Following a decade of leadership shakeups and public disputes among university leaders, Michigan State University is entering another period of uncertainty. Students and alumni say the successive departures of University President Kevin Guskiewicz and Athletic Director J Batt have left them wondering what the future holds for the university amid calls for stability.
Guskiewicz announced May 27 that he would leave MSU to assume the helm of Clemson University later this year. Two weeks later, Batt announced that he would lead the University of Kentucky’s athletics department and supervise its for-profit LLC, Champions Blue, as CEO. He will assume the position later this summer, according to a UK press release sent Monday.
Batt’s tenure as MSU athletic director lasted 376 days, just over a year after he was hired into the role in June of 2025 by Guskiewicz on a $1.85 million salary.
For MSU, Batt was the third athletic director in five years, while Guskiewicz was the seventh president in 10 years.
Rising human biology senior Rylee Schlaud said that following the two departures, her biggest worry is the quality of future leadership amid potentially rushed hiring decisions.
“I worry that it's gonna have to be a rush decision to try to find new hires and that they won't necessarily be able to take the time to find the best candidates,” Schlaud said. “So I just kind of worry that it's going to be this cycle of trying to find somebody on the fly because everyone keeps leaving and we only have two months before school starts again.”
It is unclear what the timeline will be for the rehiring of the university’s president and athletic director. In a press release sent Monday afternoon, Guskiewicz said he would appoint an interim athletic director in the “coming days.”
Schlaud said that as a member of Spartan Marching Band, she felt like Batt and Guskiewicz’s leadership brought “so many great changes” to the game day experience, such as light shows.
“Little differences like that can really separate game days between schools, and his (Batt’s) support for the band and athletics and the university as a whole was really awesome,” Schlaud said. “Seeing him (Batt) and President Guskiewicz leave is really disappointing because they were bringing so many great changes just in the year they had together.”
Last fall, the board approved a myriad of capital and infrastructure initiatives that sought to dramatically change MSU’s revenue streams and its campus. Nonprofit Spartan Ventures, with its for-profit counterpart Spartan Media Ventures, was founded by Batt and Guskiewicz to modernize MSU’s fundraising efforts through corporate sponsorships and philanthropic support. For Sparta, a $1 billion capital initiative aimed at athletics was later announced in December. The enterprise was jump-started by a $400 million donation from Greg and Dawn Williams.
