GO RIGHT THROUGH THAT LINE OF BLUE, BITCHES!

For those who are Spartans. the rest of you may leave.
Go right through that line of blue were the original words to the MSU Fight Song.  It was later changed to, Go right through for MSU.  How wimpy.  It should have never been changed.

Michigan State University began as an idea that the future of the State of Michigan depended on the education of its farmers in the science of agriculture.  Farms out east were dying for lack of knowledge about soil fertility.  And out west, gold was discovered, and it was feared that the young men of Michigan might abandon their farms for California.  A firm grasp of agriculture, engineering, and the natural sciences was essential for farming success, but no other college taught it. The college’s very reason for being was to give everyday working people the opportunity to participate in an educational experience that could be applied to their everyday lives and, hopefully, make them better..  Michigan State has always celebrated people who got their hands dirty.

Michigan State’s rivalry with the University of Michigan is not simply one of those silly, but serious rivalries created on athletic fields.  The University of Michigan opposed to the foundation of the College of Agriculture (MAC) from the start.  It argued publicly that the college was a failure and disappointment.  They urged that the new school be joined to THE university and use the buildings for a reformatory school.  How quaint and how arrogant, but typical of some of the attitudes down the road.

The University of Michigan is a first class institution with a first class national reputation.  The people of State of Michigan, its students and alumni have a right to be very proud of this status.  It is also an elitist school, except in its recruitment of athletes of course, just like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Brown, Georgetown etc.  Elitist schools by definition consider themselves to be better than anybody else, whether they are or not.  Academic excellence does not necessarily guarantee success.  It is a combination of academics and individual internal drive that ultimately determines success.  The first president of the Agricultural School of the State of Michigan (MSU), said about the school, “Good enough for the proudest, cheap enough for the poorest.”  I don’t know if it’s the cheapest, but it is certainly good enough for the proudest.  I am very proud of where I went to college.

I always laugh when I think back to Bill Clinton’s statement about the cabinet he would form.  “It will look a lot like America,” he stated.  Of course his definition of how America looked was that we were all millionaires who went to an eastern liberal elitist institutions.  It represents the arrogance of “The best and the brightest.”  “We will decide what is best for the masses, who are not as smart or as well educated as we.” 

Michigan State was known as “a Cow College” and “Moo U” by the folks down the road in Ann Arbor.  So what?  That was the basic premise on which it was originally founded.  Serving a need is critical for survival, whether it is a business or an educational institution.  You can’t forget your heritage or your customers.

Michigan State struggled to survive, and it did, beyond what the founders could possibly envision.  MSU may always be viewed as second class citizens by the folks in Ann Arbor, but that’s what makes Michigan State better.  We don’t care.  We like being the underdog -- underdogs have to work harder to succeed.  We just keep going and growing.  It builds character.

Land-grant institutions were created to be concerned about providing access to knowledge to broad segments of the population and to conduct primary research.  Comprehensive teaching and research.  Broad access is not, however, a reason to lower expectations of a university or its students.  Broad access offers an opportunity to blend a quality education with a broader qualified base of the population.  To me this is the very basis for education in America.  Educating a broad base of the population is not to be accomplished by a dumbing down process where the lowest common denominator determines the scholastic level of its students.  There is a place that fits everybody who desires an education beyond high school.  Everyone is equal in the eyes of God, but he did not make everybody handsome nor equal in every ability,.  This is a core value of education that all colleges and universities and their faculty and students need to keep in mind.  Helping people to reach their full potential is the primary goal of any educational institution.  Michigan State does that well.  Its made up of real people who work hard.

John Hannah, the president of Michigan State, who in my opinion and in the opinion of others contributed the most to making Michigan State what it is today, liked to say “Only people matter”.  Spartans represent the spectrum of society from all over the world.  There is a place for the super student and the student who struggles with academics, but succeeds because he or she has a will to succeed..  Thanks to the creative leadership of President John Hannah in the fifties and sixties, Michigan State became a broad based first class educational institution.  From MAC to MSU in a hundred years.

Somewhere in the eighties, primary research seemed to take the front seat in many institutions of higher learning.  Michigan State was no exception.  Research and serving the students got out of balance.  However, today Michigan State has reasserted the Guiding Principles of MSU’s special parentage as a research-intensive land-grant university where people matter.  The strength of the university is the ability to blend research-active faculty and student focused-orientations.

Today, although it is a full-fledged multi-discipline university with an excellent reputation as an institution, it never quite moved away from its grounding in the work ethic and serving ordinary citizens.

MSU, we love thy shadows.