MSU AGEP Community Touts Participation Growth

Upcoming AGEP Meeting Focuses on Social Impact of Technology

EAST LANSING, Michigan, March 21, 2011 – The Michigan State University (MSU) Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) Learning Community announced significant growth over the past 3 years and welcomes the new members of the Student Steering Committee for the 2011-2012 academic year.

For the last three years, the place to be every first Thursday of each month is at the evening gathering of the Michigan State AGEP Learning Community. This tradition started with six individuals, equal number of faculty and graduate students, who started meeting informally to discuss a wide range of topics related to graduate education, inclusiveness and the preparation of future faculty in the STEM and SBES disciplines. Now these monthly community meetings regularly attract over forty graduate students and faculty from several departments including the Graduate School. Participation has increased exponentially since 2008. “The growth of the MSU AGEP Community is reflective of the additional outreach our group has done and we plan to maintain this momentum in the coming years,” said Steven Thomas, AGEP Program Manager. One recent activity of the AGEP community was a very successful visit to the National Science Foundation by doctoral students, staff and faculty .

A new additional to the community meetings will be “Science in the News” segment. Once a month, an AGEP community member will facilitate a discussion on the current news topic that speaks to the social impact of technology. The April discussion will be led by Dr. Anthony Plummer, "How are new technologies impacting the world and the daily lives of people?"

For more information, please contact Steven Thomas at deshawn@grd.msu.edu or at 517-353-3262.