Today’s weather forecast is predicting areas of patchy fog early and then intervals of clouds and sunshine with a high of 38 degrees and a low of 27 degrees.
MSU Vice President and Chief Safety Officer Marlon Lynch resigns
MSU Vice President and Chief Safety Officer Marlon Lynch is leaving his position in early March, Interim President Teresa Woodruff announced last Thursday.
Lynch, who joined MSU in February 2021 as Vice President for Public Safety and Chief of Police, will take the post of associate vice chancellor at the University of Colorado Boulder in its division of public safety.
Lynch’s last day at MSU will be March 3, and he will be replaced by current Deputy Chief Safety Officer Doug Monette until the position is filled.
“We have full confidence in his leadership, and I know the MSU community will welcome him to this role,” Woodruff said.
MSU students hold protest demanding university divest from Israel
Dozens of protestors lined the steps of the Hannah Administration Building last Thursday afternoon to demand MSU divest from Israel.
The demonstration, organized by the Hurriya Coalition — a collective of more than 20 student organizations “fighting for freedom and justice in Palestine at MSU,” according to their social media — was meant to pressure the MSU Board of Trustees to divest from all investments that support Israel including direct aid to Israel, weapons manufacturers and international investment groups such as BlackRock.
As of June 30, 2023, MSU has invested in three BlackRock funds: BlackRock Emerging Companies, BlackRock Strategic and BlackRock Systematic China Absolute Return according to the MSU list of investments. The organizers of the demonstration argue that those investments are funding weapons manufacturers involved in the Israel-Hamas war.
Protesters at the rally chanted the names of board members, MSU Interim President Teresa Woodruff and Joe Biden immediately followed by the line “you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.” Simultaneously, several protestors held up a large canvas reading: “TRUSTEES: DIVEST NOW.”
The Associated Students of MSU, or ASMSU, passed bills to reform campus parking, provide emergency contraception and harm reduction vending machines and expand community engaged learning at the general assembly meeting last Thursday.
Bill 60-60, calls for reforms to on-campus parking and campus parking citations to lessen the burden for students parking on campus. This follows the Board of Trustees’ approval of raising parking violation fines on campus and the subsequent 97,585 parking tickets issued in 2023.
The rising number of freshmen every year has forced many students to move further and further away from campus, increasing the need for students to commute, and thus, park on campus, Spartan Housing Cooperative Representative Alex Ramirez said.
Additionally, ASMSU passed bill 60-56, advocating for the support and expansion of community engaged learning at MSU. Community engaged learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates community partnership with classroom learning in order to help students understand social responsibilities and strengthen communities, according to the MSU Center for Community Engaged Learning.
Based on original reporting by Theo Scheer, Emilio Perez Ibarguen and Jack Williams.
