The Michigan State University Presidential Search Committee Co-Chairs say they are no open sexual assault survivors or members of the sexual misconduct workgroup on the search committee. We asked them why.
Trustees recently announced the members of the 19-member search committee.
The search committee is made up of nine women and ten men. It includes a top leader at Carhartt, a former president of Grand Valley State University, MSU faculty and staff – and two students. One student is an undergrand, the other is a doctoral candidate.
We asked MSU Trustee and search committee co-chair Melanie Foster if that was enough student representation.
“We’re all equal numbers on the committee. Nobody has super powers - whatever that means. I would say half or more of searches that are conducted, there aren’t students involved. I know that the University of Michigan in their last search had no students on the committee. So, we wanted student representation,” said Foster.
Earlier this year, then MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon resigned amid pressure after disgraced former MSU Dr. Larry Nassar was accused of sexual abuse from hundreds of his patients. He was sentenced to decades in prison for those crimes.
MSU created a relationship violence and sexual misconduct workgroup in February to help create a safer campus.
Foster says most of the search committee has received training from the group. However, there is no known open sexual assault survivor or member of the workgroup on the committee.
We asked Foster why.
“I don’t think it was necessarily exclusion, but it was trying to put together a committee from as many colleges as we could have represented. We had started with wanting a committee of 15,” Foster said.
“There isn’t anyone identified as a survivor, but everyone on the committee has compassion for the survivors,” Trustee and Search Committee Co-Chair Dianne Byrum said during a separate interview.
According to the presidential search website, the search committee has 12 listening sessions scheduled with several more dates to be determined. The committee says it will use information from those sessions to write up a position description by the end of the month.