CANCELLING CLASSES, GROUP DISCUSSIONS: MSU FACULTY GRAPPLE WITH HOW TO ADDRESS ELECTION RESULTS AND SCRUTINY
By Emilio Perez Ibarguen, Theo Scheer eibarguen@statenews.com tscheer@statenews.com
The morning after Election Day, hours after the presidential race was called for Donald Trump, Bob Gould said he found himself having to do “a lot of soul searching.”
The broadcast journalism professor was trying to decide how to broach the subject in class that day, knowing that “for some, this is a really difficult time because they feel like maybe their status will be marginalized,” he said.
He recalled grappling with similar questions twice before, though there were “different levels of that trauma” each time: in the midst of
the Larry Nassar scandal and after the 2023 campus mass shooting.
MSU faculty have the difficult task of addressing an election that has distressed some students without ostracizing those who feel differently. Some have chosen to keep their personal political beliefs to themselves. Others have been vocal about how the election has affected them, a choice university administrators say should be exercised with caution.
In any case, many professors have used the classroom as a space for students to process and learn from the news.
Gould avoided taking sides and let his students do the talking, he
Members of the LGBTQIA+ community at Michigan State University discuss their fears of what a Trump presidency means for them.
said, choosing to open class with a group discussion.
“I wanted to stay very neutral,” Gould said. “I have to be careful about how I approach it, because people have different feelings about issues and how they voted. And I wasn’t going to assume that all students all voted one way or the other, or that some issues were less important or more important.”
PROFESSORS DRAW ONLINE CRITICISM
Other faculty did not try to hide their political beliefs. In fact, one professor’s vocal reaction to Trump’s election spurred additional guidance from university administration on
how to respond to the news.
Shlagha Borah, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Letters, announced to her students that class would be canceled hours after the Associated Press called the race for Trump.
“I am canceling class today to grieve the presidential election results,” Borah wrote, according to screenshots shared on social media.
“As a queer immigrant woman of colour, I cannot, in good conscience, go about my day like everything is alright. This is a major historical event that we are witnessing. I hope you take this time to take care of yourself.”
The fact that she was canceling
class to “grieve” Trump’s election did not mean that students who had voted for the former president, or held any other political views, would be unwelcome in her class, Borah wrote.
“Having said that, please know that no matter your political beliefs, you are welcome in my class and won’t be discriminated against in any way. Please reach out to me if you want to talk.”
Within hours, Borah’s announcement — originally posted to her class’ D2L homepage — found its way into the hands of prominent right-wing online agitators.
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FROM COVER: Faculty grapple with how to address election results
Libs of TikTok, a popular conservative X, formerly known as Twitter, account whose critiques of liberal educators and social media users often inspire bomb threats and hate mail to its targets, posted screenshots of Borah’s announcement online. The screenshots have amassed over 2 million impressions across several accounts and have since been reported on by conservative media outlets, with many portraying Borah as overly-sensitive and biased.
MSU moved to limit how the general public could contact her. Borah’s profile on the College of Arts and Letters online directory was removed, and Borah deleted her X account and her personal website is currently set to private. Borah did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
MSU MANAGES ELECTION FALLOUT
Borah was only one of many professors who canceled classes or made them optional for students following the election.
MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said the university was quickly notified of such class cancellations and received “copies of some of the social media posts.”
University officials also heard from students who felt uncomfortable taking classes after
seeing “their faculty member was canceling the class or making it seem like what happened with the election was a bad thing,” Guerrant said.
In response, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Mark Largent reminded deans and other top faculty of the university’s expectations around canceling class in a meeting of the University Committee on Undergraduate Education on Thursday.
Largent, in an email to The State News, said he didn’t tell faculty to not cancel class or make political statements. But he did remind them of a section of MSU’s “Code of Teaching Responsibility” which states that instructors are “responsible for meeting their classes regularly and at scheduled times” and that they must notify their units if they will be absent.
Largent also told faculty they “wouldn’t need to comment on the election as part of a reason for not having class … and they don’t need to share their party affiliation or their personal reaction to the campaign,” Guerrant said.
Largent was not available for an interview and didn’t respond to additional questions by the time of publication.
MSU isn’t trying to limit faculty’s ability to express their views, Guerrant said.
“Faculty should be able to express how they feel about a situation, absolutely, but they shouldn’t do it in a way that maybe influences their students,” Guerrant said. “There’s a line to walk between sharing your views on a situation but also doing it in a way that makes students feel like they can’t share their views.”
The guidance issued to faculty comes as MSU moves toward “institutional neutrality,” a term used to describe formal policies barring universities from issuing political statements.
While MSU’s president and board are still discussing whether to officially enact such policies, the university has already issued guidance to administrators explicitly describing its institutional “tone” on the Israel-Hamas war as “neutral.”
MSU’s own response to the election results took an impartial tone, yet acknowledged concerns often raised by liberals about Trump’s plans for higher education.
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz encouraged students in an email two days after the election to recognize “our common humanity and the inherent dignity in each other,” acknowledging that the election “stirred strong feelings.”
“Spartans won’t always agree, and that’s ok,” Guskiewicz wrote. “A big part of the MSU educational experience is grappling with the many ways to live and view the world.”
But, he acknowledged “well-founded concerns about how the election will impact diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and Title IX processes.”
“Please know that no matter what happens, we all belong here, and the university remains committed to inclusivity and will navigate any changes and challenges by uplifting our values,” Guskiewicz said.
FACULTY DIFFER IN APPROACH TO ELECTION
For Bryan Ellis, an assistant professor in the College of Social Science, being transparent with students about his political views was essential to fostering a genuine conversation about the election outcome, which he held in class on Wednesday.
Ellis, who told his class he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, said stating who he voted for shouldn’t impact his ability to connect with his class, lead discussions or teach course material. If anything, Ellis said, shying away from the political choice at the foundation of voting “can be constructed as a bit disingenuous.”
“Part of being human is to say, very openly, that I engaged in the same act of voting,” Ellis said. “I understand I voted for who I voted, you voted for who you voted for, and I respect that. That’s the process, that’s the way it works, but I don’t think I necessarily need to hide that.”
Divya Victor, an associate professor of English and director of the university’s creative writing program, said there’s a difference between a professor expressing their point of view and having a “biased framework” that makes students feel alienated for their political beliefs.
“We cannot embody forces of neutrality,” Victor said. “I just don’t think that’s possible. But we can make sure that our teaching
environments are always inclusive.”
Victor said that she and most of her colleagues used their classrooms to discuss how students felt about the election.
It was a needed opportunity, since “everyone who did come to class was crestfallen, dismayed, and sad,” she said.
Gould said that in one of his classes, students spent over half an hour talking about the election. Afterwards, he got an email from a student thanking him for the discussion.
“It helped her get through the day,” Gould said. Ellis had made a point to inform his class before the election that, regardless of the results, his class would be a space to safely discuss how they felt.
“I wasn’t trying to turn this into a teachable moment,” Ellis said. “I was simply trying to be here as another fellow American, another human being, and process with them, reflect with them and be present.”
Ellis likened his openness in discussions to how public sociology, a niche within sociology, recommends academics “not always get caught up in the ivory tower” and instead have frank conversations with the everyday people they study.
Holding open conversations for students to process and express their feelings after a major news event, like a presidential election, fit nicely into Ellis’ broader teaching philosophy, which he said promotes a “call and response” between students and faculty.
“It’s a back and forth discussion between the professor and the students where I ask for a lot of engagement on their part,” Ellis said. “So it bodes well with my pedagogy.”
Victor also sees an intersection between politics and her field of study.
“I see creative writing as a socially engaged practice, where poems and essays are in conversation with realities created by our political choices,” she said. “So the classroom is not merely a place for emotional processing but a site where we are doing the real work of learning how to build (and constantly rebuild) society through the imagination and language.”
LGBTQIA+ students are fearful after election cycle
By Hannah Locke hlocke@statenews.com
The 2024 presidential election results have sparked a variety of emotions and reactions from the American public this past week, including Michigan State University students. Some are feeling excited, while others are disappointed in the outcome.
Some members of the LGBTQIA+ community have feelings that go beyond this disappointment.
“As a liberal, I am disappointed,” journalism senior Lucas Trainor said. “As a transgender person, I’m terrified.”
When Trump began his campaign for president, it was clear that for many members of the LGBTQIA+ community, he was a dangerous adversary. His 2024 campaign in particular has targeted the rights of transgender people heavily.
In Trump’s 20-point platform, titled Agenda47, he laid out the plan that his administration has for the future of transgender healthcare and rights.
Among them are revoking Biden’s policies regarding gender-affirming care, stopping programs that “promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age” and removing hospitals and healthcare providers from Medicare and Medicaid if they provide gender affirming healthcare procedures or medications.
Trainor said that while overall things won’t change for him, he is worried about his friends, who are using Medicaid to receive Hormone Replacement Therapy, or HRT, medication.
“I’m worrying about people that I love and care about who are losing this vital piece of health insurance that to them, and also to experts, is lifesaving,” he said.
Trump’s proposed policies also include asking Congress to pass a bill that “prohibits men from participating in women’s sports,” declaring that “only genders recognized by the U.S. government are male and female — and they are assigned at birth,” and protecting parents “from being forced to allow their minor child to assume a new gender identity without the parents’ consent.”
Prior to the election results coming out, international relations senior Lyra Opalikhin said that worry was mainstay for her as a transgender individual.
“Realistically, there’s only two candidates that can win,” Opalikhin said. “Of the two, one of them directly threatens me and many of my friends with the policies that they would pass.”
Opalikhin and Trainor were able to participate in the election and casted their votes before Election Day. Opalikhin voted early in East Lansing, while Trainor voted absentee in his home state of New Jersey.
“It was pretty neat to be able to say I have now participated in a piece of history,” Trainor said. “It also felt like something I couldn’t afford not to do.”
Opalikhin casted her vote for the democratic nominee, but through the election cycle felt as though the rights of transgender people did
not receive avid support from the Democratic presidential campaign.
“I wish that… directly saying, clearly, that they will protect queer people, would happen on a much larger debate stage,” she said. “In the debates, there were not really any questions about queer people. And in individual interviews, I sometimes see that question is often avoided.”
Opalikhin theorized that this lack of attention placed on queer rights might have been in an attempt to maintain votes from moderate constituents, or those who the Democrats were attempting to sway away from the Republican Party.
“I know many queer people who are feeling alienated by the Democratic Party due to this and are leaning to vote for third parties,” Opalikhin said. “I think it’s a fair reaction. Considering all that’s happened, I don’t really blame them.”
Trainor said though he didn’t necessarily feel represented in the Democratic campaign, he did feel a sense of safety.
“Even though there were some issues that I fundamentally disagreed with (Kamala Harris) on,” Trainor said. “Overall, it was a breath of fresh air in U.S. politics, and it was also one of the first times, if ever, I’ve felt safe… because being trans is kind of a political thing, and it’s the first time I ever truly felt respected and viewed as a person, instead of purely just a topic.”
In the circles of queer friends and activists that Trainor is in, he observed a large amount
results didn’t feel real to her, and it felt that way for a couple of days, she said.
“My girlfriend and I, we were watching it together, and we cried a little bit because… we knew that (Trump) had won, essentially,” Stow said. “We were just crying and holding each other, telling each other that we’re gonna be okay.”
Many of Stow’s fears came from the policies regarding LGBTQIA+ individuals in Project 2025. She is worried about her right to same sex marriage and her reproductive rights.
Project 2025 is a book that offers a host of policy suggestions that promise to meet the “country’s deepest challenges and put America back on track.” Many of these policies target LGBTQIA+ individuals and same-sex couples. Some of the suggestions Project 2025 makes include stripping members of the LGBTQIA+ community of protections under Title IX as well as criticizing families with same-sex parents.
Project 2025 makes the claim that “the objective outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages).”
Trump has made an effort to distance himself from Project 2025, while many others have noted that former members of his administration did contribute to its creation.
Stow recalls the 2016 election, when Trump won his first presidency, and how much has changed for her since. Now, she feels she has a lot more to worry about.
of engagement leading up to the election.
“The nature of being queer is inherently political, so we kind of are automatically thrust into having to defend ourselves before we can even vote half the time,” Trainor said. “So, I know that a lot of people, especially in my circles, were very, very involved. Even if it wasn’t like campaigning or anything… they would always make it known who they thought the better candidate was overall.”
In the moments leading up to the election results, Opalikhin did her best to remain hopeful and made an effort to take care of herself. After casting her vote, there was not much she could do but wait.
“Eating food that you like, hanging out with the people that you care for, and just being able to take care of yourself during this stressful time is one of the best ways, I think, to stay sane,” Opalikhin said.
Watching the election results come in, marketing freshman Moyra Stow became more anxious about what was going to happen. Throughout the campaigns, she was convinced that Harris would be elected president.
“We were really nervous and anxious,” she said. “We kept trying to make excuses for the fact that (Trump) was winning… trying to make ourselves feel better. We were like, ‘No, they haven’t even counted all the votes yet, surely she’s gonna win.’”
When Stow woke up the next morning, the
“Back when he had won, originally, it didn’t affect us at all because we were in fifth grade, middle school,” Stow said, “but now we’re growing up, and now this is stuff that’s actually going to be affecting us and it’s just scary.”
The election has also altered some of Stow’s relationships. She doesn’t think it will be possible for her to maintain friendships with people who voted for Trump.
“I would not want to be friends with somebody who voted for him knowing what would happen to me as a lesbian and a woman,” she said.
As a way to cope with these uncertain and stressful times, Trainor is seeking out community and encourages others to do the same.
“It’s important to remember that we’re all dealing with this collectively, and I think that it’s important that we all are able to recognize that and connect over that, do something to change it,” he said. “Even if we can’t change things, we would be able to take comfort in the fact that we have each other’s backs.”
When it comes to taking action and protecting the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, Trainor finds himself also looking at community as a means for change.
“I think overall, it’s going to be a lot more like community work than political work,” Trainor said. “I think staying active in the community as well as making your voice known politically is very important, especially because it is now an uphill battle for us.”
Illustration by Zachary Balcoff.
DEFENSIVE PRESSURE ABSENT FROM MSU FOOTBALL FOR WEEKS
By Kaspar Haehnle khaehnle@statenews.com
The ability to wreak havoc in opposing backfields pays dividends toward winning football games.
To begin the season, MSU football possessed this ability and had wins to show for it. Since then, the once-fruitful pass rush has tarnished, adding to the Spartans’ various on-field issues.
Coming off a 47-10 drubbing suffered to No. 8 Indiana and entering its second bye week, MSU (4-5, 2-4 Big Ten) has a lot of work to do in order to make a bowl game push. Of many problems that arose against the Hoosiers, the biggest concern for MSU lies up front on the defensive line.
Against its first four opponents, MSU racked up a Big Ten-leading 15 sacks. It hasn’t sacked an opposing quarterback once since a 23-19 loss to Boston College on Sept. 21.
In the span of six weeks, MSU’s sack defense went from best in the Big Ten to 95th in the nation.
“We just have to keep looking at it,” MSU head coach Jonathan Smith said after Saturday’s loss to Indiana. “I like those guys up front, especially on the edge, but we have not affected the passer.”
The problem hasn’t been just bringing down opposing QB’s; MSU has struggled to generate any kind of penetration. Over the past five games, MSU has only recorded five quarterback hits.
This has allowed opposing quarterbacks to sit comfortably in the pocket and time to read
PING-PONG BRINGS MSU’S HOCKEY TEAM TOGETHER
the defense. Every passing second equates to a higher likelihood of finding open receivers. MSU’s defensive backs are being asked to do what is frowned upon at every level: cover for more than three seconds. In some cases, it’s much more than three.
“We just gotta be better up front,” MSU defensive end Khris Bogle said after Saturday’s loss to Indiana. “We have to get to the quarterback as much as we can. We haven’t done it in a couple games, but that starts with us up front.”
In the last five games, opposing quarterbacks have gone 90-for-144 for 1,098 yards and 11 touchdowns with four interceptions. Those quarterbacks have also found success on the ground, running the ball 20 times for 121 and four touchdowns.
The defense is one unit, and when one portion isn’t doing its job, the overall success ceiling is lowered.
“Like I said, we just got to go out there as players and execute the game plan,” Bogle said. “I put that on myself and the guys on the defensive line. We just gotta step it up, and that starts at practice, so hopefully with this bye week we’ll know what’s at stake and we’ll get better.”
While opposing quarterbacks aren’t getting hit, MSU’s quarterbacks are. Through nine games, the Spartan offensive line has given up 27 sacks, ranking 114th in the nation. Seven of those sacks came against Indiana last Saturday.
MSU’s offensive line has failed to replicate the standard opposing offensive lines in the Big Ten have established. Without time, Spartan
By Madilynn Warden mwarden@statenews.com
Hockey is a sport of skill, precision, hand-eye coordination, teamwork, concentration and much more.
So is table tennis, but with less teamwork.
Players on the Michigan State hockey team spend most of their days together on and off the ice, either practicing or playing games or hanging out in the players’ lounge and traveling during the season.
When off the ice, the Spartans can be found at their team Ping-Pong table competing against one another.
Whether playing a traditional firstto-21 game or a seven-point-mercy tournament, head-to-head competition doesn’t leave the ice with MSU.
“(We usually) spend like an hour a day playing,” junior forward Tiernan
Shoudy said Friday afternoon.
“Probably about five hours a week.
Today we didn’t have class, so it’s
quarterbacks — specifically sophomore Aidan Chiles — have been put in poor positions to succeed, leading to unwarranted turnovers and inexperienced mistakes.
This season, Chiles has gone 141-for-229 with 1,850 years and eight touchdowns to 11 interceptions. On the ground, he’s ran it 73 times for 170 yards and three touchdowns while adding four fumbles to his turnover resume.
The Spartans’ lack of strength in both the offensive and defensive trenches has caused MSU to underperform as a whole. Through nine games, 17 offensive touchdowns and 18 turnovers is not a recipe for success.
After its first bye week amidst a three-game losing streak, MSU was able to cut out the bad and fine-tune the good in a 32-20 victory against a solid Iowa team.
Now entering its second bye week, the same story can be applied. The Spartans are in a twogame losing skid with another Big Ten opponent in Illinois on the clock.
MSU and Illinois will face off on Saturday, Nov. 16 at 2:30 p.m. at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill. FS1 will stream the game.
“We won the last bye week,” Bogle said. “So now we just have to make sure everyone is on the same page coming out of this next bye week and executing the game plan for Illinois.”
For this bye week success to be true a second time around, MSU will have to regroup and reset to find answers for its lack of pressure. Maybe it comes with more blitzes or a different personnel group. Whatever the answer, the Spartans must find it if they want to play any games past Thanksgiving.
easier to stick around.”
Junior forward Karsen Dorwart was the table’s ruler last season, winning the final tournament of the year. He still holds his crown high but has some teammates — or competitors — that remain up for the challenge of his dethroning.
“I’m actually still the champ because I wasn’t in the last tournament and they haven’t finished this tournament, so I’m still the champ right now. I think my record still proves that against Tommi (Männistö),” Dorwart said.
The competition gets heated quickly. Dorwart said he broke a Ping-Pong paddle after losing a game he thought he should’ve won. The stakes are always high, he said.
Ping-Pong was a foreign concept for sophomore forward Männistö, a native of Finland, before he came to MSU. With a little help from former teammate Nicolas Müller, Männistö was a quick learner and climbed his way to the top of the leaderboard.
Larson said Männistö has experienced “the greatest rise of all time.”
Männistö said Ping-Pong and the competitive dynamic within the locker room has helped him create quick bonds with teammates. There’s always time to play a few games, whether it be before going home after practice and games or before class, he said.
Playing at a high level of college hockey is what the Spartans work towards on a daily basis. But being able to experience healthier, more light-hearted competition and enjoy each other’s company at the PingPong table offers something a bit different: creating energy and lifelong relationships off the ice.
“It brings a good energy to the rink. You’re always excited to be able to play every day,” Dorwart said. “I think just having this too, guys look forward to coming to the rink for practice and you get to mess around after. It’s something fun and it keeps everyone together and hanging out.”
Both teams prepare for a scrimmage in the game against the Ohio State Buckeyes played in Spartan Stadium on Sept. 28, 2024.
Photo by Fatih Gorkem Imamoglu.
MSU hockey junior Tiernan Shoudy keeps a pingpong rally alive on Nov. 1, 2024. Junior Karsen Dorwart said some members of the team play for about an hour every day.
Photo by Madilynn Warden.
How the baseball radar gun got its start at MSU
By Hannah Holycross hholycross@statenews.com
Fifty years ago, an MSU student had no idea that a short story he was writing about the MSU police would go on to change the art of pitching in Major League Baseball.
Steve Orr was just getting his footing as a new reporter at the student paper, The State News, in 1974 when he covered the new radar guns MSUPD had purchased to catch speeding cars. The story, titled “MSU police get radar gun,” takes up a mere half-page of the paper and includes a photo of a police officer holding the new tool.
“The next time you are cruising a campus street and get that urge to stomp on the accelerator and let it out, beware — the MSU police now have a radar gun,” the story said.
The article reached Danny Litwhiler, the MSU baseball coach at the time, who thought the radar gun technology could be used in his profession. Peter Morris, a baseball historian and author, explained that Litwhiler then asked the police department if an officer could park a radarequipped cruiser on the field during practice to see if it could track the speed of pitches.
With the cruiser parked between the mound and home plate, Litwhiler had a pitcher throw a ball past the radar gun. When the estimate from the device came back with what seemed to be an accurate response, Litwhiler realized the potential of the tool. He promptly sent a letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to share the discovery, Morris said.
Because the company that created the radar gun, a Colorado company called CMI Inc., only saw the tool as use for public safety, Litwhiler contacted John Paulson, inventor of the JUGS pitching machine, to see if he could attach a battery to the gun to do away with the police cruiser.
Thus, a prototype was born. And eventually, the JUGS gun became a baseball essential.
“This is a really important thing,” Morris said, “Both because you can kind of measure really something that we’ve always kind of guessed at before, and it was sort of a really important step for baseball scouting to go from something that had always been kind of more of an art to being more of a science.”
Orr only learned of the impact his newspaper story had last month, when Morris sent him an email about it two days before the 50th anniversary of the story on Oct. 10, 2024.
A baseball fan himself, Orr was pleasantly surprised that his story inspired such a change
in the field.
Orr dug through the back of his closet to find the scrapbook his dad had put together for him after his first semester working as a reporter. Sitting on the top of the very first page was the story.
“I knew nothing about this, nothing,” he said.
“I mean, you know, I wrote the story, I’ve read it over recently and it’s a cute little story, but it’s just a little story, and I never would have thought of it again, never did for all those years, until a few weeks ago.”
Orr said he was delighted to hear from Morris about his role in baseball history. He immediately sent the story to his family and friends when he learned of the chain of events.
“To think that this little feature story I did so long ago touched off this string of events — lit the light bulb, if you will — in the mind of the MSU baseball coach, I think it’s marvelous,” he said.
AN ART TURNED INTO A SCIENCE
Before the radar gun came into play, Morris said, baseball scouts used to come up with creative ways to determine a player’s skill.
Some would climb up trees to evaluate a prospect from various angles, and others relied
on various myths and legends. A common one, deemed “The Good Face,” was to determine a player’s skill based on if he had the right “look” of maturity and confidence on his face.
The radar gun made scouting more mathematical and less based on assumption and myths.
“It’s less of a projection and more of an exact thing,” Morris said.
This comes with its downsides, however.
Morris said the emphasis on speed created by the radar gun has led to players and coaches placing importance on “max effort throwing,” which involves throwing the ball as hard as possible.
Pitchers are put in for shorter amounts of time, being substituted in with “relievers,” so they can throw their hardest without exhausting their pitch.
Morris said this has been tied to “Tommy John” surgery, a procedure common for pitchers that repairs a torn ulnar collateral ligament in the elbow to stabilize it and restore range of motion.
“When you throw a lot of fast pitches, your elbow goes out. And it used to be that your elbow went out, you didn’t throw a start,” Morris said.
“But now you do Tommy John surgery, and you sit out a year and you come back, and sometimes better than ever.”
THE ‘THOMAS EDISON OF BASEBALL’
Litwhiler served as the MSU baseball coach from 1964 to 1983 and was referred to as the “Thomas Edison of baseball” by author Dan Gutman in his book about unique baseball inventions, “Banana Bats and Ding-Dong Balls.”
According to the Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame, which inducted Litwhiler in 2023, he is responsible for over 100 inventions and innovations introduced to aid in coaching and development.
Some of his other inventions included “Diamond Dust,” a dirt/clay mixture used to absorb water. Litwhiler and his chemical engineer neighbor Jack Moore came up with
the idea after watching a football game together and noticing how hard it was to dry a wet ball when it rained. A more advanced version has since been developed and is used to dry entire baseball fields.
He is also responsible for other popular inventions such as the “Bunting Bat,” which is sliced in half lengthwise for use in bunting practice, the “multiple batting cage,” which allows multiple players to practice batting at once, and “The Lit-Picker,” a device that picks up balls without forcing the user to bend down.
Jake Boss Sr., a former MSU baseball assistant coach, has fond memories of Litwhiler, who passed away in 2011. Boss worked closely with Litwhiler during his time coaching at Lansing Everett High School in the 1970s, where he would help coach summer baseball camps at MSU.
“He was extremely creative,” Boss said. “He was really known for his innovative ideas.”
Boss Sr. said he remembers using Litwhiler’s “Bunting Bat” to teach kids how to bunt properly. He remembers using the famous radar gun as well.
“He was just a great guy, a very good friend and very good to the high school baseball coaches within the state,” he said.
THE INVENTION AT MSU TODAY
The radar gun has come a long way from its start in a cruiser parked on a field to now a handheld device carried by baseball coaching staffs across the country.
While still used by Major League Baseball teams, it is also still up-and-running in the very place it started.
Mark Van Ameyde, the MSU baseball assistant and pitching coach, said everyone on the coaching staff has one, and they use them for everything from scouting for recruits to scoping out the competition’s pitches during games.
“It’s a main presence — every game of every pitch — and now it’s in college baseball too, and I would imagine that the general public has no idea that it started at Michigan State,” he said.
Michigan State redshirt junior right-handed pitcher
Ryan Szczepaniak (42) pitches in the bullpen on Nov. 7, 2024. MSU Baseball assistant and pitching coach Mark Van Ameyde tracks the speed of the pitch using a radar gun. Photo by Brianna Schmidt.
MSU facilities work together to turn waste into power
By Anna Rossow arossow@statenews.com
Three different Michigan State University departments are working together in sustainable practices to convert campus waste into energy.
In 2008, MSU established the Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center (ADREC), which turns animal and culinary waste into power for the campus. MSU Culinary Services and MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center contribute different kinds of waste to sustainably convert it.
MSU professor and the director of the ADREC Wei Liao said anaerobic digestion is a biological process in which bacteria convert organic matter into methane and carbon dioxide.
The gasses generated from the process is converted into energy and used in the MSU power grid. He said there are two digesters on the south side of campus. They are used for research purposes as well as contributing power to campus. Liao said they use it to study microbiology and engineering processes.
Liao said the energy created can power around 10 campus buildings.
According to MSU’s sustainability website, MSU is one of three universities in the U.S. with a “selfsustaining” anaerobic digester.
All of the waste comes from two different sources: the MSU Dairy Farm and Brody dining hall. Student Life and Engagement sustainability officer Carla Iansiti said Brody has a trough in the back of the kitchen where food waste is put.
When food is discarded, it is placed in the trough with water, which then goes through a pulper, a machine that breaks down food into smaller pieces.
“It’s kind of like a washing machine, where you add water, chops it up, and then it’s sent downstairs, and the water is extracted back out, leaving kind of a wet sawdust type product,”
Iansiti said. “It goes into a container, and we deliver it to the digester twice a week.”
Brody is the only dining hall with a pulper that allows for this process.
Iansiti said if they installed a pulper in other dining halls, they would not have a way to transport that extra
waste to the digester.
She said there is no plan of installing a pulper in other cafeterias due to each dining hall’s unique design. However, food scraps do not go to waste, and are used for other sustainability programs.
“Right now, we have post consumer programs happening in all the halls,” Iansiti said. “Vegetable scraps are going to vermicomposting, and we also have some going to Hammond farms. So we have programs happening all over.”
The properties of the food waste is how the digester turns the product into methane.
“In food waste, we have carbohydrates, proteins and fats, those are all the good nutrients for that group of anaerobic microbes,” Liao said.
Waste from the farm arrives at the digester more often than the food waste. Manager at the MSU Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center Jim Good said they transport manure from the farm twice a day.
“The combination of the food waste along with the cattle manure makes
a unique blend of methane that has a very good use for running through a generator, producing electricity,” Good said. “So our main focus, is that we produce the manure with our 250 mature cows that goes back daily to the digester.”
Good said every transport is 1,500 gallons of manure. The farm also has an underground pump, which transports around 9,000 gallons of manure in one day, totaling 12,000 gallons of waste from the farm daily.
According to MSU’s sustainability website, operators add 20,000 gallons of waste to the digester every day, where microorganisms break down the waste in the holding tank for 20-30 days.
“The benefit we would get is that we’re able to utilize the methane from the cow manure, where that just doesn’t get lost up into the environment,” Good said. “We’re able to utilize that, we capture that gas, we run that methane through a generator and the generator produces electricity.”
Good said manure does not disappear after the process.
According to MSU’s sustainability website, the ending byproducts after the material is broken down are liquid and solid fertilizers. Liao said they may run into problems with contamination within the anaerobic digester.
“Oftentimes we see trash, meaning there’s some latex gloves, plastic bags and even some bottles,” Liao said. “And when those things mix with the food waste, dumping the digester is troublesome, because the plastic trash are not biodegradable.”
To reduce other contaminants at the source, Iansiti said the machine at Brody has magnets on the side to pull any metal materials mixed in with the food waste out of the system’s flow. Liao said this is part of the campus’s sustainability practices. He said that they are trying to eliminate landfill dumping.
“It’s got two functions to it too,” Good said. “We’re producing a valueadded product coming off to the farm that would be considered a waste product. So there’s one, and we’re helping the environment out too. So you’ve got two big win-win benefits.”
CROSSWORD
‘Thank you for the music’
ACROSS
1 Not shining brightly.
4 Not on time.
8 The U.S. Postal Service is one of these, abbr.
11 Native of Saudi Arabia.
13 Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, abbr.
14 Wedding ceremony phrase.
15 “Cases _____ the rise.”
16 Telecommunication device for employees or clients at a remote location to contact a central dispatch office, pl.
19 This “ocean” eyed singer scored seven GRAMMY nominations.
21 This card is inserted into cameras.
22 Shed tears.
23 Jeremy ______ is one of ESPN’s most respected and longest-tenured personalities who has been with the network since 1994.
27 Mai _____, a rum cocktail.
28 _____-pop, type of music, abbr.
30 Circuit Court of Appeals, abbr.
31 Used in Thanksgiving dinners as a sauce.
35 “That’s a _____.”
36 Jonathan Larson’s most popular Broadway musical, also a monthly payment.
37 A type of paint.
38 Tube which sprays water.
39 Environmental engineering class, abbr.
40 Transported the Pilgrims.
43 Wii avatar.
44 Created AIM Instant Messenger.
45 COVID-19 vaccines were put under this FDA authority.
46 Plastic piece at the end of your shoelaces.
49 Some prefer this sauce to soy.
50 MSU’s Contract and Grant Administration, abbr.
53 This “Midwest Princess” got six GRAMMY nominations.
57 To put someone under the knife.
60 Sound, can often be muted.
61 _____-Man, famous 80’s video
HALLOWEEN - OCT. 29, 2024 - ANSWERS
game character.
62 A speech impediment, pl
63 Lacking flavor.
64 Created or set up, abbr.
65 Showing too much curiosity, to pry
66 This is said in agreeance.
DOWN
1 Medieval combat.
2 American _____, won by Kelly Clarkson.
3 Used as a taxi.
4 First name of the actress who plays Gretchen in the 2004 Mean Girls.
5 Popular berries in Refreshers.
6 To communicate info.
7 Enroll.
8 Broadway musical featuring ex-wives of Henry VIII.
9 Lyrical poem expressing tribute.
10 These lip balms were viral in the 2000’s.
11 Carpenter and Spellman are famous ones, abbr.
12 Dry climate.
17 Uncommon abbreviation of Bachelor of Science.
18 Exclamation of realization.
20 Lake seen from Cedar Point.
24 May be scared by a scarecrow.
25 This is heard before a court.
26 Material commonly written on.
27 Explosives.
28 Popular sans-serif font.
29 John _____, a famous English writer.
31 The froth on espresso.
32 Common misspelling of going back on a promise or contract.
33 Patrick Harris, Diamond and Armstrong are each one.
34 Tony ____ is a former NFL quarterback who played 13 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.
35 An exclamation of surprise.
41 Experience emotion.
42 A quiet, gentle song.
44 May have _____ pillow or bonnet to help with hair care.
47 Efficient consumer response, abbr.
48 Village in the Austrian state of Styria, birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger
49 Extremely small, tiny.
50 Acronym for a person raised by deaf parents, pl.
51 Obtain or acquire.
52 What you may call a bob of one’s head.
54 Mexican currency.
55 What you may call your grandpa
56 Regulation or principle.
57 Midwestern expression of surprise.
58 Classical ballet step.
59 And so on, abbr.
By Zachary Balcoff.
