Brody Complex

Michigan State University Housing is a large and complex network of housing for students and faculty of Michigan State University. Most of the housing is in the form of residence halls on the school's campus, but there are also university apartments, fraternity and sorority housing, and free-standing housing for grad students, faculty and staff.

The residence halls are arranged into five neighborhoods; Brody Neighborhood, North Neighborhood, South Neighborhood, River Trail Neighborhood, and East Neighborhood.

The university expanded its housing greatly in the 1950s and 1960s, resulting in what is now the largest residence hall system in the United States. 16,000 students live in MSU's 23 undergraduate halls, one graduate hall, and three apartment villages. Each hall has its own hall government, with representatives in the Residence Halls Association (RHA). In total there are 245 buildings for housing and food service, as well as 74 other buildings that help support the housing complex system. Despite the size and extent of on-campus housing, 58% of students live off-campus.

North Neighborhood, once referred to as West Circle, was designed by the Malcomson, Calder & Hammond Architectural Firm, and was built throughout the 1930s and 1940s. This was built as one of the nine Public Works Administration (PWA) building projects on campus in that era. Built on "sacred ground", the original campus growth sprang from this area. The ivy-covered halls are of a Tudor-style design, with high-pitched gabled roofs, metal casement windows, slate roofs, and Renaissance detailing, and recall medieval estates.

Currently all but Yakeley are co-ed, though the West Circle complex was originally all female. Reflecting that fact, each of the West Circle halls is named for a woman who made significant contributions to Michigan State.

North Neighborhood is composed of residence halls from both what was West Circle and Red Cedar:

The West Circle neighborhood is made up of six buildings:

The Red Cedar Complex is close to the geographic center of campus. Snyder and Phillips Halls contain classrooms and are home to the Residential College in Arts & Humanities.

Mary Mayo Hall was built in 1931 as the first residence hall in the West Circle complex. It is named after Mary Mayo, a school teacher and wife of a Civil War veteran who was also an active member of the Grange. Mayo wanted her daughter to be able to attend a collegiate institution, but MAC (Michigan Agricultural College, former name for Michigan State University) did not then have a program for women. Through her speeches and involvement with the Grange, Mary Mayo became an advocate for a women's program and women's housing at MAC. Her persistence was rewarded in 1896 when the first women's course was officially created.

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