Michigan State’s Faculty Senate Votes No Confidence in Embattled Trustees

Jake May, The Flint Journal-MLive.com, via AP Images

The Faculty Senate at Michigan State University overwhelmingly approved a measure on Tuesday expressing no confidence in the Board of Trustees — yet another sign of the tensions that have continued to simmer on the campus since the recent sentencing hearings for Larry Nassar.

The faculty has no direct power to influence the trustees, so the vote was purely symbolic, but it’s a strong public statement. Sixty-one of the Faculty Senate’s 65 voting members backed the no-confidence vote.

The vote was called as a protest of the board’s decision to tap John Engler, a former Michigan governor, to serve as interim president. Engler replaced Lou Anna K. Simon, the longtime Michigan State leader who resigned last month as students, professors, and others criticized her handling of the Nassar scandal and her perceived lack of compassion toward his victims.

The Nassar Scandal and the Crisis of Michigan State’s President

Within a year the university lost two chief executives — Lou Anna K. Simon, sank by the scathing, heart-rending testimony of the sports doctor’s scores of victims, and John M. Engler, whose interim presidency ended amid a backlash over his bare-knuckled tactics.

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Many professors have said that the search for an interim leader should have taken at least a few weeks, if not a full semester, so faculty members and students could have a say in the process. Engler, a Republican, was officially chosen a week after Simon stepped down.

Faculty leaders met with the trustees before Engler was appointed but said their input was ignored. Faculty members have also decried Engler’s lack of academic-leadership experience and said the board should have picked someone with a background in handling issues related to sexual harassment and sexual violence.

About an hour of discussion preceded the Faculty Senate vote. Shawnee Vickery, a professor in the Eli Broad College of Business, said the vote should not have been about the board’s selection of Engler. It should have specifically called out the trustees for what she described as their failure to stop Nassar’s abuse, Vickery said.

Other speakers said they hoped the fallout from the Nassar scandal would inspire faculty members to take stronger stances and play a more active role as Michigan State enters a period of soul-searching. “We faculty have been silent for far too long,” said Andaluna Borcila, an associate professor of American studies.

Under Fire for Weeks

The faculty vote occurred three weeks after testimony by Nassar’s victims at a sentencing hearing drew national attention and heightened the spotlight on Michigan State’s potential role in enabling the sports doctor’s abuses.

Nassar is a former Michigan State sports doctor and team physician for USA Gymnastics who molested at least 265 young women and girls under the guise of giving them medical treatment. He was sentenced last month to 40 to 175 years in prison in one state court and 40 to 125 years in another, on top of a 60-year sentence he received after pleading guilty last year to federal child-pornography charges.

Since last month’s hearing, Simon and Mark Hollis, the athletic director, have left their posts. Students and faculty members have led protests. Multiple investigations have begun into what Michigan State officials knew about Nassar’s conduct and when they knew it.

On Friday university leaders began the process of stripping tenure from William Strampel, formerly dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, where Nassar served as an associate professor until 2016.

The trustees, who are elected in statewide votes, have been under fire for weeks. Joel Ferguson, vice chair of the board, provoked outrage on the second-to-last day of Nassar’s Ingham County sentencing hearing when he dismissed the scandal as “this Nassar thing.” Most trustees publicly backed Simon until she stepped down, despite growing calls for her to resign.

One trustee in particular has been outspoken in calling for change. Brian Mosallam demanded two weeks ago that Robert A. Noto, the university’s general counsel, leave his post. He also held a town-hall meeting this month with Michigan State students and others to discuss how the institution could improve its response to sexual violence.

Before Simon resigned, some faculty members had pushed for the faculty to take a no-confidence vote in her. But the multistep process didn’t progress quickly enough, and Simon stepped down before any action was taken.

In recent weeks, professors have expressed frustration that the process for taking a no-confidence vote is too burdensome. Before Tuesday’s vote, the academic-governance steering committee, which includes faculty and student leaders, first had to approve a survey of faculty members on whether to take a no-confidence vote.

Once the committee sent out a ballot and 87 percent of voting professors supported the measure, 10 more days passed before the no-confidence vote was taken.

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.