Michigan State University faculty members are considering a vote of no confidence in President Kevin Guskiewicz and the school’s Board of Trustees.
More than 4,000 members are part of the Academic Congress of MSU and are eligible to vote. They’re being asked to consider two resolutions:
A) Whether the faculty have “confidence and trust” in President Guskiewicz to “effectively lead” MSU and
B) Whether they have “confidence and trust” in the ability of the Board to Trustees to “effectively oversee” MSU.
The university has seen a rocky past month and a half with Guskiewicz announcing he would be leaving the school in May for the top job at Clemson University and then backtracking on that decision on July 6.
In his letter to the campus community, he said he would work to show his commitment to MSU.
"Trust is not restored through words alone. It is earned through consistency, transparency and action," Guskiewicz wrote.
MSU Faculty Senate Chair John Aerni-Flessner, speaking as an individual professor, says the vote is important to show Guskiewicz, the Board of Trustees and other university leaders that faculty should be a part of discussions about the future of the school.
"It often feels to a lot of folks on campus that they are not being consulted about these big decisions that are being taken that impact the future of of their jobs and their careers," he said. "The goal of academic governance in calling out for the faculty vote of 4000+ faculty members was to allow people to be heard and to be able to point to something to say this is how the faculty actually feels."
For Aerni-Flessner, it's an opportunity for the school's administration to be better informed, but for other professors, the vote could bring more chaos and drama.
University Distinguished Professor Chip Brock and Rudolph Hugh Endowed Chair in Microbial Pathogenesis Victor DiRita spearheaded a faculty effort when Guskiewicz announced his departure to ask him to reconsider his decision. They sent him a letter signed by dozens of professors.
"It seemed to me like he had stabilized things, and apart from some unfortunate aspects of the Board of Trustees, we had some stability for the first time in my sense that we could believe in since a decade ago," Brock said.
DiRita calls the faculty vote "classless" and worries about its potential harm to the university's reputation, including its ability to recruit and hire other academics.
"The President said, 'I know I got to rebuild trust,' and the first thing we say is, 'Well, we're going to take a vote of no confidence,'" he said.
For Brock, Guskiewicz deserves more time to prove his leadership.
"I'm disappointed that the [Faculty] Senate chose to not let the summer go by and let the President resettle in to what's going to be undoubtedly a brand new relationship with the Board of Trustees and the community, and in the fall now, having done that, he can now speak more concretely as to what the future is going to be like," Brock said."
Brock and DiRita also feel the vote may not be representative because of how quickly it came together and that many professors are off during the summer, doing research or not on contract.
Professor Víctor Rodríguez-Pereira is the President of Local 1855, the union that represents non-tenure track faculty and MSU Extension employees. Speaking to WKAR News a day after the vote was announced, he was undecided on which way he was leaning.
Like Brock and DiRita, he has concerns that internal dysfunction at the university level could lead to unintended consequences.
"There's a lot of people out there, especially in the state legislature, that are salivating at the fact that they could, in some way, turn the board of the university into an appointed position instead of an elected position," he said. "My concern is that the more that we encourage that, the more that we are working against ourselves."
But Rodríguez-Pereira feels Guskiewicz should be held accountable for other decisions he's made during his tenure, including 9% budget cuts across the university last year. Many graduate programs paused admissions last fall amid the financial constraints.
"There has been a healthy level of distrust for a while now. I think his leaving and then returning might just add to a certain level of distrust that was already there."
While faculty members might not all agree on the direction of the university, all of the professors who spoke to WKAR emphasized the importance of faculty in those discussions.
"Students come and go, administrators come and go, faculty stay, and so the thread that holds the university together in my mind has always been faculty," Brock said.
That sentiment also came with hope for more collaboration.
"We spend years, decades, some even full careers here, and and so we are the ones who have been here and have been here through it," said Aerni-Flessner. "I hope that people will ask more questions of those on campus."
Voting on the resolutions is underway and will close next Tuesday. After that, results will be made public.
Interview Transcript
Melorie Begay: It’s been a week since Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz shared he would be staying at the school after accepting a job at Clemson.
In his letter to the campus community, he said he would need to rebuild trust.
And right now, thousands of MSU faculty members are voting on whether they have confidence in him to lead.
WKAR’s Sophia Saliby spoke to several professors from across the university, and she joins me now to break down how they’re feeling. Thanks for being here, Sophia.
Sophia Saliby: Great to be here.
Begay: So, what are faculty members actually voting on?
Saliby: So, this is Michigan State University's Academic Congress. They have more than 4,000 members. These are professors across the university, and they are being asked to consider two resolutions, one related to the Board of Trustees, and one related to the president. So, I'm going to just read these:
Whether the faculty has "confidence and trust" in President Guskiewicz to "effectively lead" MSU, and whether they have "confidence and trust" in the ability of the Board of Trustees to "effectively oversee" MSU.
So, this is a non-binding resolution. There's no action beyond that. The voting ends tonight, and results will come out Wednesday morning.
Begay: And so, why is this happening now?
Saliby: So, I talked to Professor John Aerni-Flessner. He's the Faculty Senate chair, so he has some oversight in academic governance. But he shared with me his own opinions. He was important to say that, and for him, right now is the right time to talk about this and bring this to higher ups at the university because there are a lot of decisions being made, and faculty should get a chance to weigh in because there's such a large constituency on campus. This is what he said:
John Aerni-Flesser: What we wanted to do was to let people be heard and to give people at the top, the Board of Trustees, the President's Office information on how people are feeling.
Saliby: For him, faculty should just be a part of the conversation, and they want to be a part of figuring out where the university goes from here.
Begay: Okay, and do other professors feel differently?
Saliby: For sure. I have heard from several other professors who have very strong opinions about this. So, I spoke together with Chip Brock, he's a university distinguished professor, and Vic DiRita, he's a department chair, and they actually back in May when when Guskiewicz announced he would be leaving, they spearheaded a letter campaign signed by dozens of other faculty members asking him to reconsider his decision to leave, which they're happy that he decided to stay.
They were calling the vote too early. DiRita actually said that it was a "classless" move for the faculty to step in before anything has happened and say "No, we don't want you to lead." So, this is what Chip Brock said.
Chip Brock: I'm disappointed that the Senate chose to not let the summer go by and let the president resettle in to what's going to be undoubtedly a brand new relationship with the Board of Trustees and the community.
Saliby: On the other hand, I also talked to Professor Victor Rodríguez-Pereira. He leads the Union of Nontenure Track Faculty at the university. When I spoke to him on Thursday last week, he was undecided on his vote. He also kind of thought it was too early, but he says there have been other issues that are important to call out that administration has been responsible for, like massive university-wide budget cuts last year.
And there's also a lot of talk right now statewide about changing how members of public university boards are chosen, potentially going from public elections to having the governor appoint these positions, and so, Rodríguez-Pereira says a vote could be publicly seen as a sign of dysfunction within the university.
Rodríguez-Pereira: My concern is that the more that we encourage that, the more that we are working against ourselves.
Saliby: Hearing all of these different opinions, it's really unclear how this vote is going to come out. It's also summertime, so a lot of professors are not on contract or they're out doing research, so they might not be here to vote anyway.
Begay: And is there anything else interesting you learned reporting out this story?
Saliby: Something that came up in basically all of my conversations was the role faculty play at the school. They kind of all said, administrators can come and go, board members can come and go, students come and go, but faculty are the people that are here, and staff, but faculty are the people that are here for decades. They feel they should have a role in these conversations. It isn't necessarily negativity, but it is a willingness and a desire to be a part of conversations.
You know, there is support for Guskiewicz, respect for him for bringing some stability. Also because he has an academic background, so he kind of knows where these people are coming from. There's still that frustration, but people want collaboration and want change and want to move forward, so I think this vote will mean a lot, I think, and will tell us a lot about how the greater campus community is feeling about all this change.
Begay: Alright. We've been speaking to All Things Considered host Sophia Saliby. Thanks for joining us.
Saliby: Thanks for having me.
