Head of Michigan State, former UNC chancellor, named Clemson’s new president

CLEMSON — Clemson University’s governing board selected former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz as the college’s 16th president.

Guskiewicz comes to Clemson from Michigan State University, where he has been president since March 2024.

He replaces former President Jim Clements as chief executive of the nearly 30,000-student college in the Upstate.

Clements abruptly retired in December after conflict-of-interest questions about a seat he held on the corporate board of a homebuilding company pursuing a major development in nearby Oconee County, including a satellite Clemson campus.

College presidents on corporate boards can draw schools into controversy. It happened at Clemson.

Clemson maintained Clements’ position on the corporate board in no way influenced his decision to leave his post after 12 years on the job.

To make the switch, Guskiewicz is giving up a nearly $1 million raise at Michigan’s 52,000-student land grant university to return to the Carolinas.

Guskiewicz, who grew up outside Pittsburgh, started his career in higher education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. It was there that the neuroscientist helped develop protocols used in assessing concussions in high school, college and professional football players.

He worked his way up through the ranks, becoming dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and then chancellor in 2019, until he left for the college presidency in Michigan’s capital city.

In a meeting May 17, Michigan State trustees said Guskiewicz was being “aggressively pursued” by other colleges, reported the Michigan Advance, a States Newsroom affiliate of the SC Daily Gazette.

At a specially called meeting Sunday, they voted to nearly doubled his salary to $2 million hoping to convince him to stay.

By comparison, Clements was earning a $1.5 million compensation package at the time of his departure.

And the University of South Carolina’s governing board raised President Michael Amiridis compensation to nearly $1.2 million following a performance review last June.

Guskiewicz leaves a college that’s spent the last several years mired in controversy and a board plagued by infighting.

He was the fifth person to lead the college since former President Anna Lou Simon resigned in 2018 following the conviction of the college’s sports doctor Larry Nassar for sexually abusing female gymnasts.

Former president Samuel Stanley Jr. resigned in late 2022 amid a conflict with trustees over compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws under Title IX. And board members accused one another of bullying interim president Teresa Woodruff, who held the seat before the college hired Guskiewicz.

Guskiewicz also faced some turmoil when he was at the helm in Chapel Hill.

He was interim chancellor for 10 months after his predecessor, Carol Folt, resigned following the removal of a Confederate monument on campus.

Guskiewicz was drawn into the controversy when it was discovered a member of his administration had been involved in a $2.5 million legal settlement that gave the Silent Sam monument to the North Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Then in 2021, Guskiewicz found himself at the center of a tenure fight related to the hiring of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Hannah-Jones is the author of The 1619 Project, which argues that slavery is at the center of American capitalism, politics, and society.

Guskiewicz faced criticism from faculty, students and alumni for not being supportive enough of Hannah-Jones while the colleges’ trustees were angered over how the hire was handled in the first place.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.