Michigan State University

From Wikipedia.

Michigan State University (MSU) is a co-educational public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least five winners of the Pulitzer Prize. MSU pioneered the studies of packaging, hospitality business, telecommunication, and music therapy. Today its study-abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the country, offering more than 200 programs in more than 60 countries on all continents including Antarctica. It is considered to be one of America's Public Ivy universities, which recognizes top public research universities in the United States.

Following the introduction of the Morrill Act, the college became coeducational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture. After World War II, the number of students tripled as the institution became a major university. Today, MSU is the eighth-largest university in the United States, with 46,045 students and 2,954 faculty members.

MSU's Division I sports teams are called the Spartans. They compete in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except ice hockey, in which the team is part of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. MSU's football team won the Rose Bowl in 1954, 1956, and 1988 and boasts six national championships. Its men's basketball team won the NCAA National Championship in 1979 and 2000. The MSU men's ice hockey has won national titles in 1966, 1986, and 2007.

East Lansing is very much a college town, with 60.2% of the population between the ages of 15 and 24. President John A. Hannah's push to expand in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the largest residence hall system in the United States. Around 16,000 students live in MSU's 23 undergraduate halls, one graduate hall, and three apartment villages. Each residence hall has its own hall government, with representatives in the Residence Halls Association. Yet despite the size and extent of on-campus housing, the residence halls could not house anywhere near the entire undergraduate student population and 58% of students live off-campus, mostly in the "student ghettos" of East Lansing or in a co-op. One of these student-dominated neighborhoods is "Cedar Village". This is where the newly revived 70's tradition Cedar Fest takes place on the first Saturday of April.