MSU Trustee Says He Wasn’t Shown President’s New Contract

Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz’s May 27 resignation letter to campus was unconventional. He accused some unnamed Board of Trustees members of manipulation, misrepresentation and promoting a personal agenda, while simultaneously announcing he was leaving to take the top job at Clemson University.

On Monday, he sent another unconventional update: He had reversed course and decided to stay at Michigan State. He signed a new contract with a nearly half-a-million-dollar raise and added benefits.

“Under the strong leadership of Board Chair Brianna Scott and Vice Chair Renee Knake Jefferson, we have had productive conversations about the governance challenges I previously shared,” Guskiewicz wrote. “The board has demonstrated a commitment to implementing a more robust governance structure, including recent improvements to the Code of Ethics and Conduct.”

So what changed his mind?

He told The Chronicle of Higher Education Tuesday he thinks “there’s been a recommitment to this one-team approach—where priorities are established through the board chair by committee chairs.” He said, “We’ve had productive conversations about how the board can operate more strategically, more effectively.
 That means trying to function as a board of the whole, as I like to say, and functioning as one team.”

The university didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview this week. It appears this “one-team approach” has not materialized.

Board member Mike Balow said he only learned from Scott at a Monday morning board meeting that the president wanted to stay.

“But it was clear to me that the chair and some other board members had been working on this for some number of days,” Balow said.

Scott and Guskiewicz signed the president’s new contract Monday—the same day Guskiewicz announced he wasn’t going to Clemson. Balow said the contract wasn’t shared with the whole board before the signing, and Scott still hasn’t provided him with a copy.

“It’s not clear to me why it wasn’t shared with the entire board before it was signed, or before it was shared with the outside world,” Balow said. The university provided a copy to Inside Higher Ed after it was signed.

One senior university leader who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation also said not all board members were shown Guskiewicz’s new contract before he and Scott signed it.

University spokesperson Amber McCann told Inside Higher Ed in an email that the final contract didn’t have to come before the full board for a vote.

“In May, the Board met and authorized the Chair [Scott] and the Chair of the Committee on Budget and Finance [Sandy Pierce] to negotiate and finalize a contract with President Guskiewicz,” McCann wrote. “At that time, the resolution authorized a salary of $2 million.”

“In the wake of President Guskiewicz’s decision to remain at MSU, Chair Scott and Trustee Pierce were still authorized under the May resolution to negotiate and finalize the terms,” the spokesperson wrote.

Scott and Pierce didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for interviews.

The new contract terms include a $1.5 million annual base salary, not $2 million, but that’s still nearly $500,000 above his previous contract. And Guskiewicz got additional benefits. For one, the contract gives him $250,000 annually in deferred compensation, up from $200,000 before. The contract also lasts longer: through March 2031, not 2029.

He also received a new transportation benefit. Each year, the university will “make available to Guskiewicz a private aircraft for Guskiewicz’s personal, nonbusiness travel and/or that of his guests and family for ten (10) hours of flight time.” This will be paid for “by use of philanthropic funding sources,” the contract reads, but those aren’t named.

“Personal use—if I’ve seen it before, I can’t remember it,” said James Finkelstein, a George Mason University public policy professor emeritus who studies presidential contracts.

“This seems to me beyond a breach of the board’s fiduciary duties. You’re paying for vacations.”

He also noted the contract doesn’t specify the type of aircraft.

“You could fly on a fairly uncomfortable aircraft, or you could be flying on a private 757,” he said. “The costs are a lot different. There’s no limit on the costs here. No one has to preapprove it.”

The contract does say that “if the University acquires an aircraft during the term of this Agreement, Guskiewicz’s ten (10) hours of personal flight time shall transfer to such acquired aircraft.”

Finally Flying in Formation?

Guskiewicz may have signed a new contract, but it remains to be seen whether his relationship with the board members he criticized has improved.

Judith Wilde, an independent researcher who partners with Finkelstein and studies presidential hiring and exit issues, said she hopes Guskiewicz spoke to every board member individually, as well as as a group, before deciding to stay on.

Wilde, who also previously served as founding chief operating officer of George Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, said Guskiewicz “stepped down with a letter that’s not like any we’ve ever seen before, basically saying he’s stepping down because of the unethical and disruptive behaviors of some of the board members.”

She said she questions whether the relationship has really changed.

“How long will this last?” Wilde asked.

Finkelstein echoed her.

“How likely is it that Guskiewicz, given his resignation letter … would just accept a handshake agreement that ‘Oh yes, we’re going to do better’?” Finkelstein said.

In his campus message announcing he would stay, Guskiewicz referenced “recent improvements to the Code of Ethics and Conduct.” But the last changes to that code were approved in a divided board vote on May 17—before he announced he was leaving for Clemson. The board did censure two of its members, including Balow, last month for not signing a “Statement of Acknowledgment” agreeing to be bound by the code.

Guskiewicz partly credited his change of heart to the outpouring of support from the Michigan State community. That included backing from men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, who said, “We just lost the best president to ever be here, maybe,” and asked alumni “to stand up because what happened with our president is ridiculous.”

In his message to campus saying he and his wife, Amy, would stay, Guskiewicz expressed gratitude “for the confidence and encouragement I received from members of the board, our leadership team, our distinguished faculty and so many alumni, donors, students, staff and friends of the university.”

“Your support, counsel, honest feedback and belief in Michigan State’s future reinforced what has always made Michigan State special: People here care deeply about this university and about one another,” he said. “Your voices mattered, and they played an important role in my reflection and my conviction that this is where Amy and I are meant to be.”

For its part, Clemson acknowledged Guskiewicz’s reversal, but didn’t say much else. But it appears to have rebounded quickly: The board is meeting at 9:30 a.m. Thursday to name a new president.