EAST LANSING, Mich. - Nearly 39,000 individuals from throughout the country will participate in educational, creative and business conferences, camps and seminars at Michigan State University this summer.
"All the conferences University Housing holds in the summer have an educational mission," said Tom Koch, University Housing conference coordinator. "We continue to host a greater number of high school groups. The summer camps and conferences are excellent opportunities to showcase MSU's programs and campus to more than 18,000 high school students."
The nearly 39,000 conference attendees that University Housing will host this year will have a tremendous impact on the community, he added.
"A 1998 study by the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Directors found that attendees spend an average of $250 per person in off-camps businesses," he said. "This translates to $9.75 million for the summer of 1999."
Among the programs this year are Boys State, sponsored by the American Legion, which will run June 20-26, and Girls State, sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, which will run June 19-26. These are opportunities for high school juniors to learn leadership skills and the workings of executive, judicial and legislative branches of government.
Five students, including one from MSU, will take part in a fellowship program through the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; the students will be working on projects in the bio-medical sciences. The other students will be coming from Puerto Rico and Colombia, South America.
Also on the agenda are the 32nd annual Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop, the MSU Spartan Debate Institute, the weekend MBA program in The Eli Broad College of Business, high school yearbook and journalism camps, as well as mathematics and science camps.
For a complete listing of MSU summer camps and conferences go to http://www.hfs.msu.edu/conf/cscheddat.htm.