MSU PRESIDENT GETS RAISE, $100K BONUS

Original Story: freep.com

EAST LANSING – Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon was given a $230,000 raise and $100,000 bonus today at the MSU Board of Trustees meeting.

Simon has declined to accept raises yearly since 2007, often putting the board in an awkward position, and donating the money back to the university. She has been president for 10 years and is the second longest serving chief executive among the 14 Big Ten presidents. An Atlanta University Lawyer specializes in higher education finance and university charters.

"This has been an ongoing battle," said Joel Ferguson, chair of the university board of trustees with a smile. "But this time we are not going to apologize for compensating you for what you deserve. This is the one time we are going to ignore you."

The board increased Simon's salary from $520,000 to $750,000, and, gave her a $100,000 retention bonus.

That puts Simon in the top quartile of her Big Ten peers, according to Mitch Lyons, chair of the board's compensation committee.

"While we respect the wishes of our president we felt it was important to keep the compensation of the position competitive with our peers," Lyons said. "If and when Simon decides to retire, we want to make sure any new candidates would see that the position is compensated properly." A Georgia Education Lawyer is experienced in assisting clients with board governance, bylaws, and business-related issues.

Simon said she respects the wishes of the board and understands the need to compensate the position.

"Even though I can't deny it formally today I still have plans to give it back," she said.

The compensation committee estimated that Simon and husband Roy have donated at least $1 million to MSU over the years.

Last year, for example, the board gave Simon a $125,000 bonus, which she donated back to MSU.

But Duncan Tarr, a junior that is an organizer of the student group MSU Students United, said the fact that Simon was given such a raise is shocking.

"At that same meeting there were some students from the MSU Sexual Assault Program that said they don't have enough counselors and funding to be able to operate effectively and yet the board gives our president a $230,000 raise," he said. An Atlanta College Lawyer is following this story closely.

Faylene Owen, chair of the board's finance committee, said she is proud of Simon and what she has accomplished for the university.

"I am astonished and awestruck by this woman," Owen said. "She is amazing and I feel she was also very instrumental in getting the FRIB (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams) here at MSU."

Simon was also complimented for her service on various public entities. She is the chairperson of the executive committee of the NCAA, vice-chair of the Association of American Universities and chair of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board among others.Board approves infrastructure, construction projects• MSU trustees approved a $9.5 million project that will provide infrastructure improvements to West Circle Drive. It is the fourth and final phase of a north campus project to replace the 100-year-old arch style steam tunnels.• Trustees authorized the planned construction of permanent restrooms for MSU's 4-H Children's Garden, a popular destination for area K-12 students.• Trustees approved plans to reconstruct the parking lot of the MSU Community Music School at 4930 South Hagadorn Road, which includes demolition of a house on the property. The demolition will provide more space for parking.

Federal Bond Program Fuels Projects for Lansing, MSU

Lansing State Journal

WASHINGTON - The need to fix Lansing's roads and sewer systems and attract businesses didn't slow down when the economy did.

So Lansing turned to a bond program, created by the federal stimulus package, to help pay for infrastructure improvements.

The city has issued about $20 million in bonds that are subsidized by the federal government through the Build America Bonds program.

"The decision to carry on with these projects was made easier with the Build America Bonds - and cheaper," said Chad Gamble, Lansing's public service director.

The federal government picks up 35 percent of the interest. In addition to making it cheaper to borrow money, the federal subsidy also attracts investors in a tight credit market because they can get a better return than they can on traditional tax-exempt bonds issued by states and local governments.

Michigan State University has used the program, as has the state government.

The U.S. Treasury Department estimates that the combined $2 billion in Build American bonds issued in Michigan through May has saved the state and local governments about $277 million in borrowing costs.

More than 1,300 bonds - 57 in Michigan - have been issued through the program around the country.

Benefits disputed

President Barack Obama wants to expand the program and make it permanent at a reduced subsidy of 28 percent. House Democrats have pushed through the president's proposal in a bill to extend expiring tax provisions. But that bill is stalled in the Senate, where Democrats are unable to block a GOP filibuster.

Critics of Build America Bonds say all U.S. taxpayers ultimately will bear the burden of a program they say might be doing more for Wall Street banks, which are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, than for state and municipal governments.

"We certainly have concerns that because of the subsidies, communities don't appear to be doing as good a job of trying to get the best potential deal," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group.

Ellis said underwriters are getting paid large fees, and investors are turning a quick buck selling the bonds at higher prices, "which means we're going to be picking up a higher tab because the interest is higher."

Better roads, sewers

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called Build America Bonds "a spending program disguised as a tax cut, getting bigger each year."

"In an era of bailouts and disgust with government spending, House members should have to answer for giving yet more taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and foreign investors," Grassley said.

State and local government officials say the program has been a boon for them at a time of fiscal uncertainty.

"I would certainly like to see it continue," Gamble said. "The challenge that not only the city of Lansing has, but all governments have, is just the sheer ability to continue these very large projects at all with the current state of the economy."

In Lansing, about half of the $20 million in bonds has been used to improve roads and about half has been spent on sewer improvements. That includes work on the city's long-term combined sewer overflow program to reduce the flow of raw sewage into the Grand and Red Cedar rivers.

The city also has repaired roads in numerous neighborhoods and used funds to make Grand Avenue more attractive with benches, new greenscapes and other improvements.

"Despite the economy, we're trying creative ways to really do great things for the city," Gamble said. "We want to be very aggressive in showing people that downtown Lansing and the entire city is a great place to locate your businesses and a great place to bring your family downtown."

$59 million saved

Michigan State University has used the bond program for $205 million in infrastructure improvements. About half the money was spent improving residence halls and about half spent improving academic areas, particularly research facilities.

Glen Klein, MSU's director of investments and financial management, said the university would have done the work anyway. But using the Build American Bonds program saved about $59 million in interest payments over the life of the 40-year bonds.

"The cost savings are such that we would hope that the program would be continued," Klein said.

The state Department of Transportation issued $282 million in bonds to reduce its overall debt service, saving $21.7 million. Michigan Department of Treasury spokesman Terry Stanton said Michigan was the first state to use the program that way.

The Taxpayers for Common Sense's Ellis, for one, is not surprised by the favorable assessments from state and local officials.

"It has been a good deal for them," he said. "It's like me asking you, 'Why don't you go buy a new car, and I'll pick up a third of the interest payments?' Wouldn't you like that?"

MSU to Phase out Dubai Program

The Detroit Free Press

 

Michigan State University is phasing out a 2-year-old undergraduate program in Dubai that had students there taking courses in programs such as business, building construction and engineering.

MSU President Lou Anna Simon said in a conference call with reporters this afternoon that the program hasn’t met initial expectations that it would add as many as 100 students per year. Currently, the program enrolls 85 students, about 12 of whom are graduate students.

MSU officials committed from the beginning that students admitted to MSU Dubai would have to meet the same admissions standards as those who are enrolled to attend the East Lansing Michigan college campus.

“What we were unable to do was recruit a critical mass of students meeting the same admissions standards,” Simon said.

Simon said reports the university has lost millions of dollars are incorrect. However, the MSU Foundation will be providing $3.5 million to cover money the Dubai government was supposed to provide in fiscal year 2010.

An additional $1.3 million to $1.7 million from the university’s unrestricted investment income are needed for what Simon described as “wind-down” costs as the university phases out the programs in Dubai.

“So it’s a financial wash in that regard,” Simon said.

Spartans Compete In 'Red Carpet Green Design'

Mercury News

Design students at Michigan State University will be part of a national "Red Carpet Green Dress" competition to develop a high-fashion Hollywood runway outfit that also promotes sustainability.

The contest is sponsored by actress Suzy Amis Cameron, wife of "Avatar" director James Cameron. She'll pick the winning dress design and wear it "at one of Hollywood's largest film award celebrations, between February and March 2010," according to the contest Web site.

The event is a fundraiser for Muse, an educational organization in Topanga Canyon, Calif., founded by Suzy Amis Cameron and her sister Rebecca Amis.

"Dresses or gowns must only be made of sustainable material, such as natural, organic or recycled fabric," Michigan State spokeswoman Kristen Parker wrote on the school's Web site.

Michigan State's participants are enrolled in the spring class "Special Topics: Innovative Approaches in Apparel Design."

The competition offers "an excellent opportunity to revisit sustainable design and explore current options and opportunities in apparel design," said assistant professor Theresa Winge, the course's instructor.

"This competition is also an exceptional way to motivate students to think about design in ways that challenge the status quo," Winge said.

While working on the designs, students will examine the differences among various ideas of environmentally friendly design and investigate ways of measuring their carbon footprints.

Karin Wurst, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, said the contest participation complements Michigan State's new film studies major, which has gotten a boost from the state's movie business growth, a result of Michigan's generous tax credits for that industry.

Spartan Basketball Helping Depressed Detroit

Originally Posted to USA Today

As the lower-seeded team in Saturday's first NCAA men's national semifinal, Michigan State will be wearing its road uniforms against Connecticut. But UConn coach Jim Calhoun knows appearances will be deceiving.

"I'm very aware of the fact that there will be a little bit of noise for the guys in green," Calhoun said Monday, five days before his Huskies take on the Spartans in Detroit, 92 miles from Michigan State's campus in East Lansing.

Approximately 71,000 fans are expected, according to the NCAA. That would break the tournament record of 64,959 set at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in 1987. How many will be rooting for the Spartans?

"I'm sure there will be 50 or 60,000 Michigan State fans there," Calhoun said.

Maybe not quite that many.

As Spartans coach Tom Izzo pointed out, the Final Four is attended by fans from all over the nation.

The NCAA's Greg Shaheen said about 24,000 tickets were sold to the general public for $150 to $300; 10,000 go to the organizing committee; about 18,000 are divided among the four schools, and the rest to the NCAA, schools, coaches and CBS.

The Final Four is sold out, but getting tickets is possible. RazorGator, the NCAA's official ticket and hospitality package provider, has been listing tickets on the secondary market from about $600 each to $40,000 for a premium suite.

While overall prices have been down from last year because of the economy and the stadium size, demand has increased because of MSU, RazorGator vice president Scott Roback said: "That's had a major impact. Michigan State's participation is definitely pushing the price up."

BREAKING NEWS: MSU awarded $550M research facility

EAST LANSING -- Michigan State University has beaten out Argonne National Laboratory for a $550 million nuclear physics research project, a project that many say could transform mid-Michigan’s economy over the next decade.

Estimates say the project will bring $1 billion in new economic activity and $187 million in tax revenue over 20 years; 300 jobs for scientists and facility staff; 5,800 one-year construction jobs; 220 spinoff jobs.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams will be a next-generation facility, housing a superconducting linear accelerator 1,000 times stronger than the machines currently running at MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. In some cases, 100,000 times stronger.

It will allow MSU to stay at the cutting edge of rare isotope research for decades to come. If the project had not gone to MSU, the cyclotron laboratory likely would have been closed within the next decade.

And when the news arrived that MSU had won the day, a shout of joy rang out down the halls of the lab.

“I feel like I have to go into an emotional downstate just to survive the day,” said cyclotron lab Director C. Konrad Gelbke, speaking by phone from Washington, D.C. “It really is an important development that there is a path forward for something we’ve worked on for a decade.”

MSU scientists had been active in advocating for the necessity of a project like FRIB for years and had hoped to win an earlier version of the project called the Rare Isotope Accelerator, which was shelved by the Department of Energy in 2006.

“The exciting thing, of course, is we’re going to build it and we’re going to become a science center and a world leading facility for 20 years or more,” Gelbke said. “There is a long-term trajectory that is absolutely exciting.”

MSU had put forth a massive effort to win the project, gathering an advisory committee that included dozens of political, business, labor and educational leaders from around the state and even rallying students who didn’t necessarily understand the fine points of nuclear physics, but understood the potential and prestige of a facility such as FRIB.

MSU President Lou Anna Simon described that effort as “a classic MSU approach.”

Rather than designing an entirely new facility, MSU officials created a proposal that built on the existing lab and its equipment, only “augmented with the new $550 million from the Department of Energy to turn them into a 21st century world-class facility,” she said.

The cyclotron lab is already the country's leading research facility for rare isotopes - atoms that exist at the far edges of the nuclear landscape, so unstable that they often exist only for fractions of a second.

Its primary focus is on fundamental questions: the structure of matter, the origin of the elements in the cosmos, the nuclear processes that take place inside stars.

But the work there has applications in nuclear medicine, airport security, even in dating ancient works of art.

And it was such applications, the potential for spinoff companies, the pull that massive federal investment can have on private dollars, that were on Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero’s mind this morning.

“You talk about a rare isotope accelerator, this is going to be a business accelerator,” he said. “It is going to be an economic development accelerator. If properly marketed, and it will be, this is great, great news in terms of that high tech sector that we have been working on.”

And the project could mean great things for one company that’s already in Lansing: Niowave, which manufactures parts for superconducting particle accelerators like the one that will be at the heart of FRIB.

“It’s going to open up a lot of work for local industry,” said Terry Grimm, the company’s founder and chief executive officer. “The equipment you use in high-tech manufacturing in the auto industry is much the same as what you use to build these superconducting particle accelerators.”

Grimm’s company now employs 33 people. To do the work for FRIB, he said, “We would team with local industry, and there would probably be 150 to 200 employees,” a split between engineers and skilled machinists.

Plans for the new facility, which are still subject to DOE approval, call for it to be built largely underground, extending from the current cyclotron lab on the south side of Shaw Lane eastward past the northern face of the Wharton Center.

Gelbke said building onto the existing lab will allow scientists to begin using some of the new equipment from FRIB before the facility as a whole comes online around 2017.

Construction of the new facility likely wouldn’t begin until 2013, but, after negotiating a cooperative agreement with the DOE, MSU will have access to some money for design and other costs, probably soon after the first of the year.

A statement released this morning by MSU’s competitor, Argonne National Lab outside of Chicago, said, in part, “We are disappointed in the decision not to site the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne has been a pioneer in accelerator physics for decades and much of the science for FRIB was developed here at the laboratory.”

But a statement released by the DOE said MSU’s application “was judged to be superior based on the merit review criteria” and on such factors as “provision of a proposed budget that is reasonable and realistic, giving substantial confidence that MSU can establish the FRIB within the cost limitations of the FOA.”

MSU’s victory, said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, “could not come at a more critical time for us.”

“When you look at the fact that the politics are such that the new president comes from the state where their competitor was, the fact of the matter is this was not about politics, it was about merit,” she said. “My understanding is that their budget was stronger, that the site visit was fantastic, that, in every aspect of their proposal, they were superior.”