The Lyman Briggs College (LBC) is a

residential college A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship wi ...

located at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

East Lansing, Michigan East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County, Michigan, Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County, Michigan, Clinton County. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Established as a residential college in 1967, Lyman Briggs was a residential school within the College of Natural Sciences from 1981 to 2007, and returned to residential college status in 2007.

Purpose and history

The college is named in honor of

Lyman James Briggs Lyman James Briggs (May 7, 1874 – March 25, 1963) was an American engineer, physicist and administrator. He was a director of the National Bureau of Standards during the Great Depression and chairman of the Uranium Committee before America e ...

, who attended

Michigan State Agricultural College Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

from 1889 to 1893. Lyman Briggs College addresses the modern dilemma described by

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

's "

Two Cultures "The Two Cultures" is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow which were published in book form as ''The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'' the same year. Its thesis was that sci ...

" by educating STEM students in the natural sciences as well as the humanities and social sciences, effectively attempting to create a curriculum of "liberal sciences." Science classes offered by LBC include chemistry, biology, physics, and math, and classes in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. All of these classes reveal science's relationship with society, literature, history, and philosophy. Smaller class sizes allow for more interaction with professors, and LBC professors are leaders in

discipline-based education research Educational research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of data related to the field of education. Research may involve a variety of methods and various aspects of education including student learning, teaching methods, teacher tra ...

(DBER) and the

scholarship of teaching and learning The scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL or SoTL) is often defined as systematic inquiry into student learning which advances the practice of teaching in higher education by making inquiry findings public. Building on this definition, Peter Fe ...

(SOTL). Lyman Briggs College is located in Holmes Hall (named for founder

John Clough Holmes John Clough Holmes (September 25, 1809 – December 16, 1887) was an American agriculturalist, educator, and co-founder of the Michigan State Agricultural Society. Holmes is also known as the founder of Michigan State University, established in ...

), the largest

residence hall A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

on campus. Many of the over 1250 students in the residence hall are members of LBC. Many of the students in the Lyman Briggs program intend to pursue careers in medicine, but there are a variety of other programs that are supported by Lyman Briggs. In all, there are over 30 coordinate majors, from human biology to computer sciences. LBC also has the unique distinction of being one of the few major schools to allow undergraduate students to assist in the classroom as "Learning Assistants." Learning Assistants run supervised recitations and labs in chemistry, biology, math, and physics. Lyman Briggs College was made a school (i.e., a sub-unit) of the College of Natural Sciences in 1981 when the university was experiencing significant financial stress, with a name change to Lyman Briggs School of Science. In 2007, the school went through the formal process of regaining its status as a residential college, "in time for the school's 40th anniversary in the fall f 2007" The proposal to change its status was unanimously approved by the Faculty Council on April 10, 2007, presented to the Academic Council on April 17, 2007, and approved by the MSU Board of Trustees on June 15, 2007. The school's director, Elizabeth H. Simmons, was appointed dean and served through academic year 2016-2017. Mark Largent served as interim dean for academic year 2017-2018. Michele H. Jackson served as Dean from 2018-2020. Currently, Kendra Spence Cheruvelil is acting dean on an interim basis. LBC partners with the James Madison College (JMC) and the MSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the Science, Technology, Environment, and Public Policy specialization, which is based in JMC and offers a minor. LBC also partners with MSU's College of Arts and Letters to host the Bioethics minor.

Relation to other MSU residential colleges

The

James Madison College Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...

at Michigan State University was founded in the same year on the same principle of residential college, but in the area of

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

political theory Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

, and the

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...

. Madison and Briggs Colleges collaborate with th
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
in offering an undergraduate specialization in Science, Technology, the Environment, and Public Policy

. Students in the two colleges enjoy friendly competition through the annual fall Canoe Race and spring Olympics. In fall 2007, Michigan State opened a new Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. RCAH is collaborating with Madison and Briggs Colleges on
21st Century Chautauqua
co-sponsored by th
American Association of Colleges and Universities

References

External links

Lyman Briggs College
{{Michigan State University Michigan State University Educational institutions established in 1967