Audiences: current students, admitted students, employees, current and admitted student parents, alums and BOT
Dear Spartans and friends,
With the start of fall semester classes, I want to offer a warm welcome to our new and returning students for the 2025-26 academic year. I hope everyone in our campus community is as excited as I am for the year ahead of us, and I offer some personal thoughts here.
With upward of 51,000 undergraduate, graduate, professional and non-degree-seeking students expected this semester, you can feel the energy all across campus. I enjoyed meeting students and family members during fall move-in and greeting about 10,700 first-year and transfer students at our new student kickoff. Michigan State remains the No. 1 choice for in-state students seeking a higher education degree, with some 8,200 incoming students joining us from across Michigan.
Speaking of kickoffs, I hope to see lots of Spartans at our first home football game this Friday, Aug. 29, at 7 p.m. versus Western Michigan. Let’s start the season showing our unrivaled Spartan spirit!
Supporting student success
Michigan State is a proudly public university welcoming students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds to bring their unique gifts, lived experiences and perspectives. Our interconnected, interdependent world makes the ability to understand and collaborate with others essential — while a respectful environment is a prerequisite for each person to be able to succeed to their fullest potential. So, at this scholarly crossroads, we emphasize civil discourse across differences. I urge every Spartan to practice empathy and intellectual humility — listening actively, responding thoughtfully and debating respectfully. I discussed this in a video I shared at this time last year.
And I’d like to reiterate something else I said last year: Incidents of discrimination and harassment of any kind are unacceptable. When we are made aware of such incidents, they will be reported to the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety, the Office for Civil Rights and related student conduct processes. Those found responsible through these processes will be held accountable.
Student success remains a cornerstone of our recently refreshed and reaffirmed MSU 2030 strategic plan. The plan maintains its grounding in our land-grant mission and reasserts Michigan State’s commitment to our central strategic priorities and core values, while integrating new cross-cutting themes that will spur innovation and synergy.
We continue to enhance our supportive programs to help everyone we admit learn, thrive and graduate. Our bridge and transition programs, for example, offer pathways to belonging and success for a wide variety of first-year students.
We are also developing physical spaces for programs serving the unique needs of first-generation and transfer students. We’re moving toward selecting an architect for a First-Gen Center in the Hannah Administration Building and hope to open it next year. Our Transfer Student Success Center, which smooths the transition for transfer students, is broadening its web access, has started a podcast and will launch a newsletter this fall.
And our Spartan One-Stop, launched last November as a virtual service and now located on the Hannah Administration Building’s first floor, is a centralized hub for answering students’ questions about enrollment, billing and financial aid, whether in person, by phone or email.
We’re entering fall semester with a new center for supporting student excellence in the residential setting. I’m looking forward to helping cut the ribbon Sept. 12 for the renovated Campbell Hall, which is our first dedicated residence hall for the MSU Honors College.
As we start a new academic year, some new, key leaders will also help us meet our goals, aspirations and the challenges in front of us. Laura Lee McIntyre, our new provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, shares our one-team approach to embracing our rich land-grant traditions while becoming a more contemporary and bold institution. James Hintz is our new vice president for Student Affairs, helping lead our work to make our campus a welcoming and supportive environment for all students. And J Batt, our new vice president and director of athletics, has the experience and drive to help elevate Spartan Athletics to the next level.
Supporting our mission
As we begin the academic year, we are uplifted by Spartan generosity. In our fiscal year ending June 30, more than 65,500 donors stepped up with over $380 million in contributions, setting a new MSU record. As I see students make their way to classes, I know each will be lifted by some form of philanthropic support: perhaps a scholarship, academic or extracurricular program, or a course led by a world-class faculty member in a new or upgraded facility, each bolstered by a transformative gift.
Philanthropy at MSU represents belief in the power of education, the promise of discovery and the potential of every Spartan to make a difference. I am profoundly grateful to the alums, friends and partners who give so generously to ensure that our students and faculty thrive. Together, we are making a far better world.
As the university continues to deal with federal mandates, funding cuts and other actions reshaping the nation’s higher education and research environments, we are also monitoring the legislative impasse over the state budget. The budget includes annual support for state universities, and we hope it will continue to sustain the prosperity that past generations’ investments in higher education have brought Michigan and its families. I expect to continue to represent the interests of Michigan State University — and the state’s 21st-century economic competitiveness — in Washington and Lansing in the months ahead.
Thanks to our faculty and staff
Summer flies by, but through the season, university faculty and staff have worked diligently to prepare our grounds, facilities and programs for the new academic year and students’ arrival. Thanks to all making this a place where Spartans thrive.
Go Green!
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
(pronounced GUS-ka-wits)
President
Professor, Department of Kinesiology