Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz is joining the ranks of other short-lived Michigan university presidencies.
Guskiewicz was selected as the 16th president of Clemson University at a Wednesday board meeting. Clemson has been without a president since James Clements resigned in December.
“To be entrusted with leading a university as respected, ambitious and beloved as Clemson is both humbling and inspiring,” Guskiewicz said during the Clemson board meeting.
“At Michigan State, I inherited both significant challenges and extraordinary opportunities,” he said. “Together, our community has been focusing on rebuilding trust, strengthening transparency and reaffirming the university’s commitment to students, faculty and the people of Michigan.”
Clemson officials explained why they chose Guskiewicz, who was the chancellor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill before heading to East Lansing.
“We were searching for an inspired leader, someone with a bold vision and the operational expertise necessary to lead in a rapidly evolving higher education environment,” Clemson Trustee Cheri Phyfer said during the meeting.
Guskiewicz was the sixth president in six years at Michigan State when he started in March 2024 and just the second permanent president since Lou Anna Simon resigned in the wake of the sentencing of serial sexual abuser Larry Nassar in 2018. The Michigan State board will now be searching for its seventh leader in eight years.
Guskiewicz’s departure comes just over a week after the MSU Board of Trustees approved a measure nearly doubling his salary and extending his contract by two years. Board Chair Brianna Scott and Trustee Sandy Pierce, who led the measure, said the board needed to act quickly because Guskiewicz had received other offers and was at his “wits’ end” with the elected board, which disciplined two of its members for violating the university’s ethics policies.
This wasn’t enough to get Guskiewicz to stay. He has agreed to a $1.216 million base annual salary at Clemson, hundreds of thousands less than the MSU board was prepared to offer him at $2 million. His contract is for five years.
Guskiewicz now joins a pattern of high-profile Michigan university presidents who have resigned or been fired less than two and a half years into their tenure. He is the third president of a major Michigan research university to depart their university in the last year and the fifth since 2022. He follows the resignation of Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy in September and the University of Michigan President Santa Ono in May 2025.
Guskiewicz’s tenure at MSU
Guskiewicz was officially approved by the board on Dec. 8, 2023, in a unanimous vote. He was the sole candidate remaining in the running for the presidency after the other finalist for the job, University of Texas at San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy, withdrew, as reported by MSU’s student newspaper, The State News.
Guskiewicz started on March 4, 2024, and during his first months made it a central priority to “listen and learn” from students, faculty and staff in his first months as university president. He told The News in May 2024 that one of the main themes he heard from those he spoke to was the need for stability and consistent leadership.
“We’re moving in the right direction, focused on the future, not looking at the past,” Guskiewicz said at the time. “We are one team. We are going to move this university forward as one team.”
Guskiewicz had ambitious plans for the university, including the merging of the medical colleges and the Green and White Council, which aims to develop MSU students with skills for careers of the future and propel Michigan’s economy.
The merging of the medical colleges was met with resistance from faculty over a lack of information surrounding the plan and the feasibility of a successful integration.
Guskiewicz also implemented university-wide budget cuts to address a recurring deficit. The university would cut $85 million over two years, with the final cuts expected in the planned budget for fiscal year 2027.
Guskiewicz had tensions with the board
Guskiewicz made it clear to the board he wouldn’t be putting up with the infighting that’d characterized the board for years when he took the position. If the board wanted him, they’d have to agree to eight “governance commitments” that attempted to define the relationship and boundaries between the board and the president.
From the outside, it looked as if Guskiewicz was the one to finally bring calm to the board as it dealt with the fallout of an investigation into two trustees for breaking the board’s Code of Ethics and Conduct.
But Guskiewicz’s frustrations with the board were brewing for a while, Scott and Pierce said during the May special meeting.
Tensions seemed to grow over the new nonprofit to raise money for the athletic department, Spartan Ventures. Several trustees pushed back against the idea, which allows donors to earn revenue from the athletic department.
The last permanent president of Michigan State, Samuel Stanley, resigned in October 2022. He said he had “lost confidence” in the board and could no longer serve as president. A month earlier, the board asked him to leave his post early due to the university’s handling of sexual misconduct issues.
satwood@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Exclusive: MSU President Guskiewicz leaving for another university
Reporting by Sarah Atwood, Daniel Howes and Nolan Finley, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
