MSU wants a new president by Thanksgiving. The Mel Tucker news has made that more difficult

EAST LANSING — The search for Michigan State University’s next president — who will be the sixth person to lead the school in five years — has been negatively impacted by the sexual harassment allegations against fired football coach Mel Tucker, according to one of the nation’s foremost experts on presidential searches.

Judith Wilde, a George Mason University researcher who specializes in presidential searches in higher education, said the news from the past three weeks that led to Tucker’s firing will have changed the way candidates view the job.

She said the impact is significant enough that the university would be well served to slow down the search to ensure it finds the right person for this moment in the school’s history.

“I would say it probably looked better (before) than it does now,” she said. “I think it probably will have an effect on some people, as to whether they want to apply or, if they’ve already applied, whether they want to stay in the pool.”

The past four weeks have included the public revelation of the Tucker investigation, his termination for cause and the first steps in what’s expected to be ugly litigation over roughly $80 million left on Tucker’s contract.

Trustees who spoke to the State Journal brushed aside any concerns that the Tucker investigation and its fallout are adding challenges to the presidential search.

That includes Dennis Denno, the MSU trustee who leads the university committee to assist in the search. He said he still expects the school to announce its next president by Thanksgiving, some 50 days away.

“We have a great group of candidates who are interested in leading the university and being the next president,” Denno said, adding that the Tucker scandal “really hasn’t affected the search at all.”

Denno said he believes this because the search firm the university hired hasn’t indicated to him that the Tucker news has had an impact.

If candidates have questions, Denno said they’d ask the search firm.

He declined to say what stage the search is in, the number of candidates who have applied or whether he’s spoken with any.

Messages were left seeking comment from Isaacson, Miller — the firm MSU hired — and Brianna Scott, another trustee on the university’s search committee.

Trustee Rema Vassar, who chairs the MSU board but is not part of the search committee, said she trusts Denno’s estimate on when the search will finish. And she echoed him in saying she had no concern about the past few weeks impacting the search.

“These things should not be daunting for a leader who is poised to come into Michigan State University,” she said.

Vassar added she thinks the new president should be hired before the school picks its next football coach. That puts pressure on the board to hit its announced deadline because most coaching hires are completed in the days and weeks after the college football regular season ends in late November and early December.

The fact that little else is known about MSU’s search is not out of the ordinary for the school or its counterparts. Searches for university presidents have become more and more shrouded in secrecy over the years, Wilde said, adding that strict nondisclosure agreements between a university and their search firm are the cause.

MSU could be in for ‘very difficult’ search

If the ideal candidate for MSU had been someone currently serving as a university president, Wilde said achieving that now is “going to be very difficult.”

And it’s not just the Tucker saga, or the remaining dark cloud over MSU from the Larry Nassar scandal or the repeated federal investigations into how the school investigates and adjudicates sexual misconduct reports on campus that could dissuade some candidates from seeking the job.

Or even how the Board of Trustees operates, including some very public infighting recently.

There’s also the number of permanent, interim and acting presidents the school has gone through in the past few years, Wilde said.

In January 2018, amid Nassar’s sentencing hearings, longtime president Lou Anna Simon announced her resignation. She had been near the center of much of the criticism over MSU’s response, especially from victims, throughout the criminal cases that began in November 2016.

She was followed by former Gov. John Engler, whose interim appointment lasted about a year. His tenure was marred by controversy over his repeated comments about Nassar’s victims and the way the university had handled civil litigation.

Satish Udpa, executive vice president for academic services, was named acting president and held that role until May 2019, when Samuel Stanley Jr. was hired.

Stanley, who was president of Stony Brook University in New York before taking the MSU job, resigned in October 2022. He said he’d “lost confidence in the action of the current Board of Trustees” and that he could not “in good conscience continue to serve this board as constituted.”

The following month, the board named Teresa Woodruff as interim president, elevating her from the provost role she’d held for about two years. She was considered by some to be a candidate for the permanent job.

Controversy continues after Woodruff appointment

Woodruff has not been immune to controversy.

Prior to Stanley’s departure, she forced the resignation of Sanjay Gupta, dean of the Eli Broad College of Business.

She did so following reports that he failed to notify the university’s Title IX office of an instance of alleged sexual misconduct, even though other employees had already reportedly done so. A board-initiated investigation into his firing found Woodruff used “disproportionate” discipline and may not have had Stanley’s approval before removing Gupta.

Gupta sued the university and claimed in court filings that he was pushed out and falsely accused of reporting violations in a scheme to keep him from becoming president and “enhance” Woodruff’s ambitions to lead the university. MSU’s attorneys claim Gupta’s lawsuit is a “desperate, last-ditch plea” to get a federal judge to act as “super-personnel department” for the university, although the lawsuit is ongoing.

In August, Woodruff said she would not seek the permanent job.

The next president will be the 22nd in school history and the second attempt at a permanent president since 2018. And if Denno’s prediction comes true, MSU’s new leader will be announced to the public when the school could still be fighting over $80 million in court with Tucker and while it could still be searching for a football coach.

“The president is going to walk into (a place with a) distrustful faculty and other administrators,” Wilde said, adding that some will never come around in their distrust. “They’re going to have to take the time to get to know people.”

While the past few weeks might have pushed some candidates away, there will certainly be others still interested, she said.

Some people desperately want to be a university president, Wilde said, so they’ll ignore the scandals and culture concerns. And there are some people who may have feel that no matter how bad it is, they can fix things, she added, either because of their ego or experience in similar situations.

Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at 517-377-1026 or mjmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU wants a new president by Thanksgiving. The Mel Tucker news has made that more difficult