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Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz delivered his 2025 State of the University address at the faculty investiture on September 30, 2025.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
State of the University, new professors, leadership initiatives, enrollment record, US News rankings, federal policy changes, Jennison fund, budget adjustments, comprehensive campaign, experiential learning, strategic plan, One Health, research innovation, community partnerships, athletics.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 1
State of the University.
Speaker 1 00:19
So good morning again, and congratulations once again. I think they deserve another round of applause to our 2025, newly endowed professors and chairs. Your excellence truly elevates the capacity of our university to drive our work toward achieving our aspirations as a leading global public research university, and thanks to all my Spartan colleagues for joining us today, including several of our Board of Trustees members one year ago, almost to the day at my presidential investiture here at Wharton Center, I shared a Vision for Michigan State University, not just my own, but one shaped by conversations and collaborations with so many people around our campus and around the community and many of you who are here today together, we outlined big, bold goals, making Michigan State University the most inclusive, welcoming and safe environment it can be tackling grand societal challenges head on, and transforming Michigan State University into a truly next generation University. We also launched several leadership initiatives aimed at achieving those goals, and today, I'm excited to share the progress that we've made and a glimpse of what's ahead. Let's start with some great news, and there's so much that we could talk about and celebrate today, but I want to touch on a few things. First, we entered the new academic year, enrolling more undergraduate students than ever before in our 170 year history of Michigan State University, it's clear that students and families place their trust in us to provide an education that is practical, exceptional and accessible. Students come to us from 139 countries, all 50 states, and all 83 counties across the state of Michigan, we remain the top choice for in state students, with over 8200 Michiganders as part of this new class. And that's why I say that we are Michigan's State University and over 600 highly achieving incoming students join the Honors College, 30 of whom represent our inaugural class of the Williams scholars.
Second, some good news from US News and World Report
Speaker 1 02:58
US News and World Report rankings just placed six of our undergraduate programs among the nation's top 25 two more than last year. Supply Chain Management ranked number one for 15 consecutive years. Service Learning and Education Abroad ranked number one among public universities, learning communities ranked number two nationally, and the list you could go on and on and on, but there's a lot to celebrate with regard to the incredible academic achievements and opportunities provided through our undergraduate and graduate students here at MSU. And I want to offer a huge congratulations to the faculty and staff who make these programs run, you know, on a daily basis, and, more importantly, to shine on a daily basis. So we're grateful for all that you do. However, not all developments this past year have been easy. Everyone here knows that federal policy changes have disrupted our operations and impacted our core mission of teaching, research and outreach.
US News and World Report rankings just placed six of our undergraduate programs among the nation's top 25 two more than last year. Supply Chain Management ranked number one for 15 consecutive years. Service Learning and Education Abroad ranked number one among public universities, learning communities ranked number two nationally, and the list you could go on and on and on, but there's a lot to celebrate with regard to the incredible academic achievements and opportunities provided through our undergraduate and graduate students here at MSU. And I want to offer a huge congratulations to the faculty and staff who make these programs run, you know, on a daily basis, and, more importantly, to shine on a daily basis. So we're grateful for all that you do. However, not all developments this past year have been easy. Everyone here knows that federal policy changes have disrupted our operations and impacted our core mission of teaching, research and outreach.
But Spartans don't back down.
Speaker 1 04:09
We mobilize teams to respond swiftly, to protect our research, support our people and continue serving the public, a responsibility that we hold and take very seriously as a leading global public research university, as we always have and will continue to do, I've taken our message to Washington DC and invited lawmakers here to see firsthand the value we provide through research, education and outreach. We've also taken action here at home, through the Jennison fund, we're investing $5 million per year for three years to support affected research programs. Just last week, we notified 37 recipients of this funding, and their work is nothing short of inspiring agricultural economist kajil Galati will be able to pivot from her international work in food safety and security toward applications in the United States, including examining lead testing policies on children's health and educational outcomes. The history department's Professor Walter Hawthorne can complete data integration, supporting scholarly and public access to the names and stories of more than 33,000 historically enslaved individuals on the unique MSU based enslaved.org platform. And graduate student Melina Ortez can continue preparing for a research for a career in research, a cancer research. Jennison funding will support 24 graduate students and restore our fellowships, allowing our continued education of the next generation of scholars and leaders. This is what it means to live our mission, to invest in people, knowledge and purpose. I want to thank all those in the offices and on the rapid response teams analyzing each new mandate and recommending ways to mitigate the disruption to our operations and our people. We will stay true to our Spartan mission and our Spartan values. Not all of our challenges stem from external factors, and I acknowledge the anxiety around our internal budget adjustments, I want to salute the careful work our colleges and administrative units have done to help build a secure, sustainable future for MSU. Together, as one team, we've taken steps to ensure our financial health for the long term. And let me be clear, as I said several times this past year, MSU is not in a financial crisis, but we are navigating a complex landscape and making tough, proactive decisions right now to stay strong. Thanks to our community's hard work, we've maintained the lowest tuition increase among Michigan's public universities over the past decade. We've increased University funded financial aid, and we've protected essential programs while aligning resources with strategic initiatives.
And we're not slowing down.
Speaker 1 07:35
We're moving forward together as one team with a clearer understanding of who we are and who we can become.
So as I promised, let's talk apples.
Speaker 1 07:51
Yes, it's harvest season, and Michigan is the nation's second largest apple producer. And that matters because it connects directly to our roots and our role in supporting Michigan's economy and agriculture. I look back at our visit to the Martinez farm in Conklin during our inaugural Spartan bus tour last fall, and I'm proud to know that Michigan's 700 have a reliable partner in Michigan State University, and we saw that firsthand on that bus tour, the training in agricultural and management practices that we offer to farmers such as Paulina Martinez and his team provide the knowledge to Ensure Michigan needs
in apple production,
Speaker 1 08:42
the Spartan bus store was one of the leadership initiatives that I announced last year. In addition to traveling to Central and Western Michigan last October, we've traveled to Detroit in May to visit places our students call home, and where Michigan State is making a difference through our education, research and outreach, it was an opportunity to showcase the amazing things that happen at this magical place that we care so deeply about. And this fall, October 19 to the 21st we're hitting the road again, this time to the Upper Peninsula, visiting communities, listening, learning and building further connections, and keeping with the Apple thing, we began sowing new seeds from Michigan State for Michigan State's future excellence and impact with the launch in March of our ambitious, $4 billion comprehensive campaign called uncommon will far better world. This isn't just about raising funds. It's about fueling purpose. And I want to repeat that the dollars add up to something special and meaningful, but it's about the impact of those dollars and the way in which they fuel our purpose. Already, 128,000 donors have given nearly $1.3 billion including a record breaking $380 million last fiscal year. And that's because we have amazing stories to tell, incredible stories to tell about the impact that that philanthropy means a lot of it's happening amongst the faculty and distinguished and endowed professors and scholars that we honor today. So I think they all deserve a round of applause. And I'd be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge and thank our incredible advancement team, led by Ken Tobin and her team, because you don't raise $380 million in one year in the absence of a good strategic roadmap to get us there. So to our Advancement team, thank you. This philanthropic support is transforming lives, and there are many great examples that I could share, but I just want to name a few. It's opening doors to education abroad and experiential learning. And I ask all of you to when you have a chance to talk to students, talk about, ask them about, not only what's happening in the classroom with our world class faculty, but what's happening in their internship programs, their study abroad programs, their service learning initiatives and internship opportunities. That's what's setting us apart, and this campaign is supporting those initiatives so that every student that attends Michigan State can afford to receive one of those experiential education opportunities. It's helping us build the future engineering and Digital Innovation Center, a powerhouse of cross disciplinary talent that will expand frontiers in high demand fields and blend academic disciplines across at least six colleges and likely more. It's also strengthening our top ranked School of Packaging, which is the only school in the country, packaging school in the country that offers a PhD, thanks to a recent commitment, our School of Packaging will build upon its foundation as the largest and best program in the country, continuing to be a key partner for regional and national industries for decades to Come, every dollar is an investment in our people, our progress and, most importantly, our potential. Our comprehensive campaign is a call to action for every Spartan who will continue to give, to lead and to believe people believe in us. At Michigan State University, you don't raise $380 million in a year if they don't believe in us, but we must do our part in creating the amazing stories that emerge from this magical place that we've all come to love stories based on the work of our world class faculty, dedicated staff and curious students, because with uncommon will and unwavering optimism, we can and will push boundaries, take bold action and rise to meet today's challenges to shape a brighter tomorrow. One of our most important accomplishments of the past year was the reimagining and reframing of our 2030 strategic plan to adjust for changing conditions and apply lessons learned since its 2021 adoption refreshed and reaffirmed. Strategic Plan ensures responsiveness and relevance to current and anticipated conditions. And my thanks go out to the many people who have contributed to this important, year long project that allowed us to update this roadmap to the universities, to be sure that we have a great roadmap for the university's future, more oriented now toward broader impact and bold action. The plan leans into collaboration and connection to achieve our goals, echoing our one team approach here at MSU, it also maintains grounding. It also maintains grounding in our public land grant mission and reaffirms Michigan State's commitment to our strategic priorities and core values, while integrating new cross cutting themes that can spur innovation and synergy in key areas. Want to touch on some of these and one of our broadest cross cutting themes, growing talent from Michigan and beyond encompasses four of our six strategic priorities, student success, access, opportunity and excellence, sustainable health and the fourth discovery and innovation, we are creating new pathways to maintain our proud standing as an accessible institution where students thrive. Among our signature leadership initiatives I announced last year, this fall, we welcome our inaugural 30 Williams scholar, the university's first bull ride scholarship with experiential learning, opportunity support. And if you haven't had a chance to meet these 30 incredible students, please take the opportunity. They're incredible. And next year we're going to bring in another 3040, or maybe 50, they are an impressive group of talented and curious first year students who demonstrate the importance of such programs as we recruit the best and brightest scholars to Michigan State, we also expanded the Spartan tuition advantage eligibility to Native American students In the US and Canada, and we're smoothing the path for transfer students through our partnership with Lansing Community College and our Transfer Student Success Center and our first gen center anticipates a full opening within the next year, and to reinforce our ability To prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow. I appointed our Green and White Council last this past April. I want to thank those Michigan business and civic leaders who answered the call with their wealth of talent and knowledge to help us better produce career connected Spartans, with their guidance, we will prepare, connect and catalyze talent for in demand jobs with the skills of the future by connecting Spartans to the best Michigan companies and career opportunities across the country and leveraging our cutting edge research and intellectual property to propel Michigan's economy one of our Green and White Council members former US senator and proud double Spartan, Debbie Stabenow points out that Michigan doesn't have an economy if we don't grow things and make things and Senator Stabenow couldn't be more true. A vital component of activating talent for those imperatives is Michigan State's research innovation and outreach, our global impact initiative, buttressing our activity in promising areas of research, is an institutional success now in its second phase, an Additional 20 faculty positions were added in disciplines such as space electronics, computational biology and health services, research. This long term investment will help reach our strategic goal of $1 billion in annual research expenditures by 2030 an objective that we remain very optimistic in achieving the outcomes of talent attraction and talent activation are no more evident than through our ability to deliver groundbreaking research and innovations such as the breakthrough drug cisplatin to the world's arsenal of cancer treatment, A discovery made right here on our campus back in the early to mid 1960s This is a story that we often tell to illustrate the importance of the partnership between the Federal Government and America's leading research universities. It's also a personal one for me, as a very close college friend from the Philadelphia area is just about to complete a series of treatments using such a platinum compound to successfully eradicate his stomach cancer. Earlier this month, in fact, the American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded cisplatin its 2025 golden goose award, highlighting the drugs stunning success in saving the lives of millions and underscoring the value of fundamental reach research now for over 60 years, another unique Michigan State contribution to science in partnership with the federal government, is our facility for rare isotope beams, better known as efrib. This continues to activate talent through robust student training, workforce development and research opportunities. Efrib under the direction of director Thomas glossmacher, fields of national priority like nuclear science, cryogenic engineering, radio chemistry and accelerator science and engineering, and more than 85% of undergraduates engaged with effort remain in Michigan for further education or careers, which strengthens the state's 21st century workforce pipeline. Let's be honest, we are pushing boundaries. Michigan State University is pushing boundaries, not only in the lab, but also in the order
back to apples.
Speaker 1 20:02
Earlier, I mentioned the apple season, and apples are a great way to illustrate how Michigan State supports Michigan's agricultural economy, from the lab bench to the dining table, apples has been a part of MSU story since the beginning, the pioneer farm that became our first campus in 1855 with 75 choice fruit trees and a new apple orchard was an early priority for our inaugural president. Joseph Williams, today's fruit growers, challenges include increasingly volatile weather and our Extension specialists offer crop maturity reports and a variety of other information to support their success. Research plays an important role. Dr Steve vannocker, a plant geneticist in our College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, has located a once common native species here in Michigan, a more frost tolerant late blooming variety holding new promise for growers coping with spring frost following early blooms. Another USDA funded R and D program supported NSU faculty members in developing an artificial intelligence equipped robotic picker.
So safe to say
Speaker 1 21:26
we're making powerful advances in research and innovation, from effort training pipeline in nuclear science and cryogenic engineering to our next gen work in AI robotics and plant genetics. So continuing with our reimagined strategic plan, we are committed to driving health transformation. Michigan State today is also pushing medical boundaries through our research and vision for leveraging our academic research and clinical synergies to maximize our impact on healthcare. And there are many examples of how we are leading. Earlier this month, Provost McIntyre and I had a conversation in Washington DC with senators Gary Peters and Alyssa Slotkin. Senator Peters was very quick to drastically
describe the work
Speaker 1 22:28
that we're doing here to treat brain cancer that he had learned about during a recent tour of our Institute for quantitative Health Sciences and Engineering. He was teaching me things in this conversation about the work being done there. So I came back and I said, I want to learn more about it. And we did, and we are changing lives by this incredible work. Last week, we celebrated the 15 year anniversary of our Secchia Center and our valued partnership with organizations like corwell health and the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids to overcome medical challenges like maternal health, cancer and autism, while making a commitment to train the next generation of Spartan Doctors dedicated to caring for the people of Michigan and beyond. Earlier this year, we entered the fifth year of our 30 year partnership with Henry Ford Health and continued the integration of research and clinical operations to improve access to healthcare here and across Michigan, we celebrated the construction of our joint medical research facility in Detroit, which will promote synergies between our combined medical research teams to confront cancer and other diseases. One of my favorite events of this past year was going to that beam topping ceremony where all of those on the bus sign that top of that beam and that building is coming to life and will soon house hundreds of resources that are going to change the way in which we carry out this important work, focused as we are on activating talent, we can all be proud that our College of Osteopathic Medicine was recently named the first osteopathic medical school in the country in the prestigious NIH medical scientist training program. This recognizes our physician scientist training program as one of the top goal delivered programs in the US, and elevates our influence in the biomedical research community. Michigan State brings a unique mix of access to human, animal and plant health, and that's one of the factors driving our ongoing study of integrating these assets into a One Health concept, announced last February. This program grew out of a seven month assessment of our organizational structure by our Health Sciences Council, and I'm grateful for their hard work what we're calling one team. One Health is catalyzing new opportunities for students, faculty, researchers and staff in ways that will elevate our capacity and our reputation as a leading global public research university, and by creating forward thinking medical education and research programs, we have an opportunity to address healthcare workforce shortages and equip the next generation of providers to meet society's evolving needs and provide the highest quality care. The One Health Council today continues to collect input from our university community and investigate how we innovate and best prepare our graduates to lead in research and clinical care. We look forward to receiving its recommendations on the big, bold ideas that were proposed last winter. I mentioned earlier that maintaining a status quo institution is not our mission. Any sustainable enterprise must improve, and we are resolved to model next generation operations and organization part of our strategic roadmap that means systematic implementation of principles and tools, enhancing performance and creating a culture of continuous improvement for everyone. Our 52,000 students, our dedicated staff, our over 4000 faculty, deserve this as a result, we are launching an innovation lab to generate ideas, products and services to create breakthroughs and deliver transformative outcomes that will modernize and improve our daily operations and to help balance today's economic, social and environmental priorities, while protecting those resources for the future. Our Office of Sustainability has launched a sustainable systems Think Tank. This cross functional team will provide thought leadership, leading to comprehensive university, sustainable frameworks, building community together. Next up in our strategic roadmap, another cross cutting theme in our strategic planning means building a foundation for success, both among our diverse and inclusive campus community members as well as stakeholders locally and across the state of Michigan. At my presidential investiture last year, I committed to deepening our partnership with our local community and to be more intentional in how we collaborate today, I'm proud this work is evolving to where we will soon launch our inaugural community partnership roadmaps which put that promise into action. These roadmaps will guide how MSU aligns its research, teaching and outreach with regional priorities, they will reflect our responsibility not only to be a Global Research Leader, but also to serve as a trusted anchor for Michigan prosperity by building a stronger, more resilient region, I have said repeatedly that The region must always view MSU as an asset, and likewise, we have to view the region and the business leaders out there, community leaders as an asset to us, and we will get better. Our community building extends beyond our local region. Of course, something we're doing in Detroit with our Apple developer Academy, and now, as you may have seen about three weeks ago, an apple manufacturing Academy, these partnerships, activating talent beyond our campus boundaries and traditional student body also illustrate our final cross cutting strategic theme, and that is enrolling for the future. We have to be thinking about how we will enroll for the future. I believe in an MSU future built together with a great roadmap to get us to our destination.
To paraphrase what, to paraphrase what I said last year,
Speaker 1 29:18
Michigan State University offers one of the best returns on investment in higher education today, and I'm going to repeat it one more time. Michigan State University offers one of the best returns on investment in higher education today for students, for families, for Michigan and for the world. A Michigan State University degree is a lifelong asset, and giving back through service, support and advocacy, this amplifies our impact even further. With uncommon will and unshakable PURPOSE, we are moving forward together as one Spartan team. Speaking of teams, we've also enjoyed an exciting and successful start on the playing field thanks to the way our athletics teams have represented us in competition this year, and it's great to have our new Athletics Director, Jay back with us as our sports seasons get underway and best wishes for all that's yet to come.
And I'll just wrap up by noting
Speaker 1 30:31
no surprise, but today is Michigan Apple day, here at Michigan State University, and yes, apples are on the menu from cider to pie to harvest smoothies. We're celebrating the incredible bounty and beauty of our great state. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to Stacy Dobson and our culinary services team for crafting today's delicious offerings featuring apples from a sixth generation family farm in Sparta, Michigan, please join us at the reception in Jackson and Christman lounges as we toast the season and to all that we are accomplishing together as one team here at Michigan State University, we are Spartans to the core. Thank you for joining today, and as always, Go Green!
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