Michigan State names its new president, Kevin Guskiewicz
Michigan State University named a new president Friday after years of leadership turmoil at the school.
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, who has been leading the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2019 and is a neuroscientist well-known as an expert on sports-related concussions, is expected to begin his tenure in March after a unanimous vote by Michigan State’s board of trustees.
He will be the sixth president at Michigan State since 2018, when the school’s then-president, Lou Anna K. Simon, resigned amid outrage over the sex-abuse scandal involving Larry Nassar, a former university and USA Gymnastics sports doctor.
Rema Vassar, chair of the board of trustees at the public university of about 50,000 students, praised Guskiewicz’s commitment to values including equity, integrity, honesty, and transparency. Vassar said the board is committed to working side-by-side with him to propel Michigan State forward.
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Trustees also said Guskiewicz’s experience leading a large research university would help the school reach its goal of $1 billion in research expenditures by 2030.
Michigan State’s challenges are considerable. Tensions have flared among members of the board, multiple presidents have resigned in recent years, and fallout from the Nassar scandal continues as some of the doctor’s victims demand the school release documents relating to the case. The school also endured a mass shooting this year that killed three students and injured five. This fall, the university fired football coach Mel Tucker for cause after allegations of sexual harassment.
Judith Wilde, a research professor at George Mason University and an expert on college presidencies, said Michigan State’s position is a job some presidents would hesitate to take on. “I think there were probably a number of people who looked at this and said, ‘What we see right now is really a culture of controversy. And do I want to be the sixth president in six years?'” With that number, she said, “obviously, none of them lasted very long. They have a dysfunctional board at this point, with infighting over various topics.” It will take a strong president, she said, to get through those issues and change the culture there.
As chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, one of the most well-regarded public universities in the country, Guskiewicz weathered numerous challenges. He took on the role as interim in 2019 after Carol Folt resigned in the fallout from her decision to order the removal of remnants of an incendiary Confederate monument from the state flagship campus. The fight over that statue, known as Silent Sam, had opened deep divides between many at the school, as well as state leaders.
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Political tensions continued throughout Guskiewicz’s tenure. Republican legislative leaders exert considerable power over UNC-Chapel Hill through appointments to its board of trustees and the state university system’s board of governors. In recent years, faculty, students and others on campus tried to push back on what they saw as unwarranted political intrusion on academic freedom, and what many state leaders saw as a much-needed course correction at a rudderless school that had tilted too far left.
Share this articleShareHigh-profile controversies included a fumbled reopening of campus during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and a protracted fight over tenure for journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her essay in the New York Times 1619 Project on slavery and U.S. history. After the board of trustees finally voted to grant her tenure, Hannah-Jones announced she would join the faculty of Howard University instead. The board has pushed forward the School of Civic Life and Leadership, a move that alarmed some faculty but was hailed by conservative media.
During his tenure, Guskiewicz also put in place a strategic plan for UNC-Chapel Hill, created a campus safety commission and another commission to examine issues of race over the school’s 230-year history, and consider how to reckon with that past.
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At the meeting Friday, Shawn Starr, a union leader at Michigan State who served on the presidential search committee, noted efforts from the UNC community to keep Guskiewicz in Chapel Hill.
Folt, who worked with Guskiewicz before taking on the presidency of the University of Southern California, said in a written statement that he is “one of the most talented, visionary and ethical leaders in all of higher education. He leads with compassion, decisiveness and integrity; he builds consensus across differences; he lives opportunity and equity every day; and he puts students at the center. He is always looking for bold ideas to build the future, and the community will love working with him.”
Jack Lipton, the faculty senate chair at MSU, said he is optimistic about the new president despite the secretive search process. “I’m always concerned about closed searches because it allows firms to recycle candidates over and over,” Lipton said.
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Lipton said Guskiewicz’s will need to adjust to a different environment. “Navigating an entirely new university community will be particularly challenging to someone who hasn’t moved to a new university throughout his career,” he said, “but I think that also shows some strengths — he has dedicated himself to being at UNC-Chapel Hill, so that says something about his loyalty to the institution.”
Camille DuVernois, a third-year political science major at Michigan State who has attended board meetings to get a better idea of who was governing the school, said she is skeptical about the new president. “It’s just baffling to me that the university, and the board, which are both so riddled with controversy and transparency issues would approve a new president, who the second I googled him, I see transparency issues, and racism,” DuVernois said.
“The board doesn’t really do anything besides compliment each other,” she said. For the university, she said, “unless there’s a massive upheaval in the way that it’s governed and the way that we get input from the students and the faculty, if it’s always just decisions being made by the board, then it’s never going to be a position that is stable.”
Guskiewicz, 57, joined the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty in 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports, founded the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, and was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship better known as the “genius grant” in 2011. He will replace Teresa Woodruff, who has served as interim president since last year.
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During the roll call vote, trustees appeared to be bubbling with delight over the choice, responding with, “Enthusiastically yes!” “100 percent yes!” “So excited to say yes!”
After the vote, Guskiewicz spoke of the importance of an inclusive campus and the work he had done as chancellor. A university’s greatest asset is its people, he said.
“I am aware that Michigan State University has faced more than its share of challenges in the past several years,” Guskiewicz said, but said he anticipates the school will “reach new levels of excellence.”
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