MSU Presidential Search, Senior Faculty

November 11, 2018
Search Committee co-chairs Byrum and Foster, other members of the MSU
Presidential Search Committee, and Committee advisor Sullivan
Dear Colleagues,
In this time of crisis at our university, your selection of the next president
of Michigan State University could not be more important. While the 22nd
president of MSU must learn from the errors of the past, he or she must look
to the future. The next presidency represents a unique opportunity to build on
what is excellent on our campus and learn from faculty and students the ways
in which we can do better. Enormous goodwill awaits a president who can take
advantage of it to build a better and stronger MSU, one that places learning
and scholarship front and center.
We the undersigned, senior and experienced MSU professors, unanimously be-
lieve that the single most essential requirement for the next President is that
he or she be deeply knowledgeable and experienced in the central work of a
university—teaching and scholarship.
Creative and imaginative instruction and original and useful research and schol-
arship require resources, but our next president must understand that fund-
raising, while critical, is only a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
Representing Neither endowment nor income defines the worth of a university. That worth is
Colleges of defined by the extent to which a university creates and sustains the opportunity
Agriculture & Natural Resources for scholarly achievement and outstanding teaching.
Arts and Letters
Communication Arts & Sciences A daunting set of management skills are required to manage a billion-dollar bud-
Education get, a small city of young adult learners, a committed support staff, an enthu-
Eli Broad College of Business
Engineering siastic alumni community, a valuable extra-curricular program which includes
Human Medicine strong athletics, and the thousands of independent professionals who constitute
Natural Science the faculty. These skills are necessary in our new President, but they are not
Osteopathic Medicine
sufficient; they must rest on the bedrock of an unwavering commitment to the
Social Science
James Madison College multiple ways in which universities achieve their intellectual and educational
National Superconducting goals. To succeed at MSU, our next president must:
Cyclotron Laboratory
Veterinary Medicine • Be an experienced teacher at the undergraduate and/or graduate level.
• Have a record of significant scholarship.
• Have a record of mentorship of younger scholars, both students and faculty.
• Demonstrate a full commitment to the real purposes of a university—
advancing understanding of the world, transmitting knowledge and insight
to future generations, preserving the records of scholarly achievement in
libraries and museums, disseminating knowledge through the publication
of scholarly books and articles, and communicating practical and inspiring
knowledge to the public.
• Understand that the role of the university administration is to further the
purposes of the university described above.
• Be ready to encourage and enforce the view that the spirit of inquiry, of
critical thinking, of seeking new knowledge, of teaching and mentoring,
of respectful debate and discussion, of listening carefully to the views of
others before acting, and of adherence to professional standards, must
permeate every part of the university, including its administration, its
professional schools and its athletic teams, understanding that these im-
portant academic values also constitute protections against misbehavior
or worse.
• Have a deep appreciation of the range of academic disciplines in a uni-
versity, recognizing that they vary markedly in their capacity to attract
significant funding for their work.
• Acknowledge that the liberal arts are the heartbeat of all great universities,
are foundational to our civilization, and need the unwavering support of
the university administration.
• Accept the challenge of the special niche in higher education occupied by
land-grant institutions, of which MSU is the pioneer, leading to its two-
fold mission: to provide benefit to the citizens of Michigan, and also as a
world-class university, to provide benefit to the nation and the world.
• Be prepared to implement policies and procedures that protect the vul-
nerable; hold wrongdoers on campus fully accountable and support equity,
diversity, and inclusion.
Most great universities are led by experienced academics who appreciate the
special purpose of universities and the multi-faceted nature of faculty endeav-
ors. We know that there are many individuals in current positions of academic
leadership across this nation and abroad who can inspire the academic values
that MSU now requires.
We are counting on you to identify these individuals, and to attract one of them
to become the next president of the unique university that is MSU, a president
fully committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship, and research, a president
who can confidently lead this university to a bright future and ensure that MSU
flourishes in the years and decades to come.
Sincerely,
Ninety-three1 University Distinguished and Endowment Professors of Michigan

State University
1 In the original letter, eighty-seven

MSU Presidential Search, Senior Faculty

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MSU Presidential Search, Senior Faculty

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November 11, 2018

Ninety-three1 University Distinguished and Endowment Professors of Michigan

1 In the original letter, eighty-seven

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