You can’t handle a little critique? You’re not the leader MSU needs

Michigan State University’s elected Board of Trustees has run another president out of East Lansing? 

That’s an easy storyline. Kevin Guskiewicz is making it sound like that’s the case. We know MSU’s board has a storied tradition of dysfunction.

But before we verbally flog three elected trustees for having the audacity to publicly challenge some of Guskiewicz’s decisions, let’s be clear about what the commotion is all about. 

Again, we’re taking the North Carolinian at his word that he can’t take some light heat from a minority of the board so he’s getting out of the kitchen. It feels like he and his family love the South and can’t wait to get back to the Carolinas, but let’s take him at his word. 

Trustee Rema Vassar thinks Guskiewicz kowtowed to President Donald Trump by scaling back the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program. Point taken. 

Trustees Dennis Denno and Mike Balow are suspicious about this for-profit Spartan Media Ventures scheme to handle the broadcasting rights for MSU football, basketball and other sports down the line. 

Why do they need to sign non-disclosure agreements? Why can’t the funders of the thing be made public? The Williams family went public after all! What if some unseemly characters sneak in the door? 

Both Denno and Balow have reasons to be suspicious. In Denno’s eyes, the MSU administration tried to get Gov. Whitmer to run him off the board over some trumped-up allegations. Balow feels the school lied to him when they got rid of the swimming and diving program. 

Now, post-Nassar, they’re expected to join the inner circle on some hush-hush private venture that profits off student athletes? … 

Now, I’m not taking a position on DEI and I can’t say I completely understand this Spartan Media Ventures deal (who does, honestly?). 

By nearly all reports, Guskiewicz has been a good president. 

Forward thinking. Great public presence. Publicly accessible. Had the majority of the Board of Trustees in his hip pocket. Good leadership. 

We all thought he was the guy to lead the school out of the tumultuous Larry Nassar years and into something better, but he was missing one thing. 

Thick skin. 

It’s easy to say this as a political scribe, but the only thing Guskiewicz needs to do in his role is count to five. 

Five trustees. That’s the majority. That’s all he needs. Once he doesn’t have five, he needs to change direction, but until then, he can stay on his current path. 

Being the president of a university with publicly elected trustees will be political. Shoot, reporting to any engaged board is politics, regardless of how they’re selected. 

The Clemson trustees gleefully clapped last week when they successfully lured Guskiewicz away, as if they had just knocked MSU out of the NCAA tournament or something. But in two years, there will be some dissention in the ranks. There just will be if he’s doing his job right, and they’re doing their jobs right. 

And maybe those trustees don’t talk publicly on a podcast that nobody listens to, maybe they don’t spout off in a newspaper editorial. They’ll needle the guy behind the scenes. But to think every decision Guskiewicz is going to make at Clemson is going to be 13-0 is naive. 

To think some Clemson trustee isn’t going to try to make life hard for him when six of its members are political appointees seems unrealistic. 

It’s good to know now that Guskiewicz isn’t tough enough to serve as president of an institution where elected leaders speak their minds (God forbid) like Michigan State University. It’s good to know now that he wilts under the slightest pressure. 

Hopefully, Athletic Director J Batt isn’t this fragile. 

In the meantime, the trustees need to expand their next presidential search to someone with some political experience. I’m not suggesting outgoing Gretchen Whitmer or Gary Peters, but it’s probably worth considering. 

At the very least, both have thrived amid much, much more challenging personalities.