Word Cloud

When current and past members of the PAA Board were asked “Why did you join the PAA board?” there were quite a few themes that came up, many involving their love for both MSU and the SOP. Their answers were put into this word cloud which shows the passion members have for giving back to the school they love so much.

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Updating the mission statement of the board will help give the group new purpose and focus for the future. The proposed mission statement will be shared with current and past board members for feedback, finalized and then voted on at the Fall board meeting in October. Many thanks to Matt McNichols who led the brainstorming session using an industry proven mission statement creating process. Once finalized, we will share the new statement with fellow Alumni! More to come in the Fall of 2017!

MSU PAA Board Mission Statement Team

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Congratulations to the students and alumni who won scholarships and awards and were celebrated in April at the Packaging Awards Banquet in East Lansing, MI. We are proud of the Spartan Alumni who are leaders in the packaging industry and cannot wait to see what the student award winners will do when they graduate and enter the workforce. Go Green! #spartanswill

2016 – 2017 Scholarship and Fellowship Award Winner List

Alumni Awards
Gail Tavill  – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Hall of Fame
Sean Gorman – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Service Award Winner
Matt Danhof – 2017 Packaging Alumni Innovation Award

Student Awards

Kenna Payne, Rachel Schodowski, Grant Devota, Lindsay Jessmore, Madison Nodus-Rydahl, Madison Hardy, Hanna Holmi, Alexandra Reau, Alie Slagle, Sarah Snider, Brianne Belanger, Kameron Gilbert, Shelby Robinson, Gauri Awalgaonar, Pooja Mayekar – 2017 Packaging Alumni Association Scholarships

Sean Coast, Jacob Cvengros, Yifan He, Tara Kujawa, Woranit Muangmala, Gerald Perreault, Delanie Thurlow, Fang Wu – 2016 PAA Design Competition 1st Place

Eric Estrada – Mary Ann Merrill Packaging Scholarship

Carlie Allen, Standish Lehman, Connor Wynkoop, Megan Vondette – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Spring 2016

Tyler Dohm, Katie Nguyen, Jacob Houlihan, Jinghui Zhang, Yijia Xing – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Fall 2016

Brad Harris, Jeffery Herron, Kyle Laslo, Valen Yangouyian – Glass Packaging Design Competition 1st Place Fall 2015-Spring 2016

Madison Hardy, Haley Ferer – CANR Alumni Association Scholarship

Sarah Simpson – HJ Heinz Endowed Scholarship

Kristina Hughes, Meghan Green – Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics Scholarship

Kameron Gilbert – Allied Trades of the Baking Industry Scholarship

David Joslyn – International Society of Beverage Technologists Scholarship

Shelby Robinson – Cheryl Gilliam Endowed Scholarship

Allison Friebe – Laura Anne Polakowski Endowed Scholarship

Gauri Awalgaonuar – Paul Singh Endowed Fellowship for Graduate Student Excellence

Madison Hardy – Menasha Corporation Endowed Scholarship

Sebastian Stankiewicz – Society of Manufacturing Engineers Endowed Scholarship

Kameron Gilbert – NIPHLE Scholarship

Johnny Kieu – Paul and Joanne Peoples Endowed Scholarship

Laura Barts, Alie Slagle – IoPP Scholarships 2016

Sean Coast, Hanna Holmi – Mark and Catherine Walchak Endowed Scholarship
Lukas Morrison – Selig Group Scholarship
Emma Griffin, Kenna Payne, Zachary Gudziak, Jillian Hoffman – Dwight Schmidt Endowed Scholarship
Becca Uebele – Chemical and Allied Industries of NW Ohio Endowed Scholarship
Linh Dao – Kimberly Clark Endowed Scholarship
Jonathon McWherter – Edwin McLean Corrugated Scholarship
Alie Slagle – Juice Products Association Scholarship
Cayla Watkins – Juice Products Association Old Orchard Scholarship
Alexandra Reau – Juice Products Association Amcor Scholarship
Lindsay Jessmore – Obolewicz/DeBuck Family Scholarship
Haley Ferer, Madison Nodus-Rydahl – Packaging Technology and Integrated Solutions Endowed Scholarship
Haris Zejnilovic – Ternes Cornerstone Spartan Challenge Scholarship
Laura Barts – Silgan Container Scholarship
Cody Krause, Savannah Guinyard, Riley Griffin, Jimmy Russell Katherine Woloson – Study Abroad Scholarship
Victoria Jansz – Suzanne Fisher Scholarship
Haley Ferer – Bill Zito Packaging Scholarship Award
Alyssa Scherer – J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship (2nd place)
Shelby Robinson – J. Richard Troll Memorial Scholarship (3rd place)

Ian Campa, Linh Dao, Allison Friebe, Victoria Jansz, Sebastian Stankiewicz – SoP Undergraduate Research Scholarship

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This Fall the MSUPAA is hosting two major events for alumni and friends of our alumni to attend. To begin with, we will be having our annual homecoming tailgate on the front lawn of the School of Packaging from Noon – 3:00 on Saturday, October 15. Food, Beverage, and the wonderful MSU Fall atmosphere will be awaiting you on the front lawn welcoming you back to campus for homecoming!

In addition, please join us for the Packaging Alumni Association’s annual Pack Expo Reception on Monday, November 7th from 6:00 – 9:00! This is our 1st year at Nacional 27 in Chicago and we are thrilled! Please join us for tapas and drinks in the fun and chic atmosphere Nacional 27 has to offer. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged at www.msupaa.org
This Spring we will be looking forward to supporting the students in preparation for career fair (resume reviews), mentoring a design competition within the class, along with holding our annual award banquet. The banquet will honor the MSUPAA student scholarship recipients as well as our industry professionals who have gone above and beyond for the packaging industry, the School of Packaging, and Michigan State University.

We are always looking for people to volunteer or become future board members (nominations are due in August). In addition, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the MSUPAA, please visit www.msupaa.org to learn more. Sponsorships offers a plethora of benefits, as well as to the school and students. In the past year alone, our sponsors have helped to provide over $30,000 in scholarships to very deserving packaging students; have helped to fund two undergraduate research assistantships; and supported early-stage funding to create initial plans for the School of Packaging facilities expansion.

I look forward to seeing our Packaging Alumni this Fall! Please do not hesitate to reach out to myself or any of our board members with questions.

Go GREEN!
Karen Keeder, ’03

MSU Packaging Alumni Association
Executive Board of Directors, President

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Spring graduation was an exciting event. BS degrees were awarded to 115 Packaging students, with another 28 planning to graduate this summer but “walking” in the spring ceremony. We had by far the largest contingent at the CANR graduation ceremony. When the 93 students who graduated fall semester are included, that totals over 230 new Packaging alumni this year! Total undergrad enrollment for spring semester was down to about 750 students, so our increased admission requirements are having an effect in moving us towards our goal of undergrad enrollment close to the 1980-2010 average of about 500 (freshmen through seniors). And, anecdotal evidence from faculty is that average performance of our undergrads in our packaging classes continues to improve, which means that employers hiring our new graduates will benefit from their increased skills.

A substantial revision in the undergraduate curriculum was approved by the University this spring, and goes into effect in the fall. Students beginning the program Fall 2016 or later will earn a concentration in either Packaging Science or Packaging Value Chain, which will appear on their transcripts. Students in the Packaging Science concentration will be required to take either Food Packaging or Medical Packaging along with additional courses in technical subjects. Students in the Packaging Value Chain concentration will be required to take the new Packaging Value Chain class along with additional business-related courses. The old Packaging Graphics course (PKG 330) will be Packaging for Fast Moving Consumer Goods (PKG 430), and the Packaging and the Environment course (PKG 370) will become Packaging Sustainability (PKG 470). Packaging Decision Systems (PKG 315) will incorporate more economics and an introduction to life cycle assessment. Packaging Development (PKG 485) will be split into two classes, PKG 485 and PKG 486, Packaging Senior Capstone, with the latter focusing entirely on the packaging design project. There are also some changes in the graduate curriculum and in other courses, but these are the highlights. Along with these curriculum modifications, there is increased emphasis on assessment of learning outcomes and using that information for continuous improvement of the curriculum.

In other news, Patrick McDavid has joined the School as an instructor. He’ll be teaching the Distribution Packaging Dynamics course (PKG 410) this fall, as Dr. Gary Burgess enters his consulting year and will retire next May. We’re in various stages of the search process for 3 new tenure system faculty. We continue to work on improving our laboratory facilities for both teaching and research. Among our new acquisitions are a 5-layer cast film line, and a combination check weigher/metal detector. Earlier this month we had another successful offering of our Packaging Basics course, with participants from industry, often new to packaging roles, getting a broad grounding in the discipline. Some of them voiced interest in continuing their education in our on-line MS program! This fall, we’ll be offering Food Packaging Basics as well as the Healthcare Packaging Immersion Experience. Details are on our website, http://www.packaging.msu.edu/.

Dr. Eva Almenar’s research on prolonging the shelf life of fresh produce was featured May 16 in MSU Today (http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/new-packaging-advances-prolongs-veggie-freshness/). While the article talked about onions, she’s done similar research with a variety of other types of vegetables and fruit. She also heavily involves undergraduates in her research, with several becoming co-authors on published papers. Because of a grant from the Packaging Alumni Association, which supplements funding offered through the College, we’ve been able to offer financial support to additional talented undergraduates working with several of our faculty on research projects, part of our ongoing efforts to increase the research productivity of the School, in keeping with the goals outlined in our 2015 Strategic Plan.

In April, we held our annual Awards Banquet at Kellogg Center. More than 130 student award winners, family members, scholarship donors, members of our Advisory Board, and faculty and staff attended the celebration. Many attendees took advantage of the opportunity to get their picture taken with our special guest, Sparty!

I hope you all have a relaxing summer, and an enjoyable fall. The plan is for this to be the first in an ongoing series of updates, to try to better communicate with all of you what is going on at the School. And, I’d love to hear from you, as well.

Sue Selke, sselke@msu.edu

The post School of Packaging – Spring Semester 2016 Director’s Update appeared first on MSUPAA.

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Schedule of events below:
– Nomination of E-board: Now through Aug 1st
– Nomination of new Board members / Re-up process: Now through Aug 22nd
– Interviews to occur as nomination forms for new members are received. Newly formed committee to conduct interviews and will be complete by COB 8/23.
– Voting for E-Board: Aug 2nd – 9th
– Notification of new 2015-2016 E-Board: Aug 10th
– Voting for Board members (Re-ups and New): Aug 23rd – 30th
– Notification of new Board members (Re-ups and New): Aug 31st
– Fall PAA Meeting: Oct 1st – 2nd

Board_Nominaton_Form doc

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