New MSU president-elect calls for 'respectful discourse' on campus amid Israel-Hamas conflict
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EAST LANSING — Michigan State University President-elect Kevin Guskiewicz said Monday antisemitism would not be tolerated on campus and that universities can set an example for "respectful discourse on the world's biggest challenges," including the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Guskiewicz said he was proud of how his administration at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill handled protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and said it could be a model for MSU.
The question of antisemitism on campuses has led to controversies for several prominent university presidents.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and chair of the school's board Scott Bok resigned over Magill's comments to Congress on whether colleges campuses should allow antisemitic comments. The presidents of Harvard and MIT are also under fire for their congressional testimony.
"I spent the first five or six days after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas out on my campus with members of my leadership team, meeting with students and hearing their concerns," he said. "On Oct. 12, I spoke publicly and condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas and talked about the need for the community to come together and that we would not tolerate violence in any way on our campus, and that our campus would not allow anti-Semitism or prejudice of any kind."
Guskiewicz emphasized the need to bring people together so accurate information about world conflicts could be shared and said he believed that universities need to be a place to have these conversations.
"We brought our Carolina Center for Jewish studies, our Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, our program for public discourse to help our campus community better understand this conflict of which there is a lot of misinformation and social media has only made this worse... as a leading global research university we have a responsibility to educate and model the way to have respectful discourse on the world's biggest challenges."
Guskiewicz made the comments in his first public appearance on the East Lansing campus, just days after the MSU Board of Trustees formally named him the school's 22nd president.
Sporting a green MSU tie and gray suit, he met with media for about 25 minutes in the board room at the Hannah Administration Building on an array of questions about his leadership style, speech on campus, and his relationship with the Board of Trustees.
Guskiewicz, 57, announced Monday he will leave UNC-Chapel Hill on Jan. 12, and he is scheduled to begin his new role at MSU on March 4. He will be the sixth person to lead the Big Ten university since the peak of the Larry Nassar scandal in 2018 that led to the end of former President Lou Anna Simon's long tenure leading the school.
Guskiewicz, who had expressed confidence in working with the Board of Trustees in an interview with the State Journal Friday, said Monday he is "optimistic" about his relationship with the trustees, but acknowledged that issues of the past cannot be overlooked while MSU moves ahead.
MSU has been mired in a series of controversies as it has tried to move on from the Nassar scandal. Among the recent challenges are the termination of football coach Mel Tucker, who was found responsible for violating the school's sexual harassment policy, the forced resignation of former Eli Broad School of Business Dean Sanjay Gupta by then Provost Teresa Woodruff, former President Samuel Stanley's abrupt exit after he said he lost confidence in the trustees and public infighting among trustees that included misconduct allegations against board chair Rema Vassar.
"I've gotten to know all eight of the board members both collectively as a group, and individually," said Guskiewicz. "I feel a connection to them, and I heard each of them say they were committed to a shared governance model that will keep everyone in their lanes, playing the role they have to play."
Trustee Brianna Scott accused Vassar of "bullying" Interim President Tereasa Woodruff, and overstepping bounds of her role as chair. In August, Woodruff announced she was not seeking the presidency.
"There are still some challenges and issues that we have to stay attuned to, so we do not repeat some of the same mistakes," Guskiewicz said.
He said that the ongoing dispute over thousands of Nassar documents the school is withholding under attorney-client privilege and that advocates want released and possible litigation from Tucker over his firing were not conversations that he had during the search process or with the trustees, but he said he was aware of them. He added he is committed to building trust with the community, but is aware that he might not be able to be as transparent as he'd like.
"I will really work hard to be as transparent as possible, obviously around personnel matters there are limitations on what we can do, but I also want to be clear that at times people will link a lack of transparency with being dishonest, and those two things are very different subjects."
Guskiewicz said that he supports the university creating a memorial for the students killed in the Feb. 13 shooting on campus. He will not yet be president on the one-year anniversary, and said he hadn't been involved in any planning for that date or any memorials. UNC-CH had a shooting on Aug. 28.
A graduate student is accused of fatally shooting associate professor Zijie Yan.
"I know that (Feb. 13) will be a very important date on campus, for the community, and the grieving that takes place after an event like that lasts a long time... it's important to be able to reflect and honor the memory of those who were lost that day."
Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com. USA Today contributed.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Guskiewicz calls for 'respectful discourse' on MSU's campus amid Israel-Hamas conflict
