Michigan State’s Board of Trustees has done it again. Following a battle behind the scenes, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz decided to walk away, citing infighting with the Board of Trustees.
The now-departed president accepted the same job at Clemson and took an $800,000 pay cut just to not have to deal with the current board. In a letter from the president following his decision to leave, Guskiewicz didn’t hold back, stating that the board made it increasingly difficult for him to do his job and certain members were focused too much on the past instead of moving forward.
Obviously it’s disappointing to lose the one true leader that the university had that wasn’t Tom Izzo for the first time in a long time, but it’s even worse when the entire situation could’ve been avoided.
While his departure feels like a betrayal, that energy needs to be directed at the board who allowed this to happen with its undermining and leaking of information. It’s been a consistent problem for Michigan State’s Board of Trustees for what feels like forever, and it’s seemingly only getting worse.
This quote should also be a huge strike against the board:
"While I firmly believe we are all better when there is a diversity of viewpoints informing decisions, our ability to make meaningful progress is hampered when disagreements move from offering alternative perspectives into publicly undermining decisions and putting personal interests above the best interests of the university and our faculty, staff and students. 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."Kevin Guskiewicz
It’s truly one of the most objectionable things that the board has allowed and it now forces Michigan State to look for yet another president. The university has been shuffling through them like they’re all just replaceable, but they’re going to have a tough time trying to find a replacement for Guskiewicz. Not only was he a really strong president and great leader, but what quality of candidate is going to be OK with a shady Board of Trustees that’s been known to undermine leadership?
Two trustees — Brianna Scott and Kelly Tebay — will see their terms come to an end in January and are up for re-election while the rest are there to stay until 2029 or 2033.
In my opinion, something needs to be done to fix the problems within the board. You know it’s bad when a relatively mind-mannered president who has been widely liked takes shots at a group of people like that. It could have something to do with the fact that three members voted against the code of ethics that was introduced recently.
And two members didn’t vote for Guskiewicz’s raise (which he didn’t even ask for) which probably also rubbed him the wrong way.
It’s time to clean house and start over with the Board of Trustees.
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