Campus of Michigan State University - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The campus of Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a 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.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

is located in East Lansing

East Lansing, Michigan

East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located directly east of Lansing, Michigan, the state's capital. Most of the city is within Ingham County, though a small portion lies in Clinton County. The population was 48,579 at the time of the 2010 census, an increase from...

on the banks of the Red Cedar River

Red Cedar River (Michigan)

The Red Cedar River is a westward-flowing tributary of the Grand River in Michigan. Its source is Cedar Lake which is located in Marion Township in the southeastern corner of Livingston County, and it runs about through Okemos, East Lansing, including the campus of Michigan State University, and...

, and comprises a contiguous area of 5200 acres (21 km²), 2000 acres (8.1 km²) of which are developed. Built amid virgin forest, the campus opened in 1855 with three buildings, none of which remain. As an agricultural college, the campus was originally located several miles outside of the city of Lansing, but as the population of the college grew, the city of East Lansing developed just north of the area's main avenue

Grand River Avenue

US Highway 16 , also called Grand River Avenue for much of its length, is one of the principal pre-Interstate roads in the state of Michigan. Before the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926, the highway had been designated M-16...

.

As the campus of a large university, MSU has many facilities that serve not only the school, but the entire metropolitan area. Public venues on campus include a football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

stadium, multipurpose arena, ice arena, concert hall, hotel, and golf course. The campus also has its own power plant, laundry service, incinerator, and Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

train station.

In terms of infrastructure, there are 556 buildings: 100 for academics, 131 for agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, 166 for housing and food service, and 42 for athletics. Overall, the university has 22763025 ft2 of total indoor space. MSU also owns 44 non-campus properties, totaling 22000 acres (89 km²) in 28 different counties.
However, the size of the campus, combined with its curving roads and lack of a centralized quadrangle

Quadrangle (architecture)

In architecture, a quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other...

, can make it difficult for newcomers to navigate.

History

Before the white settlement of the region, the area that is now East Lansing was a combination of dense virgin oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

and tamarack swampland

Swampland

In physics, the term swampland is used in contrast to the term "landscape," to indicate physical theories or aspects of such theories which could be true if gravity wasn't an issue, but which are not compatible with string theory...

. In July of 1855 a 677 acre site just north of the Red Cedar River

Red Cedar River (Michigan)

was recommended to the State Board of Education, the report to the board noted that except for the occasional clearing the land was dense hardwood forest. It was in one of these "oak openings" that the school built its first three buildings in 1856: a multipurpose building called College Hall

College Hall (Michigan State University)

College Hall was the first building erected on the campus of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan , and the first in the United States to be erected "for the teaching of scientific agriculture." Reputedly designed by John C...

, a dormitory

Dormitory

A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...

building later known as "Saints' Rest

Saints' Rest

Saints' Rest was the second building erected on the campus of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan . It was built in 1856 and served as the school's only dormitory until 1870, when Williams Hall was completed...

," and a barn

Barn

A barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house livestock or to store farming vehicles and equipment...

. College Hall contained classroom

Classroom

A classroom is a room in which teaching or learning activities can take place. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, including public and private schools, corporations, and religious and humanitarian organizations...

s, office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

s, laboratories

Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...

, a library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

/museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

, and a multifunctional lecture hall

Auditorium

An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...

/chapel

Chapel

A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...

. It was also one of the first buildings in America to be used for the teaching of scientific agriculture.

Since the college was founded in a sparsely populated area with only a handful of nearby farmhouses, and it was an arduous stagecoach

Stagecoach

A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...

ride from Lansing

Lansing, Michigan

Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...

, the College built four faculty houses in the first year of classes in 1857. One of these original faculty houses, Cowles House, still exists as the President's official residence, though only two walls and part of the foundation remain of the original construction. Ultimately, ten faculty homes were built on campus between 1857 and 1885. Besides Cowles House, one other survived and was moved into the city of East Lansing

East Lansing, Michigan

; the rest were demolished between 1922 and 1948 to make room for the north complex of residence halls and the Student Union, designed by Pond and Pond

Pond and Pond

Pond and Pond was an American architecture firm established by the Chicago architects Irving Kane Pond and Allen Bartlitt Pond.-Overview:Working in the Arts and Crafts idiom, the brothers gained renown for elaborately detailed brickwork and irregular massing of forms. One of their earliest...

.

Michigan State's campus was among the first to serve as a botanical laboratory

Laboratory

for its faculty and students and is the site of what is, today, the oldest continuously operated botanical garden in the US. In December 1879, Professor William J. Beal

William J. Beal

William James Beal was an American botanist.-Biography:Beal was born in Adrian, Michigan, to William and Rachel Beal, and he married Hannah Proud in 1863. He attended the University of Michigan, which gave him an A.B. degree in 1859 and an A.M. degree in 1862; he also received an S.B. degree...

buried seeds of 23 common plants in 20 jars of sand (to prevent water accumulation) in various locations around campus. At certain fixed intervals, currently every 20 years, a jar is dug up to determine which seeds still germinate after their prolonged periods of unlit isolation. The most recent jar exhumation, April 2000, found only a few specimens surviving to germinate, notably Verbascum blattaria (moth mullein

Mullein

The Mulleins are a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants in the figwort family . They are native to Europe and Asia, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean region.They are biennial or perennial plants, rarely annuals or subshrubs, growing to 0.5–3 m tall...

), after 120 years. Five buried jars remain, with the next unearthing scheduled for 2020.

In 1871, President Abbott

Theophilus C. Abbot

Theophilus Capen Abbot was president of State Agricultural College from 1862 to 1885...

proposed that the Board of Trustees "take steps to provide for the proper layout of the college grounds, planting of trees, location of buildings, etc., by a competent landscape gardener, as soon as means can be spared." In 1872, Adam Oliver, a landscape gardener from Kalamazoo, was hired. During his tenure from 1872-1887, he was oversaw the layout of walks and drives and the placement of numerous buildings, including Linton Hall in 1881. He was responsible for the closed roadway system, an altered form of which remains today as West Circle Drive, and was also responsible for the informal arrangement of campus buildings. The character of the campus is described in President Abbott's 1882 report to the Board as follows: "There are in the park no straight rows of buildings or of trees, but its...buildings...are separated by undulating lawns, shallow ravines, and groups of trees".

In 1906 O. C. Simonds a well-known prairie school landscape architect was hired, he simplified the road system, planned walks and planting areas. It was Sidmons who first described this area around West Circle Drive as a "sacred space" and who reaffirmed the idea of as area of campus as a park to be protected from development. In a 1906 letter to the Board for Trustee's "This area is, I am sure, that feature of the College which is most pleasantly and affectionately remembered by the students after they leave their Alma Mater, and I doubt if any instruction given has a greater effect upon their lives."

In 1914 the college hired noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was an American landscape architect best known for his wildlife conservation efforts. He had a lifetime commitment to national parks, and worked on projects in Acadia, the Everglades and Yosemite National Park. Olmsted Point in Yosemite and Olmsted Island at Great Falls...

with bigger buildings like Olds and Agriculture Halls being built Olmstead faced the challenge of maintaining the informal character of campus while minimizing walking distance. In 1915, the Olmstead Brothers firm issued a report its solution was a dramatic redesign of campus around quadrangles However, the plan was unpopular with students and alumni who wished to maintain the informal parklike feel of campus. After eight years of consulting and little in way of changes the school ended its relationship with Olmstead in 1922.
The college in 1923 hired T. Glenn Phillips, Phillips' 1926 plan for campus kept Simonds' "sacred space" and it continued the curvilinear road system to the east, with buildings placed in an informal manner. His plan called for campus north of the river to be dedicated to academic purposes while all agriculture and athletic facilities were to be placed south of the river. Phillips' plan would set the tone for campus development for the next 25 years.

Post WWII the large number of GI's returning, President John A. Hannah's push to expand resulting in a large increase in enrollment quickened in the pace of development south of the river. The driving factor in campus development of was the automobile this the south featureing building and streets generally laid out in a grid sytem with more land dedicated to parking lots. This growth resulted in the largest residence hall system in the United States. 16,000 students live in MSU's 23 undergraduate halls, one graduate hall, and three apartment villages. Though MSU has not built a new resident hall since 1967, it has modernized several of its dormitories. In 2007, MSU opened the Residential College in Arts & Humanities

Residential College in Arts & Humanities

The Residential College in Arts & Humanities is a new residential college at Michigan State University in East Lansing Michigan. Founded October 21, 2005, the college provides around 600 undergraduates with an individualized curriculum in the liberal, visual and performing arts...

in a newly-renovated Snyder-Phillips Hall, the location of MSU's first residential college, Justin Morrill College.

In 2001 a new master plan called 2020 Vision: A Community Concept for the MSU Campus was developed to guide future campus development. Amongst the recommendations it called for the removing of central campus parking to parking garages replacing it with green space, the removal of head-in parking around West and East Circle Drives, adding more bike lanes and planting more trees on south campus in order to give it the look and feel of north campus. .

North campus

The oldest part of campus is north of the Red Cedar River

Red Cedar River (Michigan)

and south of Grand River Avenue

Grand River Avenue

and Michigan Avenue. Its buildings are an eclectic collection of architectural styles including Collegiate Gothic, Beaux Arts, and Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

. The north campus has plentiful trees and curving roads with few straight lines. In the center of the north campus lies the "Sacred Space", which is surrounded on all sides by West Circle Drive. It was in this area that the College erected its first three buildings. None of these three buildings are still standing, but there are still some important historical buildings on and near the Sacred Space. These include Cowles House, the President's official residence, and Beaumont Tower

Beaumont Tower

Beaumont Tower , designed by the architectural firm of Donaldson and Meier‎, is a structure on the campus of Michigan State University. The tower marks the site of College Hall, the first building in America erected for instruction in scientific agriculture.During its dedication ceremony the...

, a carillon

Carillon

A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...

clock tower marking the site of College Hall. To the east of the Sacred Space lies Laboratory Row, a group of laboratory buildings constructed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These include Eustace-Cole Hall

Eustace-Cole Hall

Laboratory Row is a collection of buildings at Michigan State University's campus built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it comprises the oldest collection of buildings on campus. The site originally was dedicated to the schools first farming facilities, but as the college a outgrew its...

and Marshall-Adams Hall, America's first freestanding laboratories for horticulture

Horticulture

Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...

and bacteriology

Bacteriology

Bacteriology is the study of bacteria. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species...

, respectively.

South campus

The campus south of the Red Cedar River

Red Cedar River (Michigan)

consists mostly of buildings built after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Many of them are built in the International

International style (architecture)

The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...

and Brutalist

Brutalist architecture

Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...

styles, with relatively straight roadways and fewer trees than the north campus. South campus also has more surface parking lot

Parking lot

A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....

s, due partly to the sporting and performing arts venues. The "2020 Vision" Master Plan proposes replacing these parking lots with parking ramps

Multi-storey car park

A multi-storey car-park is a building designed specifically to be for car parking and where there are a number of floors or levels on which parking takes place...

and green space, in order to replicate the park like feel of North Campus but these plans will take many years to reach fruition. Notable academic and research buildings on the South Campus include the Cyclotron

National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory is located on the campus of Michigan State University and is the leading rare isotope research facility in the United States...

and the College of Law

Michigan State University College of Law

The Michigan State University College of Law is a private law school located in East Lansing, Michigan which is affiliated with Michigan State University...

Service campus and beyond

The majority of Michigan State's academic and residential buildings are north of the Canadian National Railway

Canadian National Railway

The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....

. South of the CN line are service buildings such as the T. B. Simon Power Plant

T. B. Simon Power Plant

T.B. Simon Power Plant is a multi-fuel cogeneration facility located on the East Lansing campus of Michigan State University. With a peak electrical output of 99.3 megawatts and a pressurized steam generation capacity of 1.3 million pounds per hour, it is one of the 500 largest power plants and the...

, laundry services, and the campus incinerator. Nevertheless, there are a growing number of academic buildings south of the railroad. The MSU Clinical Center and the Life Sciences Building are both in this part of campus, as is a nature preserve known as the Baker Woodlot. South still of the university service buildings and the CSX

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...

railroad lie thousands of acres of university-owned farmland and agricultural research related facilities such the MSU Pavilion. The proximity of the farmland to campus helps MSU retain a rural feel in keeping with its roots as an agricultural college that mixes with the more urban atmosphere of East Lansing just a mile north. Recently, The Demmer Center has been added to Michigan State University's campus. The Demmer Center is an educational place for students, faculty, and community members to come out and learn to safely handle firearms.

Landmarks

Michigan State is home to two bronze statues, both erected in 2005. On the entrance plaza of the Administration Building that bears his name is the statue of former president John A. Hannah

John A. Hannah

John Alfred Hannah was president of Michigan State College for 28 years, making him the longest serving of MSU's presidents. He is credited with transforming the school from a little-known, regional agricultural college into a large national research institution...

. Downstream on the south bank of the Red Cedar River is the new bronze statue of "The Spartan

Sparty

Sparty is the mascot of Michigan State University. Sparty is usually depicted as a muscular male Spartan warrior/athlete dressed in stylized Greek costume. After changing the team name from "Aggies" to "Spartans" in 1925, various incarnations of a Spartan warrior with a prominent chin appeared at...

". This 2005 replica replaced the original terra cotta

Terra cotta

Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...

statue, which can still be seen in the west concourse of Spartan Stadium.

Another landmark is the spray painted boulder known as "The Rock

The Rock (Michigan State University)

The Rock is a boulder on the campus of Michigan State University. Once popular as a trysting site, today it serves as a billboard for campus groups and events. -History:...

". Lying east of Farm Lane just north of the river, it is a popular spot for campus events such as outdoor summer theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

, Greek house

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

tailgating

Tailgate party

In the United States, a tailgate party is a social event held on and around the open tailgate of a vehicle. Tailgating often involves consuming alcoholic beverages and grilling food. Tailgate parties usually occur in the parking lots at stadiums and arenas, before and occasionally after games and...

, and candlelight vigil

Candlelight vigil

A candlelight vigil is an outdoor assembly of people carrying candles, held after sunset. Such events are typically held either to protest the suffering of some marginalized group of people, or in memory of lives lost to some disease, disaster, massacre or other tragedy. In the latter case, the...

s. It was once used by Michigan Agricultural College (forerunner to MSU) students to study mineral contents. MSU has several botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

s, including the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden

W. J. Beal Botanical Garden

The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. 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...

just across the river from the stadium, the Old Horticulture Gardens next to the building of the same name, the MSU Horticulture Gardens

Michigan State University Horticulture Gardens

The Michigan State University Horticulture Gardens are horticultural gardens, with a landscape arboretum, located on Bogue Street on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing, Michigan. The gardens are open to the public daily without charge....

, and the adjoining 4-H

4-H

4-H in the United States is a youth organization administered by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture of the United States Department of Agriculture , with the mission of "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development." The name represents...

Children's Garden.

The university has several buildings for public gatherings and events. Spartan Stadium serves as the university's football

American football

stadium. The Breslin Center

Breslin Student Events Center

The Jack Breslin Student Events Center is a multi-purpose arena at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. The arena opened in 1989, and is named for Jack Breslin, MSU alumnus, former athlete and administrator, who first began pushing for the arena in 1969. It is home to the Michigan...

is a multi-purpose basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

arena. The Munn Ice Arena

Munn Ice Arena

Munn Ice Arena is a 6,470-seat hockey-only arena in East Lansing, Michigan on the campus of Michigan State University. It is home to the MSU's ice hockey team...

is used for ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

. The MSU Pavilion serves as a venue for agricultural expositions and other types of events. Michigan State has two separate buildings for theatre. The MSU Auditorium/Fairchild Theatre is used for the MSU Theatre Department's shows, concerts, and public speakers. The Auditorium is on Farm Lane and the north bank of the river, in the heart of campus. To the southeast lies the main theatre for the Lansing metropolitan area, the Wharton Center for Performing Arts. The Wharton Center features Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

plays and other performances, and was the site the 1992 U.S. presidential election debates

United States presidential election, 1992

The United States presidential election of 1992 had three major candidates: Incumbent Republican President George Bush; Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot....

. The university also has its own hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

/convention center

Convention center

A convention center is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typically offer sufficient floor area to accommodate several thousand attendees...

, the Kellogg Center.

Transportation

MSU's campus has a network of sidewalks, bike paths, roads (often with bike lanes), and unpaved trails. Its transportation network consists of 27 miles (43.5 km) of roads and 100 miles (160.9 km) of sidewalks. Common, non-motor vehicle methods of campus navigation used are: Walking, bicycling, rollerblading and skateboarding. Motorscooters and mopeds are also not uncommon. A few skywalks

Skyway

In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, sky bridge, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces...

and public underground tunnels link some buildings on campus. The non-motorized Lansing River Trail

Lansing River Trail

Lansing River Trail is a multiple use, non-motorized trail approximately long. It runs along the Grand River and the Red Cedar River between Michigan State University and Dietrich Park in northern Lansing....

's eastern trailhead is located on campus, extending west to downtown Lansing and then north towards the airport. The non-motorized River Corridor runs across campus along the south side of the Red Cedar River

Red Cedar River (Michigan)

, and is the primary east-west route for non-motorized traffic on campus.

The main roads that go through MSU's campus are West Circle Drive, East Circle Drive, Shaw Lane, Farm Lane, Wilson Road, Bogue Road, and Red Cedar Road. Passing through crowded areas of campus, these roads receive high volumes of pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Another popular mode of transportation is the Capital Area Transportation Authority

Capital Area Transportation Authority

The Capital Area Transportation Authority provides mass transit bus service and paratransit within the metro Lansing, Michigan area including Michigan State University .- CATA system :...

bus service, which has many routes across campus in addition to regular service outside campus in the Lansing, East Lansing, and Okemos areas. Many routes through campus are designated as "Spartan Service", meaning they only operate during MSU fall and spring semesters. The MSU-CTC (MSU CATA Transportation Center) is the hub of bus service on campus, and many local destinations both on- and off-campus may be reached from there. Buses are used especially frequently during the winter.

With two railroads crossing campus, MSU students have easy access to rail travel. The East Lansing Amtrak station

East Lansing (Amtrak station)

The East Lansing Amtrak Station, in East Lansing, Michigan, is served by the passenger train. It also serves as the intercity bus station for East Lansing, with a separate bus ticket counter and Greyhound and Indian Trails routes stopping at the station daily...

is located on campus, offering daily direct service to and from Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo, Michigan

The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...

, Flint

Flint, Michigan

Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...

, Port Huron

Port Huron, Michigan

Port Huron is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of St. Clair County. The population was 30,184 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Port Huron Township but is administratively autonomous. It is joined by the Blue Water Bridge over the St. Clair River to Sarnia,...

, and several other cities throughout Michigan via the Blue Water
Blue Water (passenger train)
The Blue Water, also known as the Blue Water Limited 1975—1982, is a passenger train service operated by Amtrak as part of its Michigan Services. The line connects Port Huron, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois via East Lansing, Michigan....

line. Cities such as Detroit, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids can be reached by transferring onto a different line. The station is also serviced by several Greyhound

Greyhound Lines

Greyhound Lines, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, is an intercity common carrier of passengers by bus serving over 3,700 destinations in the United States, Canada and Mexico, operating under the well-known logo of a leaping greyhound. It was founded in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA, in 1914 and...

bus routes. Two airports are accessible from campus: Lansing Capital Region International Airport (LAN) in DeWitt Township

DeWitt Charter Township, Michigan

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,143 people, 4,839 households, and 3,450 families residing in the township. The population density was 383.5 per square mile . There were 5,119 housing units at an average density of 161.7 per square mile...

and the Detroit Metro Airport

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport , usually called Detroit Metro Airport, Metro Airport locally, or simply DTW, is a major international airport covering in Romulus, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It is Michigan's busiest airport....

(DTW) outside Detroit. Bus service to and from DTW is offered eight times daily by Michigan Flyer.

External links

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