Common Sense for the Biochemist

As if being a graduate student wasn't enough, I also am an advisor to the Michigan State Farmhouse chapter. Yeah, I don't know what the fun of trying to keep 40 college guys in line is but I enjoy it. However, my main troubles right now is not trying to keep the guys in line, but it is putting up with the East Lansing city government. So here is the background story: Michigan State Farmhouse is located at 151 Bogue St., which is located in what is commonly known as Cedar Village. Unfortunately, Cedar Village has gotten a pretty bad rap in the past few years because of mainly non-MSU students congregating in the area and starting riots after big basketball games. Well, the city's solution to this problem is to bulldoze the entire area, rebranding it as the "East Village", building 4-8 story "multi-use" buildings, and increasing the population by 4,000. Basically, they want to recruit 4,000 "young-professionals" and "empty-nesters" to co-exist with 2,000 students. Although the city has said that Farmhouse does not have to redevelop, their master plan calls for a road to run right through our property, meaning they will have to use eminent domain to take our property from us. Unlike a regular home-owner, a fraternity can not just up and move to a different house. We need an institutional-style building (think college dorm) and these can't be found everywhere and are very expensive to build. Now for the cool part: The property owners in this area have rallied behind Farmhouse and have started SaveFarmhouse.com. I encourage you to visit the site and learn more about this pipe-dream that the critters in East Lansing City Government have dreamed up. By the way, our chapter was just recently named the outstanding fraternity of the year on MSU's campus and has been named the best maintained fraternity on campus for the past two years.