Week 30: Alex Noffsinger

Home state: Michigan
Status: Sophomore
Year on club: 1
College: James Madison College
​Major: Social Relations and Policy

Alex is very involved on campus. In addition to being a member on the Running Club, Alex is Treasurer for Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity, Director of Party Relations for MSU College Democrats, and works at the Horticulture Gardens on campus. He also works at ASMSU as Governmental Affairs Community Liaison and sits on the Student Allocations Board. However, Alex said that his ideal life would be to “spend every day of his life at a beach playing volleyball, drinking beer, reading some Hemingway and getting a good burn.”  Aside from that, Alex said he has season tickets to Spartan football and hockey. As far as sports go, Alex said he is best at sleeping, then golfing, and finally, running.

Running Club: “So you’re pretty involved with ASMSU, right?”
Alex Noffsinger: “Yeah.”
RC: “What is your position with them?”
AN: “Well, I work as their Governmental Affairs Community Liaison, so I work fourteen hours a week there working for the City of East Lansing. I represent the students of MSU on a couple of commissions.”
RC: “So do you have to go into Lansing then to work with them?”
AN: “No, I usually just work from the Student Services offices. We have ours on the third floor, so I’ll just go there after class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and luckily I just get to work from there. So it’s a pretty nice set up.”
RC: “What do you have to do?”
AN: “I usually do a lot of research work, like on policies that they are trying to pass. I look through a lot of ordinances and some of them we end up supporting and some of them we end up opposing. So it’s kind of up to me to track them, or if something comes up that doesn’t look good I’ll tell my supervisor like “Hey we should do some more research on this” or “We should make a meeting with the mayor to talk about this.”
RC: “What’s an example?”
AN: “There’s this housing policy right now called the Non-Conforming Ordinance where it restricts the ability of landlords to make structural updates and changes to rental properties. If they do, it revokes the rental license of the property turning it back into single-family homes, so traditional--not college students. So it’s a way of the city getting rid of student housing close to campus.”
RC: “So do you oppose that one?”
AN: “Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of students would rather live in houses. Obviously in Running Club we have House KARL and the Gunson Burner, and they are old houses with some character in them. But these are a couple of houses where updates could be made to them and the city is trying to ban it. So it puts landlords in a tough position because people are going to live in them no matter what, and they aren’t bad but they could be better. So it’s just not a good situation. And the city is not going to budge on it, so it’s just kind of a battle.”
RC: “Would you opposing it and your supervisor looking more into it do anything. Or is it more of that this is what is going to come, so expect it?”
AN: “It kind of does, realistically. He got into the planning commission for the city and then I got onto a committee, a little task-force that was formed through the city. So I would say in that aspect it has been kind of affective because we have had student representation at the city-level. So it’s pretty official in that aspect and we have been been able to go to the meetings and speak out for the students. And so I think we have some influence at the committee level, but eventually everything goes to the city council.”
RC: “And they just vote.”
AN: “Yeah, so there’s pretty much a 3/2 dividing at the students right now when it comes to student policy. So realistically, there’s probably not too much that we can do, but it makes students look better that we are aware of what is going on.”
RC: “How did you get involved with ASMSU?”
AN: “I actually just got hired as a marketing intern last year as a freshman in fall semester. So all throughout my freshman year, I did like five hours a week helping with a lot of their projects and events and initiatives and I just focused on flyering and social media stuff. It was pretty easy and it wasn’t really what I wanted to do, but it was a way to get into the door and then going into my sophomore year this year, I applied for this job, and I was able to get it.”
RC: “That’s perfect. Do you get paid too?”
AN: “Yep, it’s a nice gig.”
RC: “Do you want to go into that sort of stuff? I mean, you’re in James Madison. What’s your major?”
AN: “I study Social Relations and Policy, so it kind of relates to what I do because even right now we are looking at the social aspect of housing policy and you wouldn’t expect to be able to ever really use that major but you kind of do. East Lansing has a non-discriminatory clause against students. Well they include like ‘student-level’ or ‘student-status’ right up there with religion and race. So it’s pretty significant when you’re looking at it that way. As far as city politics go, I think it’s a good place to start, but I don’t think I would want to spend my life there.”
RC: “Would you want to go to law school? Is that your plan?”
AN: “Yeah, I kind of do. This semester I am rushing a pre-law fraternity, so I’ve been really busy with that. Like, this past weekend we went down to Northwestern Law School and Loyola of Chicago, so it’s something on the table. Obviously it’s extremely expensive and it’s kind of a gamble as far as if it’s worth it nowadays because that market is kind of saturated, But I guess right now I’m just learning more about it. I wouldn’t rule it out of the table or the option of ideas but it’s always a good option if you’re passionate about it. And I’m pretty passionate about policy and law and the intricacies of it, so I’m definitely open to it.”
RC: “How do you balance everything? You’re involved with ASMSU and now you’re rushing this pre-law fraternity. Are you involved with anything else, other than Running Club?”
AN: “I’m on the e-board of the College Democrats as well. But I think next year I will probably be taking a smaller role with them. I’ll probably be on the e-board still but I don’t really do that much right now.”
RC: “What’s your position?”
AN: “I am the Director of Party Relations. So I do a lot of outreach work with a lot of the democratic clubs around us, like the Ingham County Dems and the Meridian Township Dems. So with them I don’t have to do much; I just go to meetings once a week. But I think if I can take a bigger role on next year with ASMSU, I think I would probably just keep it to the fraternity, Running Club, and ASMSU. And that’s why I like Running Club because you can pencil in 5:00 PM I can go run for an hour and you can treat it like an obligation, even though you’re just running--you know what I mean. I think a lot of us are like that. I don’t know, I enjoy it a lot because I get to go out there and I wish I hadn’t been hurt this semester because it kind of sucks.”
RC: “What injury have you been dealing with?”
AN: “I actually have stress fractures in both of my legs. The pain started back in October and I ignored it of course and I remember running Regionals at Indiana. I initially wasn’t going to go down because I was already hurting a lot and I decided to go and planned to watch with the idea of maybe running. Of course I ran because I got there and popped a bunch of pills and put on a bunch of icy-hot like it was suntan lotion and nothing was helping. So I ran then and then I remember being in so much pain, and then I ran a 5k--the turkey trot--and I was miserable. It was the worst pain of my life. After that, I was like ‘I have to get this checked out,’ so I went in to get an x-ray and they sent me to Sparrow Hospital and I went there over winter break and I got x-rays done. I didn’t expect anything to be wrong because I thought that they were just following up. So I was getting ready to get back out there and I had a follow-up appointment with the physical therapist and he just sat down and told me I had stress fractures in both of my shins and said that I couldn’t run until late March. At first I was like, well it can’t be that bad, but then he scared me because he said that I only have one shot to really fix this because if I ran on it and messed it up some more, I would be dealing with some issues for a while. He jokingly told me that I should start working on my triathlon career so I was just going to bike and swim a lot. But then I got really busy with other things and then it was winter. I also tried swimming in the lap pool at IM Circle and it’s difficult. I never thought that it would be that difficult. I got kind of turned off the day I almost drowned.”
RC: “That sounds like a story. What happened there?”
AN: “I didn’t literally almost drown, but I was down 50 yards and I was 25 yards back and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t do this.’”
RC: “Was this the first lap?”
AN: “No it was like the fifth lap, but I swam out and I did that and it was just not good. But I went over to Holden with Jenna Chapman and they have the free cardio gym in the basement, so whenever we both had the time, I would go over and workout down there. I’ve been pretty lazy. I did go for my first run Saturday night, actually.”
RC: “How was it?”
AN: “It felt pretty good.”
RC: “As far as not being in shape and everything else.”
AN: “Yeah, not being in shape, not stretching, being really cold. I think I ran three miles. I started out at Campus Village. It was like 3:00AM and we had just gotten back from Chicago my friend was like ‘Chuck, do you want to go for a run?’ I told her that I hadn’t run since November but she said that she didn’t care and that she just wanted someone to go run with so she didn’t go running alone at 3:00AM. So we went running at 3:00 and we ran down all the way to the end of River Trail by Hagadorn and then all the way back. So it was probably too far for the first time out, but it felt really good.”RC: “And you haven’t run since?”
AN: “Yeah, I haven’t run since Saturday.”
RC: “But did you feel pain? Did your shins hurt?”AN: “No, I didn’t feel pain. A little sore, but I think just because I hadn’t run in that long and I had been up for about 24 hours straight. It wasn’t the best. But I felt kind of good because before I was heel-striking pretty badly and so I’ve been reading a couple of books and Jenna said she would teach me how to run so I got some new shoes and start from scratch. Before I was really slow, and it was just a wasted time and effort with my running form, and it was hurting me too. It was kind of a nice restart, so I’m just trying to take it slow.”
RC: “When you’re not injured, do you prefer track or cross country?”
AN: “I actually never did either one before I got here. I started running senior year of high school just for fun and then I ran a lot my freshman year, and then this year Jenna told me to check out the club, and that’s when I joined. But I’m pretty slow. That’s fine, I don’t care. So I think I’d enjoy cross a lot more. And I just enjoy running around versus the speed aspect of it as far as being on the track.”
RC: “Do you think that there’s more stigma behind track as compared to cross country?”
AN: “I think there probably is. For someone who’s never done it before, when you look at track runners compared to cross runners, and the idea too that everyone can see you when you’re running track. Like, with MC5 you were back in the woods and no one cares. And I know that no one actually cares or is judging, but you are judging yourself and I don’t know you can be a little self-conscious that way. I don’t know, my goal is just to be a healthy runner. I’d rather run slow and be able to run every day than be fast and not be able to run that much.”
RC: “Do you think the Running Club was welcoming enough for you as a beginner runner, or was it intimidating at all? There are a lot of competitive people.”
AN: “It was a little intimidating at first. I remember my first day I felt so embarrassed because I definitely ran too hard for myself. And I remember I would walk back and think that it was terrible but I worked my way into it and I think it helped that I started to make friends on the team. I obviously knew Jenna, but then my friend Austin from high school joined and his roommate, Zach. I started making friends with Melanie and Jackie and as I started getting some friends, I think that helped. And then as far as guys who would run my speed, like Charlie and Nick when I was going out for long runs with them, it helped to run with them. So I think at first it was a little intimidating because I didn’t know who to run with and you don’t want to be the slowest guy ever, But as you start running with a couple of guys it gets better and works out that way.”
RC: “What’s your favorite thing about running club? Having other people to run with?”
AN: “Yeah, I would say that having to run my whole life by myself, it is a lot of fun getting to run with a group of people. And I like the structure and the challenge of it as well, especially in the fall. You’re trying to get better and you have the routes planned out for you so you try to plan out that you want to be able to run eight or ten by this week or something like that. So that was really cool.”

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