. And so that happened in '77. And then in '78, the board actually unanimously votes to divest. Impressive.
Lily Guiney 15:13
And we know from experience here today that getting a unanimous vote on vote on the MSU, Board of Trustees, and in the East Lansing city council, those are tall orders. So that's, that's a pretty interesting piece of history. And you actually had the opportunity to speak with one of the organizers from the 70s. And what kind of experiences did they have on campus?
Alex Walters 15:32
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty incredible. I didn't think I'd be able to talk to these two, but we're at the last minute became available to me. And it was, and one of them, his name is David Wiley, he's he was a professor at MSU for a very long time.
He's the National President of the African Studies Association. He was actually on MSU's campus when all this was going on. So he was able to read a lot of firsthand insight.
And the way that he talked about it, I think, you know, there are a couple of big distinctions from what we see today. The first one is just, I mean, frankly, there's just more, they were just more. I mean, there are pins everywhere, they used a lot of like, apparel like that to get their message out.
They did sit ins multiple times at the Administration, building the Hannah building, where they would, for days at a time, just camp out in the building.
So the protest, they built, famously, they call that a shanty, like goes like a little shed alongside of the red cedar, they occupied and it was up for a little bit like I think, a couple of weeks until it was destroyed by counter protesters. But there was just he describes it just as energy on campus of people that just, they just cared about it, and they wanted it. And so everybody knew this is going on. Whereas today, I don't know if every MSU student knows about the fight to divest.
Lily Guiney 16:37
Yeah. So Sunrise is obviously pushing for a really similar divestment scenario, you know, to pull that remaining pesky 90 million out of MSU investment portfolio. So how many, just in your opinion, after learning all about this, how might today's activist take notes from the past in this case?
Alex Walters 16:57
I think they're, you know, I don't know if I should say that today's activists just need to be doing more, because I don't think it's a function of activism. I think it's more apathy. And you know, I don't think it's that the activist I should clarify really, is that I don't think the activists were necessarily, like, more passionate.
And that's why you saw more of on campus, I think it was just over time, more people made it an issue. And I guess that is a function of the activism. I don't I'm not really an expert on that.
But the one thing, there's, I mean, there are two major differences that I see that I think they could think about. The first one is that and this is actually a point that was brought up by Wiley and Chris Root, who's his wife for a long time, she was also an image campus. And now she runs an organization that but an online archive, called the African Activist Archive, just about, you know, protests over Africa, in the United States.
And what she was saying, and what her husband was saying, was that there was just cooperation between faculty, between grad students, between PhD students, even administrators and employees of the university outside of the teaching staff. And it was this broader coalition, right. And one of the stories they pointed out is that the head tennis coach at MSU, had this sort of arrangement where he would do these private tennis lessons with the presidents and the top administrators, because they were all playing tennis at the time.
And he would lobby them on the tennis court about divestment and South Africa. And they just sort of had, I don't know, they had their hands in all the different pots and all the different, like layers, I guess, and levels at MSU. And they say that was a big part of getting the change.
Lily Guiney 18:18
Yeah. And we know from just observation that today, the Sunrise Movement is pretty much entirely undergraduates. And they might not have the same opportunity to get all of those resources at every level of the university, that you're saying is kind of an attributing fact.
Alex Walters 18:37
It's definitely more undergraduate. And they do have, you know, they have as MSU support, I think, cogs the Graduate Student Organization has supported them, but just isn't really a part of it. But the second thing that the root was saying is that maybe it's not so much the organizing, and maybe it's just an issue of MSU doesn't really have the she calls it political energy to be talking about this right now.
She has this quote, which I'll just read it. Yeah, cause she says it very nicely. She says, "Title Nine is an enormously important issue that's taken a lot of political energy at MSU. Some of it doing important political work, and some of it just being horribly bad administration that's damage many, many people at MSU and MSU, national reputation."
So you know, that's been there. And what she was saying to me was that, you know, there might not be room for two discussions right now at MSU. All of the turmoil on the board, the resignations, the presidential search, the title nine issues, and also divestment, that maybe it's just kind of getting lost in that. And that's maybe not something that the organizers can overcome right now.
Lily Guiney 19:29
Yeah, I mean, we're still very much here at MSU dealing with the aftermath of Larry Nassar and dealing with all of the fallout that's happened amongst administration since dealing with that.
So that's an interesting point that you bring up that even as much as organizers might want it to be a multi issue board, it might just not be for the moment and it might be, you know, like, the South Africa divestment effort, it might be a multi year project.
Alex Walters 19:55
And I think that's another thing that they said to me was that seeing that it took them you know, six years was to do this right? When it was sort of the main issue that was being debated at MSU. That's encouraging for them, right, because this is only about 2018.
Divest MSU was founded and Sunrise didn't really get involved until a little bit later until 2020. And so for them, they kind of see that as like, it's not look at this great thing that happened before we're not living up to it.
It's look at how long it took, look at how much perseverance these people needed. And we're gonna continue that, and we're gonna keep doing that. And Jesse Estrada white, who's the Sunrise organizer, I talked to, talks about that a lot in the piece. So give it a read.
Lily Guiney 20:30
Yeah. And one of the things I remember him mentioning was, you know, there are a young, very young movement there, not just in terms of their age, but I mean, yeah, like you said, this is a relatively new thing.
And here at MSU, divestment, you know, it might have a longer timeline, but they do have this blueprint from the 70s, which is a really just a really interesting thing to look at, because you don't get to see that a lot nowadays, where there are direct parallels between activism today and activism in the past.
Alex Walters 21:00
Yeah but I almost think that more broadly, I mean, all activism is sort of inspired by and that's what Ruth talks about, at the very end of the piece, which is that she thinks, and there's less, you know, I think documented history to demonstrate this.
But the fact that these organizers come to MSU campus, where as they're sort of entering their political lives, right, as they're in high school, they're seeing anti war organizing, and they're seeing so many young people out demonstrating about what they care about. And so that sort of, you know, inspires them to do this. And then today, this inspires the organization today, who knows what they'll inspire when somebody else's that I'm assuming 50 years, but it is sort of like that chain in that way. That's really nice.
Lily Guiney 21:36
Yeah, it's a it's a really interesting historical story. And I'm glad that we got the chance to talk about it. Because I think, first of all, anyone who's interested in divestment here on campus, or anyone who's just interested in just any sort of political organizing here on campus, this is a really interesting note to look at. And I'd encourage everyone listening to go out and read the story. And Alex, you wanna take us out by just telling us what the headline for the story is?
Alex Walters 22:00
Headline is '50 Years After Divestment Victory Can MSU Do It Again?'
Lily Guiney 22:05
And that actually brings us to the end of our episode of The 1909 for the day. Thank you for coming on Alex.
Alex Walters 22:10
Thank you for having me.
Lily Guiney 22:11
Yeah. And have a great winter break everybody. And you can find us on Mondays coming back from break. Obviously it'll be a little minute before we are airing on Mondays again, but wherever you get your podcasts and signing off from East Lansing, I'm Lily Guiney.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai