Students work to answer economic questions

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A class of James Madison College students who started fall semester with the question of how to attract and retain young, creative minds in Lansing and Michigan is tackling the problem through a survey and a spring break trip.

The survey, sent to 10,000 MSU students, is focused on discovering what college graduates want in a city. The spring break trip — which includes stops in Madison, Wis., and South Bend, Ind. — will allow students to talk to young professionals about what attracted them to the cities.

“It’s no secret in Michigan we’re hemorrhaging young talent,” said Anthony Mianecki, an international relations senior in the class.

“You go to Chicago and it seems like half of the city is MSU graduates. It’s something that’s been going on for a long time, and now that the economy is in such bad shape, it’s become even more of a problem. We’re trying to find ways to address that.”

The class, James Madison College 469, is a nine- person team leading a company called Spotlight Michigan. The company is an outgrowth of five years of the seminar, James Madison professor Bryan Ritchie said. Ritchie starts each fall semester by presenting the class with a question relevant to Michigan’s economy and serves as an adviser as the class looks for a solution.

“(Classes are) like a board meeting,” Ritchie said. “Each of these students have responsibilities and roles, everything from marketing to finance. It’s run like a company’s executive board.”

This year’s class spent the first semester deciding how to address the problem and developed a five-minute survey targeted at MSU students.

“What we try to do is get at exactly what students would like to see in a city, why are they going to the Chicagos and the New Yorks, what do those communities have that Lansing is either lacking or has and doesn’t highlight enough,” said international relations senior Amanda VanderMeulen, who serves as marketing director for Spotlight Michigan.

As part of the research, the class also is looking at the strengths and weaknesses of successful cities across the globe and comparing them to Lansing, said Jennifer Seager, an international relations senior in the class.

“The first step Michigan needs to take is to find a way to attract recent college graduates,” Seager said. “Without the new creative minds in society, there’s not going to be any economic churn, change in the economy.”

The class is expected to conclude the semester by creating a report of its findings and a formal presentation, Ritchie said.

What makes the research unique is the fact that it’s being conducted by the very people Michigan is targeting — 18 to 25-year-olds, Mianecki said.

“These kinds of surveys have been done before, but not by us — we are the people, the 18 to 25-year-olds they want to keep in the state,” he said. “I think bringing that new perspective is critical to creating a new dynamic economy.”

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