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MSU board approves campus renovations, new tennis facility, research building

Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees approved several infrastructure updates, a new scholarship and the establishment of a research building in Detroit.

President Kevin Guskiewicz said he saw the need for building renovations while touring campus.

First, the board approved major renovations to the campus tennis facility at the corner of Chestnut Road and Wilson Road.

A new facility with restrooms, a locker room and space for teams will also be built.

Next, The board approved renovations to a former dining hall in Wilson Hall.

The unused space will be turned into teaching, learning and office space for the faculty and staff of MSU’s Technology Engineering program, which is anticipated to begin in fall 2024.

They also approved the leasing of one floor of a research building the university is set to build in Detroit.

It will lease the floor to Henry Ford Health, a partner of the university’s College of Medicine. The building will be located on Henry Ford Health’s Detroit campus.

Then, Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees approved the establishment of a scholarship fund for students in the College of Medicine that “have demonstrated a commitment to serving and/or advocating for the LGBTQIA+ community,” according to the resolution.

Finally, The board voted to approve an expansion to the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB.

“The proposed addition adds two more testing end-stations and the additional capacity provided by the building expansion addresses this national need by allowing user teams to test 24/7, eliminating current gaps in testing time needed for user team set-up and take-down,” the resolution said.

MSU won’t release Nassar documents to public until AG investigation ends

Michigan State University has decided not to publicly release thousands of documents relating to the university’s handling of years of sexual abuse by disgraced ex-MSU doctor Larry Nassar until an outside investigation ends.

The university argues that the records — which were released to Michigan’s attorney general in December — are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act because they fall under an exemption covering “records compiled for law enforcement purposes.”

The exemption shields records from disclosure when they would interfere with law enforcement proceedings, according to the statute.

The State News filed public records requests for the documents after the board voted to waive privilege over them last year. MSU responded last Thursday, saying release of the records would “interfere with law enforcement proceedings.”

The university did not explain how release would interfere with attorney general Dana Nessel’s work.

The decision was made by MSU’s general counsel and did not involve the attorney general’s office, university spokesperson Emily Guerrant said.

MSU plans to stop using the exemption when the attorney general’s investigation concludes completely, she said.

Steve Delie — a FOIA attorney and director of transparency and open government at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy — reviewed the correspondence between MSU and The State News and said the exemption seems to be misapplied.

Normally, the carve-out is employed by law enforcement agencies trying to shield records of their own ongoing investigations, he said.

The only cases where he’s seen a public body use the exemption over records for someone else’s investigation is in the context of shared investigations.

If MSU has reason to believe release of these records would harm the attorney general’s work, they should have explained it in their response, he said.

The university is also obligated to use redactions to separate truly exempt portions of the records from the rest, Delie said. MSU’s response declined to provide the records whatsoever, even in a redacted format.

The previously-privileged documents include thousands of pages of email and text communications to and from MSU leaders and attorneys, records of internal complaints and investigations regarding Nassar, and personnel files of those who worked with and above Nassar during his time at MSU.

For years, the board withheld the documents from investigators, arguing they were subject to attorney-client privilege. It voted unanimously to reverse that decision in December.

Department of Natural Resources stocks Red Cedar River with over 3,000 trout

A handful of students and curious onlookers gathered on the Beal Street bridge last Friday afternoon to watch as a crew from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, stocked the Red Cedar River with 3,300 steelhead trout.

Unloading from a specialized fish stocking vehicle, DNR employees used slides and buckets to drop the trout over the side of the bridge and into the river.

Friday’s drop is only one small part of the DNR’s spring-long process of stocking rivers and lakes across the state of Michigan with various species of fish. From mid-March to early June, around 20 million fish are stocked using a fleet of specialized fish-stocking vehicles that travel around the state.

Alexa Curtis, one of the DNR employees who was dumping trout into the Red Cedar, said the year-old fish would spend a short period of time in the river before swimming downstream to Lake Michigan.

Based on original reporting by Owen McCarthy, Theo Scheer, Alex Walters and Emilio Perez Ibarguen.