Dear Spartans,
When I began my presidency on March 4, I promised that we would put a leadership structure in place to best position Michigan State University to become the leading global public research university we aspire toward. Eight months later, I am confident that we are well on our way to accomplishing this goal.
During the past several months, through my listening and learning tour and numerous engagements with faculty, staff, students and alumni, I gained valuable insights that informed my approach on next steps with several key roles on campus. I am pleased that we have already made several outstanding dean appointments and are in the process of launching two additional dean searches over the next few months. We are appointing visionary and bold deans who are committed to excellence as we advance our mission to be “Michigan’s state university!” As I said last week in my investiture speech, we will be a talent magnet and, in return, be a talent activator.
I have enjoyed meeting with many of our department chairs, who I am pleased have accepted the responsibility of recruiting and retaining talented faculty who are critical to advancing our mission. They are committed to working within a renewed culture of collaboration that will differentiate us from our peers. We are in the process of hiring 20 star faculty through our Global Impact Initiative over the next six months in several key areas, including computational biology and population health, drug discovery, space electronics, cybercrime and cybersecurity and global education research. This high-impact work across several disciplines and colleges will be a game-changer for Michigan State University.
Today I am announcing my plans for the first phase of leadership structural changes and leadership transitions.
Provost
The provost and executive vice president for academic affairs position is vital to the mission of the university as our foremost academic leader. Since this position is currently filled on an interim basis, I am launching a comprehensive, national search to fill this role on a permanent basis. Both internal and external candidates will be considered, and I want to ensure there is an inclusive search process with input across campus. The search will be conducted with support from executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. I am currently forming a search committee that will be co-chaired by College of Music Dean Jim Forger and Felicia Wu, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. The search committee will be representative of the breadth of MSU’s academic portfolio and will include consultation with the Academic Governance Steering Committee. More information will be shared as the search progresses, but I anticipate a potential selection by late spring semester. Throughout the search process, Interim Provost Thomas Jeitschko, who has served in this role with distinction and credibility for nearly two years, will remain in the position through at least the end of the academic year.
Executive vice president for administration
Since December 2023, Thomas Glasmacher has served as interim executive vice president for administration while also maintaining his role as director of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB. Thomas plans to return solely to his FRIB role and further advance MSU’s excellence in nuclear physics with some exciting new opportunities on the horizon. I am grateful for Thomas’s leadership during this interim period and appreciate his efforts around operational excellence in our administrative functions, laying a solid foundation to build from moving forward.
To fill the EVPA role, I am appointing Senior Vice President for Student Life and Engagement Vennie Gore. Vennie is an ideal choice for this role given his strong administrative track record at MSU since 2007. During that time, he has led large, complex units on campus with a strong commitment to operational excellence, inclusive processes and putting people at the heart of the university’s purpose. Vennie’s current responsibilities span providing support for 50,000+ students, including over 17,000 students who live on campus; overseeing 27 residence halls and 30 dining venues as well as the Breslin Center, Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center and two golf courses, the MSU Tennis Center and MSU’s Recreation Sports and Fitness Services program; and he serves as the executive lead on the Multicultural Center and Recreational and Wellness Center facility projects. Additionally, Vennie has been deeply involved in the formation and implementation of MSU’s strategic goals and priorities as co-chair of the MSU 2030 plan and steering committee member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan. A recognized national leader in higher education, Vennie has been honored with various accolades, including the American College Personnel Association Diamond Award and the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International James C. Grimm Leadership and Service Award. Long before I arrived at MSU, I learned of Vennie’s national reputation, and we will benefit from his leadership experience and expertise in this new role.
To support a smooth transition, Vennie will remain in the senior vice president for SLE role through Dec. 31, 2024, and move into a temporary special advisor role during a continued transitionary period until March 3, 2025, when he will assume the EVPA position and Thomas will fully return to his FRIB position.
“Student Life and Engagement” transitioning to the more familiar “Student Affairs”
In fall 2021, the Student Affairs and Services and Residential and Hospitality Services units were combined to create the Division of Student Life and Engagement. Together, these teams have done admirable work on behalf of our students and changed the fundamental Spartan experience for the better. Given the challenges ahead and the unique and often different skillsets required to successfully lead these operations, I am realigning Student Life and Engagement into two separate divisions, seeking to retain the strengths this partnership has brought us. A vice president for student affairs will report to me as president, and an associate vice president for residential housing and auxiliary enterprises will report to the executive vice president for administration.
In the coming weeks, I will launch a search for the VP for student affairs role, in consultation with the Academic Governance Steering Committee, which also includes student leaders. Since the search process will extend into the spring semester, interim leadership of the Student Affairs and Residential Housing and Auxiliary Enterprises units will be identified prior to Vennie’s transition on Dec. 31, 2024.
Department of Police and Public Safety
Campus safety is one of my top priorities, and the Department of Police and Public Safety, or DPPS, plays a vital role in creating a campus environment that is safe and welcoming for all. To ensure strong and coordinated efforts, I am implementing a new structure for MSU DPPS. Effective Nov. 11, 2024, I am recombining the roles of the campus chief safety officer and the chief of police, and I am appointing Mike Yankowski in this newly combined role with the title of chief of police and executive director of public safety.
It is important that there is one leader for the university’s full campus safety and policing efforts. Campus safety efforts beyond traditional policing such as building access, emergency response and security infrastructure are vital components to providing a safe campus. All these efforts, however, must be interconnected with one clear leader across both police and public safety. Additionally, to enhance coordination with key campus partners, DPPS will dually report to me and the EVPA effective Nov. 11, 2024. Our public safety efforts benefit from continued and enhanced collaboration with many of the units under the EVPA umbrella, specifically Infrastructure Planning and Facilities and Information Technology.
I am incredibly grateful for the strong leadership Doug Monette has provided as interim chief safety officer since March of this year. And last year, Chris Rozman stepped into the distinct chief of police role that was separated out in spring 2023 and has done an exemplary job. I am confident that their experience, expertise, relationships, integrity and commitment to MSU will continue to be valuable to MSU and DPPS moving forward.
I look forward to Mike Yankowski’s leadership in this new structure. Mike has served for the past five years as assistant director of ethics and compliance in the Office of Audit, Risk and Compliance, following a distinguished career with the Lansing Police Department for 25 years, the final six as chief of police. His achievements during this time include establishing a community services unit, embedding the first police social worker into the department, instituting a citizen police academy, establishing the Metro Lansing Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust and increasing training and technology programs to better support officers in their roles. Mike is a recognized leader in the law enforcement community, being tapped to serve on multiple gubernatorial commissions, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards Recruiting Task Force and continuing to serve as an instructor at the Mid-Michigan Police Academy, where he teaches ethics in policing.
University Communications
Since 2022, Emily Guerrant and Heather Swain have provided strong joint leadership of the University Communications division. However, within this structure, their titles have not fully and clearly represented each of their individual focus areas and the unit title itself does not represent the full functions of the division. Therefore, I am changing Emily’s title to vice president and chief communications officer and Heather’s to vice president and chief marketing officer. The division name will also change to University Communications and Marketing. Although subtle changes, these refined titles better reflect the important work of both the communications and marketing functions at MSU and the synergistic role they play working together.
Closing
Thank you for your patience in reading through each of these changes. I know there is a lot of information in this message to digest, but I felt strongly that it was important to announce each of these changes simultaneously as I comprehensively assessed the university’s structure and each of the ways various units intersect with and impact one another. I believe these structural changes will best support our pursuit of excellence in achieving our university mission, and I believe the leaders identified and search processes to begin are putting the right people in the right spaces to enhance that success. However, I also want to emphasize that we all play a role in MSU’s success. We are one team and although there is always interest in who holds leadership roles, it is our collective work that makes an impact on campus every day. I will be announcing additional changes within the next four months as I finalize my leadership team. As I said in my investiture speech on Sept. 29, the future is bright for Michigan State University.
Thanks for all you do to support our mission and our aspiration to be a leading global public research university.
Go Green!
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
(pronounced GUS-ka-wits)
President
Professor, Department of Kinesiology