This is the Spartan Transfer Hub brought to you by Impact eighty nine FM and MSU Transfer Student Success. Here's what we've got for you today.
Zuhaer:Hi everyone, welcome back to today's episode of the Spartan Transfer Hub, the podcast about all things related to MSU Transfer Students brought to you by the MSU Transfer Student Success Center, also known as TSSC. I am your host, Zuhaer Aranya. I use he/him pronouns. I am an international student from Bangladesh.
Zuhaer:I am doing mechanical engineering and I'm a rising senior. As usual with me in the studio today is our TSSC Director and Grad Assistant. We are also joined today by the Director and Assistant Director of Multicultural Business Programs. Would you all be able to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about what you do at MSU?
Ed:Yeah, sure. So my name is Ed Tillett and I am the Director of Multicultural Business Programs and so we'll get into a little bit about what MBP is and who they are, what we do, but basically what I'm here to do is to advocate for and amplify the voices of our students within the Broad College of Business and those that are business minded students.
Marquis:And then I'm Marquis Taylor, the Assistant Director for Strategic Partnerships, Alumni and Corporate Relations. So pretty much my role is relationship building, getting our alums involved, and as well as looking at strategically how we can partner with people, but then also how are we able to interact with our employers as well.
Charles:All right. Doctor Charles Jackson, director of the Transfer Student Success Center. I use he/him/his pronouns. I've been in my role for about three years now and I was a former transfer student to MSU.
Lauren:Hi, I'm Lauren Sargent. I am a second year in the Student Affairs Administration Masters. I use she/her pronouns and I am the graduate assistant for TSSC.
Zuhaer:Before we get started, I did want to ask you something which doesn't really have anything to do with multicultural business, but I was wondering if you could create an Olympic event that you can compete in, and it doesn't have to be sports or anything, just any kind of competitive event where you know that you would absolutely be a gold medalist, what would that be?
Lauren:I have mine.
Ed:You have yours? Let's hear it. Let's hear it.
Lauren:I would be able to, like, name a bunch of, like, Greek gods.
Ed:Oh.
Lauren:Because I, like, I used to love Greek mythology as a kid, so I think if I really studied, I could just name a bunch of them.
Zuhaer:Mhmm. Like, just name them or you could name what they're the god of?
Lauren:No. Don't ask me
Zuhaer:to name that.
Lauren:Just their names.
Zuhaer:Gotcha. I mean, I mean, it's your sports.
Lauren:Yeah. It's my sport. My sport and I can name Greek gods if I want to.
Ed:Yes. Yes. That's impressive.
Marquis:I have very particular interests and I'm just gonna go with those. Listening to Prince. So I would say listening to Prince music and then also, reading comics. So I could read comics and those would be my events and then listening to Prince.
Zuhaer:That's perfect.
Charles:Just to piggyback on that since you brought up music and since we're talking about the subject of being competitive, why not have a Prince sing off competition? That's what I'm thinking would be like an excellent, like Olympic type of event. So bring some karaoke into it, bring all the Prince hits, you know, see who can, like, keep on, tone and and just remember all the lyrics to every Prince song. I'm all about that.
Marquis:Pretty sure I can probably win that.
Ed:Okay. I'd watch. I'd definitely watch that.
Ed:I think for me, there's there's a couple that come to mind. Think one, I absolutely love stories, the people's stories, and I always love kind of networking and meeting other folks. So I think if it would be like an Olympic, how could I connect people to each other? Like, many people can you connect to each other by learning their stories? And just it might be a volume thing, like, across multiple days, you know, like a Mhmm.
Ed:You know, how do we how do we do this? But but, ultimately, I'm a kid at heart. So I think if it was eighties and nineties cartoons
Charles:Oh. I couldn't Eighties and nineties cartoons are my thing. Oh my god. Yeah.
Ed:It's like a straight up trivia, you know, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera.
Charles:G. I. Joe, Thundercats.
Charles:See, I'm now I'm out dating myself.
Zuhaer:Yeah.
Ed:I did by saying eighties. You know,
Zuhaer:Those are some crazy pulls. Thundercats is such an underrated show. It's so good.
Charles:It so is. It's so good. That was my favorite. Hey, I'm sorry. I'm a I'm a seventies baby.
Charles:And yeah, I grew up on all those cartoons. Saturday mornings was they were it for me. Yes. Yes.
Zuhaer:Yeah. Now, Scooby Doo is my favorite cartoon of all time. Is that eighties, nineties? I I think so. Right?
Charles:I would say so. Scooby yeah. Eighties, nineties, you know, definitely, you know, seventies.
Ed:Definitely seventies.
Marquis:Yeah. Yeah.
Zuhaer:I'm even older, I guess, because I like Scooby Doo from back then. Yeah. But, yeah, I think
Lauren:You're the youngest person in the room.
Ed:even know what we're talking about it.
Charles:That's all right. We'll spend a day and get you updated on Scooby Doo episodes and all that, Lauren. Yes.
Zuhaer:My answer is low key worse than all of this. So here's the thing. I really like sports. I really like music. I really like movies and I really like like TV shows and all stuff.
Zuhaer:So my Olympic sport would not be how much I like these individually, but my Olympic sport is how much how many things I can nerd out about. It's like, I just like so many things. So if there was a competition for who likes the most stuff, I feel like I'd be a very cocky participant in that. Like, hey. I like more stuff than you.
Zuhaer:I know more stuff than you
Charles:I like that. Oh, wow.
Zuhaer:But I'm glad we got that out of the way, and I would like to jump into our questions today. Let's go right into Multicultural Business Programs or MBP. Would either of you be able to explain to us what MBP is?
Ed:Yeah, I can jump in on that one. So Multicultural Business Programs or, you know, what we kind of call MBP, it's community support system based in the Broad College of Business. And so, what we're rooted in is primarily empowerment, advocacy, and access for students. That's our focus, right? You know, our mission is to ensure that students from various backgrounds, whatever their identity may be racial ethnic, first gen, socioeconomic, etc.
Ed:That they have a seat at the table and they're prepared to lead at those tables when they're at. So, a seat at the table and be able to eat at that table, that's important. So we focus on student success inside, outside the classroom, trying to take that extracurricular learning a little bit further. So that includes leadership development, professional mentoring, building community across orgs, whatever that may look like for them because it's really about them. It's about them as a student.
Ed:So whether that's happening help to a student with their first internship or to find their voice in a classroom, we're here to help them through that entire journey.
Zuhaer:And I'm wondering who can receive support from MBPs? Is there a specific demographic of students or is it open for all?
Ed:No, it's all. It's all. Know, so what we like to talk about is we like to talk about the Broad Business students, but then we also like to talk about the Business minded student. So a student who may be applying to Broad or they might be just interested in Business as a minor. Right?
Ed:So they might have a major concentration in something else but they have a minor in business or, they're a sports management business minor or a real estate minor. Any student that is kind of business minded, we're here to support them in that.
Zuhaer:I know that there are quite a few different ways to get involved with multicultural business programs, including a variety of student organizations. One of the things I saw on your website is the Summer Business Institute, is designed for incoming freshman business majors. Are there any opportunities for students who may be transferring to MSU as a sophomore or even above to partake in this opportunity?
Marquis:So funny enough, we were actually just talking about that as we were preparing for this interview. So I think that there is a pipeline that we can tap into by looking at transfer students. But to answer your question more directly, yes and no. So the first year of SBI is designed for incoming first year students, but we don't have like a particular program or initiative of which that we can get upperclassmen involved. It just happens naturally.
Marquis:Like for instance, a transfer student or upperclassmen may come to some of our student events and they may get involved that way. But in terms of actual initiative itself, were literally like brainstorming and this will be a continued conversation between Ed and myself and the rest of our team is how can we get those students involved? Because that is a talent pipeline that we're missing out of because we're oftentimes connected with different employers and they're having these different internships that are available. So we want to make sure we tap into that. But again, there's nothing in particular, but students can get involved by way of our student organizations.
Marquis:We have programs that we have. We oftentimes host career treks in partnership with some of our corporate partners. For instance, our students went to Chicago this past spring. So we do things like that, different site visits. So we are looking at what that could possibly look like for a transfer student because again, like that is a talent pipeline that we are not tapping into, I guess.
Ed:Yeah. And I think that, you know, getting involved is something that we are always looking at how do we include more students, right? Inclusiveness is at the heart of what we do. And so, from things that we do like Unity Week to having we we participate in a breast cancer walk in Lansing to our student organizations, which we have, you know, seven of now, and the cultural celebrations and observations, those are all different places that we can kinda get students involved in. Right?
Ed:We're looking at how can we get students to find their community within Michigan State, right? How do we help them find that community? How we've helped them get connected?
Charles:And, you know, I appreciate you, sharing that Ed because I know within the Transfer Student Success Center, what we've been doing for the past two years is creating these monthly community dinners, allowing space for transfer students to meet other transfer students that they may not interact with throughout their time here at MSU. But then also spotlighting some of our campus partners, so all of our transfer students are able to know about the services and resources that our colleagues are providing within their particular area as well. So that building community is going to be essential when transfer students get here. And that's why I appreciate the fact that both you and Marquise are here because this really gives us an opportunity to collaborate more, to see where the synergies are, and to see where we can better support our transfer student population.
Ed:Yeah, community is free, right? So if we can help students find community, they can have as many of those as they want. I
Lauren:love that. I've never heard that before, but I like them. Community is free.
Zuhaer:Yeah. And that's good because I guess with that information, transfer students now have more things to look for at MSU. So I'm even more excited for them at this point.
Zuhaer:Now I know that MBP also has a collaboration with MSU Athletics known as Business Teams, which brings business students and student athletes together to navigate opportunities and responsibilities related to an athlete's name, image, likeness. This just sounds like a really cool and unique experience for both student athletes and business students.
Zuhaer:What are some of the responsibilities of students involved in business teams and how can business students get involved with this experience?
Ed:Yeah, so what we kind of looked at was, you know, we have this cutting edge kind of real world, real time evolving situation within the business world. So our students are always looking for, as we talked a little bit about, inside and outside the classroom connections and learning. And so we partnered with athletics. We have a colleague, Lauren Aitch-Guerrant , shout out to Lauren for her hard work.
Ed:She's a former women's basketball player here at Michigan State University. Through conversations with her, we saw this as a great peer to peer learning experience that we could assist student athletes, which also have their own culture here on this campus, as well as our business students who are looking for opportunities. And for our business students, that's helping them with marketing experience, that's helping them with brand promotion, that's helping them with all the different things that may come in, management, etc. So they can take these classroom experiences and apply them to this new effort, business teams. And so we work on NIL and brand innovation.
Ed:So that's brand consulting between these peer teams with the student athlete, right, so they can literally have peer conversations. So as we talked about, you know, with the cartoons, right, we might be a little bit outdated in some of our language that we use, but these peer to peer engagements are really, really transformational. So they're amplifying the athlete voice and that athlete's brand while meeting business and partner goals. Some of the other parts that students are involved in and doing, you know, we do think tanks, which are kind of a professional development, that help students connect with corporate partners, as well as with the student athletes and helping them get career and, you know, professionally developed. And then, you know, it's about authentic storytelling.
Ed:How do we establish MSU as a great community leader, and business partner within this community, as well as with some of our corporate partners? And so there's a community and corporate impact approach there. Because it's not just about NIL deals, right? Many times people think it's about the money, but it's about the development, right? How are we helping connect career opportunities?
Ed:How are we helping them connect with, you know, what is your brand? How do you build a brand? But then it's just athlete centered and that's where that NIL comes in. But it's truly trying to be a win win between the student athletes and trying to be, helping the business students to learn and develop and hone their skills as well along the process.
Zuhaer:Brilliant. I think this is a really important collaboration for us to bring up because sometimes these are the things that might attract new students or transfer students to engage in these sorts of programs. So I'm glad we got to talk about that a little bit. The last MBP initiative I wanted to ask about specifically is the LevelUp Academic Center and the Empowerment Closet located inside. What are these spaces used for?
Zuhaer:Who can access them? And where are they located? I have so many questions about that.
Ed:Okay, yeah, sure. Level Up Academic Center is in our Second Floor Of Eppley. And the purpose behind it, know, is it's really trying to put some empowerment. The theme of empowerment keeps coming up, right? That's our main goal and so we wanted to name it something that is positive focused and so that's why we chose the name Level Up.
Ed:But we have the empowerment closet up there where students are able to check out clothing for professional development for free. They kind of just check it out. It's a partnership with the Palmer Career Center so once again shout out. You're gonna hear some shout outs from me because we collaborate a lot, we partner a lot. So shout out to the Palmer Career Center for their partnership in building this, as well as to Baryames Clothing who provides us with free dry cleaning for this So all the clothes are clean.
Ed:They are ready to go for students to go up there. They can check it out. They roughly have about forty eight hours. We can be flexible if they need it for just a little bit longer. We understand that.
Ed:But they can check out clothing there. And then our tutoring also is housed in the Level Up Academic Center. And then brand new, we've added a CARE Center, which is a partnership with Jessica Gray, the coordinator of student wellness and academic success in our undergraduate academic services department. And so there's a care center up there that is to help students manage their needs. And so there are feminine hygiene products that are available, there are other products that are available for students where it may break a student to buy some soap, or it might break a student to buy some necessities.
Ed:And so, this care center truly is a wraparound service to try to help them through those things to take that one thing off their plate so they can focus on their academic journey, they can focus on their progress.
Charles:Yeah, that's great. I know that within the Transfer Student Success Center, we've also provided, you know, Thrive Kits, some essential needs, basic essential needs that our transfer student population needs. Toothpaste, you know, toilet paper, all those essentials. So we know how important that is to providing to students because that's just one less thing that they have to worry about getting, you know, when they transition here to MSU. It's good to know we have another, campus partner who is also, you know, more proactive in making sure that, those essential needs are being provided to students.
Lauren:Yeah. And I I wanna say this just as someone who who is a student and has been a student for the last four years to any students who are listening to this, it's okay to use those resources.
Charles:Yes.
Lauren:That's what they're there for. There's no shame in needing to get soap from the essential needs kits instead of being able to buy it from Target. One, that's why we have it, but also, like, that's also why there's, like, that big joke about, like, college students being broke. Like, a lot of us are you know, we're spending our money on college. We're trying we're spending our time studying.
Lauren:It's okay if you need extra support to fulfill your essential needs. So just one student to another, you know, as we're talking about this, I just wanted to remind everyone that those resources are are here for you, and there's no shame in needing to use them.
Ed:Yes. Right. Yeah. It is one of those things. Right?
Ed:So we think about, like, a gym. Right? When you go when you wanna work out, you want to build muscle, you want to do stuff, where do you go? You go to a gym, right? If you want to run-in the middle of winter, do you use?
Ed:A treadmill. Right? Those are just resources to use, right? And so we do that maybe for physical fitness, but why don't we do that for our own wellness and our own personal needs, you know? There's nothing wrong with asking for help.
Zuhaer:Absolutely. And to speak again as a student, as Lauren did, a lot of times these things are so overlooked because, you know, I'm paying for the I'm earning this much money from on campus jobs and then a lot of it is going into unforeseen expenses for off campus living or like buying some extra groceries or sometimes. You never know when you have emergencies and stuff, and that's why these resources are so important, right? Because when I was a freshman, for like a good bit of time I wasn't aware of these resources that were available and for another good bit of time I wasn't sure if I should be the one going out and get it or if I should break out of my shyness and go and get it. And the more that I got accustomed to MSU and the wonderful resources that people like you are doing for us students, I got to be a little bit more open minded about, yes, resources and these services are there and it's for us.
Zuhaer:My advice to students would be just, as Lauren said, go and get it because it will make, I'm sure it will make you feel a little bit more fulfilled as providers if the students are availing these resources more so than not. Finally, for students who are interested in learning more about multicultural business programmes, how how can they get involved or contact someone for more information?
Marquis:For sure. Well, first and foremost, I know a lot people are on social media, so we are active on Instagram. Our Instagram page is mbp_msu And then you can access us online as well. So broad.msu.edu/mbp.
Marquis:Believe you can contact us there. But our physical location, we are in the Eppley Center on the First Floor. So you cannot miss us. We're right across the hall from UAS, which is where students go for academic advising. So if you come in, you look to your left, there's a big sign that says multicultural business programs.
Marquis:You cannot miss us. I am the very first office that you will see people oftentimes knock on my door. That's there as far as like, just the physical location, the way you can connect with us online. But I will say that we try to make ourselves accessible. Our student organizations are oftentimes in the community, we as staff are oftentimes in the community, when I define community as the MSU community, but also like the Greater Lansing community as well.
Marquis:But in saying all of this, I really want to emphasize the point of just transfer students oftentimes that when we do interact with transfer students, more or less secondhand communication where we meet them at an event, we get connected to them directly and indirectly, but we don't necessarily have like a initiative of which we're looking to develop. So I just want to emphasize the point that we are available, whether it be through our student organizations, it be through our program itself, because people are oftentimes, you know, reaching out to us and me in particular with these internship opportunities, we're oftentimes going on these site visits and we're always looking to fill our bus. So if we can tap into a population of people who want to take advantage of these opportunities because there are no shortage of them, we definitely want to do that. But the most important thing I will say, in regards to getting in contact with us and just even just emphasizing who we are, as Michigan state as a whole, the fact that transfer students are not going to be part of the alumni network once they graduate. There are more than 550,000 living alums here at Michigan state university.
Marquis:So once these students matriculate and earn their degree, we wanna make sure that they are able to do some amazing things in the world. So, contact us again. We already shot it on our Instagram. We shot it on our website, but in our physical location, we're in the Broad College of Business and we are open for business. So please feel free to stop by.
Charles:Definitely. And I think that this will be a good opportunity to maybe invite you to one of our community dinners this upcoming academic year, and spotlight you, as one of our campus partners who is just another support for transfer students. Definitely be on the lookout for that, that invite for our next community dinner.
Ed:Yeah, we'd love to be there. We'd love to show up and show out to support your students and support the efforts that you all are making because you guys are doing wonderful work. So Thank you. We'll be there. And
Zuhaer:I will be there too, even if I'm just the host of this show. But that is all the questions I have for you guys today. But I would still ask if you had any last thoughts or last pieces of advice that you would like to leave for students today?
Marquis:I will really just say that we're open. I cannot emphasize enough that this campus, for as many students that there are on this campus, I feel like and I think it is a nationwide, not just this campus in particular, but transfer population is a very underutilized and overlooked population of students that do not get tapped into enough. I think about the people who have transferred into Michigan State University, which is universities as a whole, from their previous institution. And I know they have like many different demands, things that are pulling at their attention, but we wanna make sure that we as MBP are accessible, that we can provide you with a different resource that allow you to be successful because ultimately you transfer to Michigan State for a reason. I would imagine as one, to get your degree but in two, to find a job.
Marquis:So we wanna make sure that we can get you connected to those resources and be a catalyst for you to access the Palmer Career Center or some of the other programs across Broad.
Ed:Yeah, and I would just add, you know, it's a full circle moment to say, you know, this is about empowerment, it's about advocacy, it's about access. Know, that's what we're here to do is to help students feel like they can do what they want to do in their career, in their journey, feel like they have someone that can speak up for them in rooms that they may not be sitting in, and that's where the advocacy really comes in. You know, how can we help them with whatever they need? And then opening the door to access, right, going back to that sitting at the table, you know, and having their voice at that table. That's truly, truly important to us.
Ed:And so all I can do is echo what Marquis said. He said it so well and so eloquently. So, I'm not going to belabor the point, but yes, we are truly open to all and that's where we sit.
Zuhaer:Perfect. Thank you so much for joining us today and thank you so much for all these advices and again I have to appreciate how open you guys are and how inviting you guys are so thank you for all of that. And with that we're going to wrap up today's episode of Spartan Transfer Hub. If you wanna hear more episodes like this, make sure to tune in on the Impact eighty nine FM website, Spotify, or Apple Podcast. We have more platforms listed in our description.
Zuhaer:Go green.
All:Go white. Go white. Thanks
Zuhaer:for stopping by the Spartan Transfer Hub brought to you by Impact89FM and MSU's Transfer Student Success Center. See you soon!