Remembering Clifton Wharton
Last month, we lost a true Spartan and pathbreaker when our 14th president, Clifton Wharton Jr., passed away.
President Wharton recorded many “firsts” in his life, including in his work as an agricultural development economist and executive in the higher education, philanthropy and corporate worlds.
He was the first Black president of a major U.S. public research university, and, from 1970-78, he led Michigan State through an often-tumultuous period of social change while pursuing his goal of building a pluralistic university.
I’ll always remember the warmth with which he welcomed me into the Spartan family and the leadership wisdom he offered. I’d like to pause for a moment of silence to remember and reflect on the legacy of President Clifton Wharton.
Now, I’d like to offer an opportunity for trustees to comment if you’d like before I continue.
End of fall semester
This week our students are completing their course projects and taking their final exams before the winter break, and I wish them good luck and good grades.
I enjoyed leading fall graduates this week climbing the steps of Beaumont Tower, a tradition I started last spring. More than 100 people signed up this semester.
Exam week is always stressful, and I want to thank our faculty, academic and support staff for taking such good care of our students, from reaching out with academic support to serving special meals in our dining halls.
And thanks, also, to our partners bringing therapy dogs to campus to help ease the nights of hard study. Speaking of canines we love, our presidential pup, Koda, sends a shout-out to two very good Spartan dogs celebrating recent birthdays: Zeke the Wonderdog and River, our Department of Police and Public Safety comfort dog.
I’m looking forward now to congratulating 4,000 new Spartan graduates at our fall commencement ceremonies later today and tomorrow.
And in the next couple of months, I look forward to welcoming a thousand prospective Spartans to tour campus and compete for merit-based scholarships. It will be the inaugural year of our new Joseph R. and Sarah L. Williams Scholarship program, our premier undergraduate scholarship program that I was pleased to introduce at my presidential investiture in September.
With 30 new scholarships available to the best and brightest incoming students, the Williams scholarships will more than double our full-ride awards. In addition to covering tuition, housing and meals, these scholarships will include stipends for education abroad and other experiential education opportunities, which add such valuable dimensions to the college experience.
It’s great knowing that, together, we’ve prepared our graduates to secure good jobs on the way to great careers. A recent survey of global employers published in Times Higher Education places Michigan State among the top 10 public U.S. universities for graduate employability.
Transfer agreements
We’re also working with our community college partners to widen the pipeline for students seeking to transfer to Michigan State to earn four-year and perhaps advanced degrees.
A number of us joined our colleagues at Lansing Community College this month to recommit to an expanded Envision Green program. This is another initiative I announced at my presidential investiture. With state grant support, we will direct new resources and student supports to LCC transfers and build our infrastructure to support similar arrangements with other community colleges.
And for students pursuing a career in medicine, our College of Human Medicine has signed an early admissions agreement with Oakland Community College to establish a cooperative program of premedical and medical education. The articulation agreement offers OCC students an enhanced opportunity for admission to medical school after transferring to MSU as premedical students interested in working with underserved populations.
Michigan’s state university
These are great examples, once again, of how MSU is and will continue to be “Michigan’s state university.”
Along those lines, and with the inaugural Spartan Bus Tour in the books, I’m already getting excited for next year’s tours with faculty and leaders to points around the state.
For 2025, we’re looking at expanding the Spartan Bus Tour concept to two tours. The first will be a briefer visit, to the metro Detroit area, in May. The second one, next fall, will look more like the tour we took last October, with three days of visits across a wider section of the state. We’re looking at this point at a tour of the Upper Peninsula and northern lower peninsula.
The point of the different tour formats is to increase participation overall while making them more accessible and inclusive through different timing and structures. We’ll keep the campus community informed as plans are firmed up and we open applications for participation.
And as I’ve said before, all of us as Spartans should be amplifying our stories about Michigan State’s world-class research and engaged community outreach.
So, I was excited to see researcher Eric Olson’s work enjoying notice in major news media as he works to revive rye seeds recovered from a 19th century Lake Huron shipwreck.
Through the great work of our University Communications and Marketing crew, the story has been picked up so far by media including The New York Times, The Times of London, Science Friday and public radio, Smithsonian Magazine, the MSN network ... even Popular Mechanics! It’s a fine example of how Spartans are engaging the interest of people across the globe in our work.
Rankings and recognitions
Here’s another item worthy of amplification: We learned recently Michigan State leaped ahead in the 2025 QS Sustainability Rankings to No. 28 in the world and No. 5 in the nation. Both rankings place MSU in the top 2%.
The QS Sustainability Rankings measure how well universities are addressing the world’s greatest environmental, social and governance issues.
So, congratulations to our Office of Sustainability and all those who are integrating sustainability into our operations and academic programs.
I join the board today in saluting the fall graduates who earned perfect GPAs and will shortly be recognized with the Board of Trustees Award. It’s an inspiring accomplishment and I look forward to seeing them at tomorrow’s commencement ceremonies.
We can congratulate our Michigan State student-athletes as well, who excelled in the most recent NCAA graduation rates report. MSU’s four-year federal graduation rate of 80% is tied for second highest in athletic department history and ranks fourth among Power 5 public institutions. It’s the fourth straight year MSU has been at 80% or better and three programs — women’s soccer, volleyball and men’s tennis — had perfect 100% four-year federal graduation rates.
I also want to shout out former football Head Coach Mark Dantonio on his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday.
And speaking of sports, we have four winter sports teams in the top-25: Ice hockey, gymnastics and women’s and men’s basketball. The individual sports’ rankings have changed a bit from what you see here, but its an extraordinary accomplishment to have so many in the top 25.
Women’s basketball got off to their best start in program history, in fact, with a 9-0 record after the win over DePaul on Sunday. They’ll host No. 21 Iowa this Sunday. And tonight, MSU ice hockey faces off against Minnesota in a contest between the top two teams in the country in terms of winning percentage.
Good luck to all our teams.
Honoring departing trustees
And I want to close by expressing my gratitude to our two departing trustees for their dedication to the university, its students and employees, and to the people of Michigan we all serve. We will hear from their colleagues later in the meeting, but I want to thank Trustees Dianne Byrum and Dan Kelly for the support they’ve given me, starting with approval of my appointment one year ago.
So let’s now continue by moving to the next item on our agenda.