Get Chitt Done

Chittenden Hall Information:
Chittenden Hall is a historic building on Laboratory Row that has remained vacant for over 10 years. This 13,400 square foot facility was built in 1901 and was originally known as the Dairy Laboratory. Today, a stone plate marked “Forestry” is easily noticed above the front door. This was installed in 1913 when the Forestry Department replaced the Dairy Laboratory. The building was soon renamed Chittenden Hall, in honor of a forestry professor, Alfred J. Chittenden. This building deserves a great use and purpose.

The Need for a Graduate and Professional Student Center:
MSU prides itself on being one of the top research universities in the world yet it lacks a key component present at other great research universities; a graduate center. University of Michigan, Harvard, and Arizona State are among more than a dozen large public research universities that have graduate centers. Studies have shown that a graduate center/community improves graduate experience by easing the transition into graduate school, improving retention rates, improving graduate student health and wellness, and reducing the time it takes to earn a graduate or professional degree.1,2
Undergraduate students at MSU benefit from dormitories and communal use facilities which allow them to build a sense of community while completing their studies. Graduate and professional students lack any comparable sens of community, in part because of the lack of similar facilities. However, they make up approximately one fourth of the student population and deserve access to the same benefits as undergraduates, including a central location that can help them create that sense of community.
What is needed is a one-stop-shop for graduate students. It would be a single place where graduates student can go to learn about and use all of the programs and services MSU offers. A recent survey has shown that many MSU graduate students are unaware of the programs and services.3 Less than one third of the students surveyed knew about the graduate wellness program, PhD career services, financial counseling services and the family resource center. Less than a tenth of those surveyed used the services mentioned above. If these programs and services were housed in the same building, it would be more likely that students would be aware and use them. Chittenden Hall could serve as that one-stop-shop and also be a space for meetings, lectures, offices for graduate student organizations and social events that could help create a strong sense of community among graduate students.

1. Brandes, L.C.O. Graduate student centers: building communities and involving students. New Directions for Student Services, No. 115, pages 85-99. (2006)
2. Soleil, L. Graduate Student Centers: Locus for Services and Community. Monogram No. 50 Pages 135-151. (2008)
3. Lovgren, A. Graduate and Professional Students Needs Assessment. Available through google search.