MSU Board of Trustees Chairman David Porteous held a gold presidential medallion in the air and waved it around.
The audience at Wharton Center chuckled lightly.
He then placed it around the neck of MSU President Lou Anna Simon on Friday as part of her inauguration.
During the ceremony, Simon was presented with the university mace, a 42-inch wooden staff with the MSU logo and an emblem of Beaumont Tower carved into it.
"It's a day to feel proud of Michigan State," Simon said. "I'm just glad to be a small part of it."
In June, the board officially appointed Simon to succeed former MSU President M. Peter McPherson, who left the post in January.
Simon is MSU's 20th president and the first woman to hold the position.
As part of her inauguration, Simon said MSU should uphold the values of its land-grant heritage in hard financial times, calling it a "cold Arctic front of national and global economic and social stress."
"The language of entitlement and private good is drowning out the language of the land-grant movement - access, cutting-edge research and engagement for the public good," Simon said during her speech. "We need the wisdom not to be reactive to these cold winds and the courage to forge a new covenant with society based on our land-grant ideals."
MSU must continue to expand and strengthen its teaching of the liberal arts and its international education in order to help students become "citizen leaders" upon graduation, Simon said.
"We must continue to be agents of change, holding ourselves to the same standards for innovation and creativity," she said.
"Not bracing against challenges, but warming to them and the opportunities they present to advance our academic community."
Simon served as MSU's provost, the top academic official at the university, for 11 years.
Simon now will work with acting Provost John Hudzik.
Jon Sticklen, chairman of the Executive Committee of Academic Council, transferred the mace to Simon, and said he hoped for more communication between faculty and the administration.
"We look forward to successful collaboration between you and us," Sticklen said.
"We will count on your continued vigor and candor."
Several current and former university leaders were in attendance, including McPherson, who now is working in Washington, with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa.
"Her speech was outstanding, especially the part about the global land-grant university," McPherson said.
Trustee Dee Cook said after the celebration ends, Simon will get right back to business by attacking and resolving some major budget issues in the next few months.
"She was chosen because she's so extraordinarily capable," Cook said.
"It's fortunate that Lou Anna's in the place that she is."
Lindsay VanHulle can be reached at vanhull3@msu.edu.
