There is no mandate for newly hired University of Michigan president Kent Syverud to either keep or get rid of current athletics director Warde Manuel, multiple members of the Board of Regents told the Free Press following their meeting on Monday, Jan. 12, when Syverud was named the 16th president in U-M history.
Syverud, the first U-M alumnus in nearly a century to serve as U-M president, returns to Ann Arbor from Syracuse University in New York where he spent the past dozen years serving as chancellor and president.
“Any personnel decisions beyond the president are the purview of the president,” regent Jordan Acker told the Free Press. “Whether it’s athletics, whether it’s the hospital, whether it’s the main campus, the new president has a wide purview and the board trusts him implicitly to make good decisions for the long-term health of the university.”
The search began with more than 100 potential candidates before getting whittled down to “over two dozen” options, regent Paul Brown said.
Syverud, who is set to begin as president in July, has served in many roles, including dean of the law schools at Washington University in St. Louis and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
But it was the past decade plus at Syracuse where, he said ,he learned a lesson about making any decisions about personnel matters before he arrived.
“Having been a president once before, coming in with intentions about personnel is a big mistake,” he said. “You need to first be on the ground and learn and talk to people, and that’s my assignment in the coming months.”
The Michigan athletic department is currently in the midst of an external investigation by the law firm of Jenner & Block. Football coach Sherrone Moore was fired on Dec. 10 after evidence arose of an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, and subsequently jailed and charged with felony home invasion and misdemeanor stalking and misdemeanor breaking and entering.
That was the latest stain on the athletic department, which has been embroiled in scandal in recent years. The ongoing probe is investigating the department’s culture, and, perhaps more importantly, who knew what and when as it pertained to Moore’s affair with a staffer.
Athletic director Warde Manuel was in attendance for the Syverud vote and told the Free Press, “I’m excited about the announcement of the new president.”
As for Syverud, who met his wife while studying in Ann Arbor and got married on campus, he described himself as a “rabid Wolverines sports fan” but said he was not privy to all the details of the active investigation or its status.
“I have not been briefed on what’s going on in the athletic department more than reading the things you all write,” he said. “But I’ve been responsible for a Power Four athletic department for 12 years. So I’m certainly going to learn a lot about it in the coming months.”
While at Syracuse, Syverud led an update of the governance of the Atlantic Coast Conference and served as chair of the ACC’s Board of Directors from 2019-21, including during 2020’s hiring of a new conference commissioner, James Phillips.
Regent Sarah Hubbard noted his work on stabilizing the ACC, saying “He has a long history of excellence in athletics, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
There remains no update on a timeline for Jenner & Block’s investigation. Acker, however, reiterated that he feels the the findings should be released when finalized.
“I expect some of it certainly, so the public has an understanding of what happened here that led to coach Moore’s arrest,” Acker said. “It’s an unacceptable incident, and I think that’s one that the public deserves full transparency.”
Brown said the board did “a lot of due diligence” as it relates to the athletics portion of Syverud’s job, which included speaking to Phillips. According to Brown, the ACC commissioner said Syverud “was my best president in terms of understanding and supporting athletics.”
Still, Brown said he had “no idea” about Syverud’s direction on Manuel’s future. Each candidate, Brown said, had specific “gating issues” during the search process, and the board had to feel confident they “checked the box” on all of them – including with his handling of athletics – which he did.
“I think Warde is one of the best athletic directors in our history and in the country today,” Brown said. “But there is obviously some prerogative of a new president to pick his team and obviously, too, for the board to examine closely that the mistakes that were made in this last incident.”
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New Michigan president plans ‘to learn a lot’ about Warde Manuel
Reporting by Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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