East Lansing — There have been six leaders of Michigan State University since Aubrey Hoermann started working at the MSU Bikes Service Center on campus eight years ago.
Lou Anna K. Simon resigned in 2018. She was replaced by interim president and former Gov. John Engler, who served until January, 2019. Then came Satish Udpa, the executive vice president for administration who acted as president for about five months until Samuel Stanley was hired. Stanley served from 2019-2022 until he resigned and said he had “lost confidence” in the board. Next was interim president Theresa Woodruff, who said she would not pursue the permanent position.
Out goes Woodruff’s successor, Kevin Guskiewicz. The Detroit News first revealed Wednesday he was leaving MSU for Clemson University in South Carolina.
“It seems kind of troublesome to switch out leadership” at that rate, said Hoermann, MSU Bikes Service Center service manager.
Most MSU employees approached on campus by The Detroit News declined to comment publicly, citing concerns their comments could be damaging to their careers or violate the terms of their employment. Some voiced support for Guskiewicz, who in a campus-wide letter blamed certain trustees for undermining progress and seeking personal gain over the good of the university.
Others said the repeated leadership change was bad for the university’s future.
“What is perhaps most troubling is the actions of some to abuse their access to privileged and confidential information to mispresent facts, manipulate situations and selectively use and leak that information to promote personal agendas,” Guskiewicz wrote.
MSU Trustee Rebecca Bahar-Cook told The Detroit News Wednesday at the Mackinac Policy Conference that she learned of Guskiewicz’s departure Saturday, when the board secretary forwarded the letter that went out to the university. She said it’s possible the board leadership learned of it earlier.
“It’s obviously disappointing, right, but the university is bigger than one person and we’ll figure out a way to keep the momentum moving forward and implement a lot of good things he started,” Bahar-Cook said from the Mackinac Policy Conference. “I’m not happy about it, but it’s not the end of the world either.”
Guskiewicz departs despite big salary bump
Guskiewicz’s departure would have come as more of a surprise to them had it not been for the board of trustees’ vote to nearly double his salary last week. To some, it showed his decision was about more than money since his base salary at Clemson University is about $1.2 million a year.
That salary increase was “tone deaf,” Hoermann said, considering administrators had recently enacted sweeping cuts, causing academic departments to reduce budgets 6% in 2025 and 3% in 2026.
Guskiewicz’s letter accusing some unnamed trustees of mishandling their duties inspired lifelong education student Eric Hall, 61, to scrutinize the university leaders. He wants to know more about their behavior before deciding who to vote for in November.
“I’m much more interested in finding out about that and what the underlying issues for this are,” Hall said. “And broader, what are the other things we should be keeping an eye out for as voters? It sure seems like if there’s potential conflicts of interest that are being taken advantage of, we should be looking more closely as voters.”
Candidates for MSU trustee, as well as trustees of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, are chosen at Republican and Democratic conventions before voters see their names on general election ballots. That process has come under fire by lawmakers and two former governors who say the election process could be an underlying reason there is such continued turmoil at MSU and UM.
“If there’s an effort to change that (nomination process), I’m all for that,” Hall said. “Not just for this, but for anything. The parties should not be telling us who we have to choose from.”
The Democrats backed board Chair Brianna Scott of Muskegon and Kelly Tebay-Zemke for reelection, while the Republicans nominated State Sen. Roger Victory of Hudsonville and Julie Maday of Novi.
MSU students, staff share their priorities for next president
McKenna Geisler, 20, a senior studying English literature and journalism, said Guskiewicz’s departure was a surprise. She assumed he would stay since the board had just voted to nearly double his salary.
Geisler said she hopes the university’s next president prioritizes more than athletics. She said student advocacy groups, particularly political groups or those representing students of color and women, are not given fair consideration compared with lucrative programs like athletics.
“There’s a lot of areas of campus that could use more time and investment, at least being listened to,” Geisler said. “I think that’s really important when you’re representing a whole university, not just the aspects of it that bring in the most revenue.”
Hoermann, from the bike service center on campus, said Guskiewicz never visited the campus bike store even though it is a short walk from the administration building. He hopes the next president will help raise the profile of biking on campus and prioritize issues such as bicycling infrastructure.
ckthompson@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: MSU campus reacts to revolving door presidency as Guskiewicz departs
Reporting by Carol Thompson and Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
