Michigan State University Libraries

The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) botanical garden located on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is claimed to be the oldest continually maintained university botanical garden in the United States and is open to the public without charge year-round during daylight hours. The garden displays 1,800 plant taxa, in economic, systematic, landscape and ecological groupings. The botanic garden was started by Prof. William James Beal as part of the Department of Botany to serve as an outdoor teaching and research laboratory. Work towards starting the garden began in 1872 with a nursery, followed in 1873 by test plots of 140 species of forage grasses and clovers in a portion of the garden referred to as "Sleepy Hollow". Shortly after founding the botanic garden, Professor Beal established an arboretum on campus in 1874 which began as two rows of swamp white oaks. For the period of time from 1877 to 1924, the garden was known as "The Botanic Garden" or "Wild Garden" at Michigan Agricultural College. Shortly after Professor Beal's death on May 12, 1924, the garden was officially named for him on December 17, 1924, by the Michigan State Board of Agriculture upon the recommendation of the Department of Botany. After Professor Beal's retirement in 1910, Professor H.T. Darlington was appointed director of the botanic garden in 1914 and served until 1930. The gardens developed from these starting points until 1950, when they were reorganized and redesigned by Prof. Milton Baron to form today's four main collections. In 1954, the garden began participating in the international seed exchange program, publishing its first Index Seminum, and in 1961 was extended with a collection of acidophilous plants including rhododendrons, azaleas, and ferns. More recently, a collection of Michigan's endangered plants was added in 1986, and the non-flowering vascular plant collection was started in 2001 with ephedras, conifers, ginkgo, cycads, ferns, horsetails and clubmosses.

College Hall was the first building erected on the campus of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan (now Michigan State University), and the first in the United States to be erected "for the teaching of scientific agriculture." Reputedly designed by John C. Holmes, it was built in 1856 and housed the school's classrooms, offices and laboratories, the school's library/museum, and a multifunction lecture hall/chapel. Along with Saints' Rest, and a horse barn, it was one of three buildings completed when the college opened for classes in 1857. By the turn of the 20th century, College Hall had outlived its usefulness, and its future was in doubt. Because Michigan state government officials had taken the lowest construction bid possible, College Hall suffered from an extraordinary number of construction defects. These included hollow bricks, doors that would not open, a leaky roof (replaced by student labour in the first year), soft pine floorboards that shrank so they did not reach the walls, and even a tree stump embedded in the foundation. The College considered demolishing the historic edifice, but students organized a campaign to save it from the wrecking ball. They convinced the college to convert the hall into a student union. The college went forward with plans to save the structurally unsound building, but it was beyond preservation. The renovation weakened the shoddily built structure, and in August 1918, the building collapsed while a marching band played "The Star-Spangled Banner" outside the building. No one was injured in the collapse. After the College cleared away the debris, they entertained several proposals to replace College Hall, but in the end they erected a clock tower on the northeast corner of the site. Beaumont Tower became the new architectural symbol of Michigan State College. Nevertheless, College Hall was not forgotten; to this day it is featured on the great seal of Michigan State University.

The Beaumont Tower is a structure on the campus of Michigan State University, designed by the architectural firm of Donaldson and Meier and completed in 1928. The 104-foot-tall (32 m) tower marks the site of College Hall, the first building constructed on the campus, as well as the first building in America erected for instruction in scientific agriculture. Due to poor construction, College Hall collapsed in 1918. John W. Beaumont, an 1882 alumnus of MSU, proposed the construction of the monument to conserve the Campus Circle and serve as a monument to teaching.

(Scene) Metrospace is an alternative arts space located in downtown East Lansing, Michigan, featuring a variety of contemporary artworks. (Scene) also hosts a wide variety of musical performances by local and national artists. It is a project created in response to Governor Jennifer Granholm's Cool Cities Initiative.(Scene) is free and open to the public, unless a nominal cost is determined for a special performance. Artists working in any mixed media are encouraged to submit exhibition proposals. It is now operated by the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Michigan State University.

The Michigan State University Museum most commonly referred to as the MSU Museum is Michigan State University's oldest museum formed in 1857. It is the state of Michigan's first Smithsonian Affiliate. It was formed to support the work of the university and is also known for hosting the Great Lakes Quilt Center.

The Great Lakes Quilt Center is the Michigan State University Museum’s center for quilt-related research, education, and exhibition activities. While the museum, established in 1857, has long held significant collections, its focus of activities on quilt scholarship and education began with the launch of the Michigan Quilt Project at the museum in 1984. The Michigan Quilt Project not only spearheaded the documentation of the state's quiltmaking history, but also stimulated interest in strengthening the museum's quilt collection, upgrading its care, and expanding its use. As of 2008, the Michigan Quilt Project has collected documentation on over 9000 quilts in the state and the collection of quilts numbers over 700 with significant examples from Michigan and the Great Lakes region, examples of quilts from numerous African countries, major ethnographic collections of Native American quilts and Michigan African American quilts, and special collections assembled by Kitty Clark Cole, Harriet Clarke, Merry and Albert Silber, Deborah Harding, and Betty Quarton Hoard. The MSU Museum also houses two important collections developed by pioneering American quilt historians Cuesta Benberry and Mary Schafer. In partnership with MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences OnLine and the Alliance for American Quilts, the MSU Museum/Great Lakes Quilt Center has spearheaded the development of two major national projects. The multimedia Quilt Treasures Project develops “web portraits” built from video-taped oral history and supporting archival materials. These web portraits document the lives, work, and influence of leaders of the American quilt revival of the last quarter of the 20th century. The Quilt Index is a national digital repository of quilt and quilt-related collections in distributed physical repositories. The Quilt Index digitally preserves the collections and makes them accessible and searchable for research and teaching. The project was beta-tested with the collections of the MSU Museum and, as of 2008, the repository holds over 18000 quilts from nine collections. By the end of 2010, another twelve collections will be added and plans are underway for the addition of scores more.

Alice B. Cowles House (formerly Faculty Row House Number 7) is a structure on the campus of Michigan State University. It is the oldest extant building on MSU's campus, though only the foundation and two exterior walls remain from the original 1857 construction. Originally built to house faculty before the founding of what is now East Lansing, Number 7's earliest residents were presidents Joseph R. Williams and T. C. Abbot. When a new president's house was built at Faculty Row Number 1 (no longer standing), Number 7 became the residence of the Professor of Botany; William J. Beal and his family lived here for 39 years. As East Lansing grew and professors moved away from Faculty Row, the house served several purposes over the years, including offices for the Education Department and as a women's dormitory. It has been the official president's residence since 1941, beginning with President John A. Hannah, who had the house extensively remodeled to suit this purpose. A 1950 renovation funded by alumnus Frederick Cowles Jenison resulted in the house being named for Jenison's mother, Alice B. Cowles. (Jenison's grandfather, Albert Cowles, had been a student in the school's first class and had helped haul the bricks during the original construction.) After Hannah, three presidents have chosen not to live in the house: Walter Adams during his nine months as Acting President in 1969 and 1970, Lou Anna Simon from 2005 to 2018, and Satish Udpa during his eight months as acting president in 2019. All three preferred to remain in their East Lansing homes, and instead used Cowles House primarily for formal entertaining and other official university functions. The house was being renovated during most of Udpa's tenure.

MSU Union is a central gathering place for students of Michigan State University. Construction was started in 1923 and was completed in 1925. It includes a food court, convenience store, apparel shop, computer lab, arcade, MSUFCU, conference rooms, study lounges and classrooms. In 2023, it was among the sites of a mass shooting on campus.

Spartan Stadium (formerly College Field, Macklin Field, and Macklin Stadium) opened in 1923 in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is primarily used for football, and is the home field of the Michigan State University Spartans. After the addition of luxury boxes and club seating in 2004–2005, the capacity of the stadium grew from 72,027 to 75,005—though it has held more than 80,000 fans—making it the Big Ten's sixth largest stadium. It has been nicknamed "The Woodshed".

The East Lansing Film Festival is the large film festival and second oldest in the state of Michigan. It screens over 100 films in 9 days, including several shorts programs. It is held yearly, usually in early November. The focus is to present a diverse selection of independent and foreign features, documentaries, shorts and student films. The festival started in 1997 and continues with the help of the City of East Lansing and Michigan State University. The final day of the festival is devoted to Lake Michigan Film Competition which showcases films from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. The festival is operated by the East Lansing Film Society. The ELFS screens films year-round at the new high tech theater, Studio C! in Okemos.

Drayton McLane Baseball Stadium at John H. Kobs Field is a college baseball stadium in East Lansing, Michigan. The stadium holds roughly 4,600 people. It is located on a floodplain on the inside of a bend in the Red Cedar River known traditionally as Old College Field (opened in 1902) and is the home field for the Michigan State University Spartans college baseball team. The facility received a $4.3 million renovation in 2009. The field itself is named after former MSU baseball coach John Kobs (named for him in 1969), and the stadium facility is named after former Houston Astros owner and Michigan State alumnus Drayton McLane Jr., whose donation in 2008 allowed for the renovation of the new facility. The first official game in the newly renovated stadium was played on April 4, 2009. Spartan pitcher Nolan Moody threw a no-hitter against Northwestern University. It marked MSU's first no-hitter in 16 years. In the summer of 2015, McLane Stadium at Kobs Field had a new electric field heating system installed by Sports Fields, Inc., becoming the first baseball field in the world with the state-of-the-art system. The numbers of five former players have been honored by the Spartans and hang on the right field fence: No. 36 Robin Roberts, No. 30 Kirk Gibson, No. 10 Steve Garvey, No. 5 Tom Yewcic and No. 13 Mark Mulder. Also honored are No. 25, worn by coach John Kobs and No. 1 worn by coach Danny Litwhiler. High school and amateur baseball games also take place at Kobs Field. It was the largest baseball stadium in the Lansing area until the completion of Oldsmobile Park. Prior to the 2005 renovation, seating at Kobs Field consisted of wooden bleachers with capacity of about 2,000, dating from shortly after World War II. Considerable open space outside the foul lines allowed standing room crowds in excess of 5,000 on isolated occasions.

The Peoples Church of East Lansing is an interdenominational Protestant congregation located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan. It is officially a member of (in alphabetical order) the American Baptist Churches USA, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church. The congregation's membership currently numbers around 1,300. Peoples Church preschool offers a NAEYC accredited nature-based curriculum to families of all faiths.