New MSU prez: chancellor at U of North Carolina
MSU has tabbed Kevin Guskiewicz as their new president. He's an "academic leader," neuroscientist, and MacArthur Fellow.
(Hiding then news with a late Friday news drop?)
December 8th, 2023 at 9:08 PM ^
So I guess staee student-athletes can now get credit for fake classes now. Excellent choice sparties!
December 8th, 2023 at 9:09 PM ^
Kev is a good guy. He's leaving UNC because the politicians are interfering with him doing his job.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:12 PM ^
Well, he won't have that problem at MSU! Nobody will get in the way of whatever they want to do there...
December 8th, 2023 at 9:14 PM ^
But at least he won't have to worry about the president...
December 8th, 2023 at 10:22 PM ^
My conspiracy theory is that Engler left to try (successfully I guess) to prevent an embezzlement investigation.
That man has a TALENT for enriching himself and his cronies at the expense of whatever institution he’s in charge of. There is a 0% chance he DIDN’T rob MSU blind
December 9th, 2023 at 8:05 AM ^
He got the sloppy seconds.
Ferguson plundered the coffers first.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:18 PM ^
MSU’s board of trustees is a hot mess. Why would he go to a school with an ongoing civil war among board members?
December 8th, 2023 at 9:22 PM ^
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
December 8th, 2023 at 9:31 PM ^
UNC's might be an even bigger mess over the past couple years as the governance has become more politicized there.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:21 PM ^
He clearly did not do a second of due diligence then. MSU board makes Congress look civil and level headed.
I get it - go and get that $$$ and prestige and promotion - anyone would.
December 8th, 2023 at 10:33 PM ^
It's not a promotion. UNC's chancellorship is a far more prestigious job than the presidency of MSU.
Might be a pay raise, though.
December 9th, 2023 at 12:01 PM ^
Location is a significant downgrade: Chapel Hill to East Landfill. Yeesh!
December 8th, 2023 at 9:32 PM ^
Yeah, he got caught up in the Nikole Hannah Jones debacle and probably didn’t appreciate it.
December 9th, 2023 at 10:48 AM ^
And the crazy "Silent Sam/we must venerate this statue of a confederate soldier" debacle.
December 8th, 2023 at 10:10 PM ^
How are his wagon circling skillz though?
December 8th, 2023 at 9:24 PM ^
Oh, they're never going to spell his name right.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:29 PM ^
Name something they do spell right. Sparty will probably call him PKG, in the grand tradition of CMD and CMT.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:31 PM ^
Hard for staee to ever be....
December 8th, 2023 at 11:45 PM ^
Maybe he can teach spelling
December 8th, 2023 at 9:27 PM ^
I actually don’t want MSU to be a dumpster fire,
I don’t want them to be good at football, but certainly do not want them to be embarrassing.
I do come from the state of Michigan. I like a good leader who came from a smarter school (I do have a degree from unc, I am a Michigan grad too)
To sum up, I want State to be bad at sports, but with good academic leadership where kids aren’t stupid helmet swinging jerks and the coach isn’t a jerkoff. And also no bad touching. For the good of the state of Michigan. And the children.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:39 PM ^
As a Michigan native (living in Ohio) with many Sparty Alums among my friends and family, I also want to see MSU thrive as an academic institution. Unlike sports, academic reputation is not a zero sum game.
That, being said I tend to root for MSU teams whenever they are not competing against Michigan (Except when coached by Dantonio).
December 9th, 2023 at 7:58 AM ^
"That, being said I tend to root for MSU teams whenever they are not competing against Michigan"
Time to report for reprogramming.
December 9th, 2023 at 12:27 PM ^
As a Lansing native and UM grad, I never root for them to win, and I hope they fail miserably. Fuck 'em.
December 9th, 2023 at 12:45 AM ^
Well, as a person who worked on faculty at UM for almost ten years, then transitioned to MSU faculty for the last 7 years, I can assure you that 1) we are dying for some stable governance, 2) our BoT is a nightmare, and everyone knows it and 3) we don’t hit our students (undergrad or PhD) with helmets whenever possible ;-)
December 10th, 2023 at 7:58 PM ^
Same, this is why it pisses me off when I hear about Michigan fans joke about writing in “Jim Harbaugh” for MSU BoT during elections or picking the worst candidate so “MSU becomes a dumpster fire”
December 8th, 2023 at 9:47 PM ^
One of my kids will inevitably end up at Michigan State.
I would like for it to not be a complete tire fire when he or she gets there, if only to get some yield of my tuition dollars.
So yay good hire!
December 9th, 2023 at 12:31 AM ^
Hey now. Words become expectations...
December 8th, 2023 at 9:52 PM ^
Board meeting and vote was first thing this morning, and he was their only finalist, so this news dropped long before 'late Friday'. Wishing Guskiewicz well, as he has a difficult road ahead of him with a dysfunctional board and a university with extensive PR baggage. As others have also noted, I want MSU to be a great university with lousy sports teams.
December 8th, 2023 at 10:37 PM ^
Thanks for the update. I assumed it was late news, on the assumption that no one had posted it before 9PM. Though there's no reasonable motive for hiding the hire (other than Staee being Staee).
December 8th, 2023 at 10:43 PM ^
Just further demonstration how important little brother is to the media.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:52 PM ^
Boy has he got himself into a shit show.
December 9th, 2023 at 2:45 AM ^
Sixth president in six years is a remarkable feat. Some of that school's struggles on the financial and academic date to the severe requirement to retrench after 2008; that's when the two schools' paths really started to diverge. Coming from a Michigan family with multiple members in both schools over three-quarters of a century, I also hope for better for MSU. Sports is just a piece of it, but a very public piece. When Izzo moves on, which should be soon, we will have a chance to dial down the antagonism; I hope that happens.
December 8th, 2023 at 9:58 PM ^
As a neuroscientist he'll find very little fodder among the board and the slappies. Unless he specializes in Abby Normal brains, that is.
December 9th, 2023 at 8:01 AM ^
Great movie.
December 8th, 2023 at 10:24 PM ^
The thing about MSU is that the undergraduate school and the graduate school are like two entirely different worlds.
MSU is a world class grad university for certain things. I hate that the dumpster fire of the BoT negatively affects the students
December 8th, 2023 at 11:28 PM ^
So a guy that's been at UNC for 28 years, rising all the way to chancellor, suddenly decided things are getting a bit too squirrelly and thinks to himself, "where can I go for some peace and quiet before riding off into the sunset? Oh yeah, Michigan State!"
December 8th, 2023 at 11:45 PM ^
North Carolina is a great school, and MSU has punched up on this hire.
That said, given the dumpster fire they are, remains to be seen whether they can keep him. I suspect this is one instance where institutional name recognition + money might be greater than the upside for the new president.
December 8th, 2023 at 11:56 PM ^
It might be a great school, but it has problems at the governance level. The Board of Governors are appointed by the state legislature. This has led to the politicization of the board and university governance. I don't care how good the school might be, but that is going to lead to a job full of headaches for a president to navigate.
Here are just a couple examples:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article281090148.html
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article260820252.html
December 9th, 2023 at 12:17 AM ^
Fair—totally. The articles are paywalled, but I get that things aren’t as good as NC’s reputation would suggest.
But he’s going from a place with a repetitional credit score of 770 to one with an actual score of 490. (Just spitballing here). I think he’ll find State a difficult place to reform.
December 8th, 2023 at 11:55 PM ^
MacArthur Fellowship Award winners are known as geniuses. He may have a hard time fitting in with the crowd up there.
December 8th, 2023 at 11:55 PM ^
This is a great hire - I've met him and got to spend time with him on a couple of occasions. Really surprised State was able to lure him in. State is finally making some wise decisions.
December 9th, 2023 at 1:59 AM ^
NC legislature has basically made the position of chancellor at UNC impossible ever since the Silent Sam statue got taken down. He basically ran screaming for the first decent job he could find.
December 9th, 2023 at 9:39 AM ^
"decent"?
Imagine how dire things must be at UNC for anyone there to think Michigan effin' State is greener pastures.
December 9th, 2023 at 10:53 AM ^
They are that dire. UNC is having profound faculty retention and recruitment issues.
December 9th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
I actually thought Moo U.'s raison d'etre was to create greener pastures.
December 9th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
Yeah, UNC is (was?) up there with Michigan as the most prestigious public school that isn't Berkeley in the country. If their chancellor is taking a lateral move to MSU it's a measure of how absolutely poisonous politicians there have made things.
Edit: their last chancellor resigned without even lining up a new job over the Silent Sam stuff. What a clusterfuck.
December 9th, 2023 at 8:44 AM ^
It was announced down here Wednesday or Thursday.
December 9th, 2023 at 11:43 AM ^
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Kevin-Guskiewicz-39507619
Mentioned in the Detroit News, but adding link to his work.
Kevin is in the room of the world's experts on traumatic brain injury. This is good news for the B1G.
December 9th, 2023 at 7:17 PM ^
NC resident here...North Carolina Governor Cooper tweeted 2 days ago and yesterday about the toxic political environment of the UNC Board of Governors (Regents equivalent) chasing away the Chancellor.
I guess the Chancellor's downward move from UNC to MSU is the other shoe dropping.
EDIT: I see I'm not the first to comment on this from the UNC angle.