Rhodes recalled feeling at the time that because of the temporary nature of leadership at all levels, "our unit was adrift" and "treading water." 

"There was no direction, nothing unifying us," she said. 

Rhodes’ experience is extraordinary, but not entirely hard to believe given the uptick in interim appointments over the last five years at MSU.

Since 2020, 14 interim dean appointments have been made across all but five of the university’s 17 degree-granting colleges. Currently, four of those colleges have interim deans, and the provost, executive vice president for administration, chief information officer and chief safety officer roles are all held by interim administrators. And, several faculty asserted that the trend holds true at the college and department levels, describing the prevalence of interim administrators as a top-down issue.

The university's most well-known interim administrator in recent years was former Interim President Teresa Woodruff, who stepped in after former President Samuel Stanley resigned citing an irreconcilable relationship with the Board of Trustees. Although Woodruff — like most interim administrators — was tasked with tiding the university over until the national search for a permanent president was finished, the challenges she encountered during her two years at the university's helm would have tested the durability of even the most seasoned university presidents.

Woodruff led the university through a mass shooting that dramatically altered the campus climate, faced scrutiny over the university's diligence in investigating allegations that ex-head football coach Mel Tucker had sexually harassed a university vendor, and was overseen by a Board of Trustees embroiled in such chaos and controversy that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was asked to intervene and remove two members.

President Kevin Guskiewicz — who took over as Woodruff's permanent replacement in March 2024 — has acknowledged the often-thorny implications of having a high proportion of interim administrators, and signaled that cutting down on that proportion is a priority of his.

But the situation at MSU isn't unfamiliar to Guskiewicz, who said he experienced high turnover and interim leadership, particularly among the college deans, while he served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In fact, the situation at both universities is consistent with a broader national trend of increased interim leadership in higher education, brought on by the "great resignation" in 2020. To cope with vacancies at the time, universities increased their reliance on interim administrators — but nearly five years later, their prevalence is persisting.

Anna Pegler-Gordon, a professor in the James Madison College, offered her theory for why that might be as it pertains to MSU. 

"I think that the number of interim administrators at all levels, and all colleges and departments, is a reflection of the turbulence (and) the turmoil that MSU has been facing for a long time," she said. "This is a symptom of a very significant problem that administration isn’t really working."

Aside from contributing to a sense that a unit lacks a clear vision of its purpose and goals, faculty observers told The State News that interim administrators are often rushed into positions while lacking the institutional and day-to-day knowledge necessary to be effective. That can lead to bureaucratic blunders and low trust among subordinates.

On the other hand, faculty said, some interim administrators are especially willing to make bold, necessary changes before their limited time is up. 

"Interim leaders can be incredibly effective — or not. There really is not a good in between," said Jessica Wagner, an MSU librarian and Ph.D. candidate currently researching for her thesis on the effectiveness of interim administrators. 

Institutional knowledge lost in the fold

There’s one confirmed case at MSU in recent times of administrative turnover and hasty transitions to interim leadership leading to bureaucratic disarray, and ultimately, costly repercussions for the university. 

After fallout from MSU’s handling of disgraced ex-MSU doctor Larry Nassar, the Department of Education increased its oversight of the university’s administrative and financial affairs. The rationale was that the university would have to meet higher standards to prove its competency and commitment to transparency before it could begin to repair its newly-lowered standing with the DOE.

One provision was that MSU must get federal approval for any new academic programs it creates before distributing financial aid to students enrolled in those programs. 

But Interim Provost Thomas Jeitschko told The State News early this month that the university didn’t realize it was supposed to receive that approval until December 2022 — a month after he assumed the interim role — when administrators "discovered the DOE’s provisions."

By that point, despite the federal requirements, the university had given over $15 million in federal financial aid to around 800 students enrolled in 16 new academic programs without first getting the DOE’s approval. 

MSU self-reported its error to the DOE, which then asked the university to cover the expected default rate of the loans given to the students, a total of $2,671,502.

Jeitschko said administrative turnover following the Nassar scandal caused administrators’ ignorance of the federal requirements.

"How did it come to this? The answer is, I don't know," he said. "All the people who were charged with compliance with the education department, the disbursement of financial aid, all of those people have turned over since the Nassar thing."

Wagner, the Ph.D. student researching the effectiveness of interim administrators, said administrative turnover and the hastiness with which interim leaders are placed into new roles can lead to these sorts of bureaucratic blunders. 

"I don't think MSU does much to prepare these people for the interim roles they're going to be taking," she said. "Needing to learn all that additional day-to-day stuff can take things back a bit, and most of the time interim leaders are needed almost immediately. There’s no plan for succession, you have to move."

Climbing the ladder

The effectiveness of interim administrators largely hinges on whether they view the interim role as a "stepladder" to the permanent role, or if they’re content to serve in the interim capacity before stepping aside for a permanent replacement, Wagner said. 

That’s because higher-ups in charge of personnel decisions may have an outsized influence on interim administrators seeking the permanent job compared with students and faculty.

Of the 14 interim dean appointments MSU has made since 2020, six of them moved directly into the permanent role.  

One who opted not to vie for the permanent position was Judith Whipple, who led the Broad College of Business as interim dean for almost two years following the controversial termination of former dean Sanjay Gupta.

Arguably the college's most notable move under Whipple was to remove the name of a donor from a wall in a university building who was discovered by students in 2020 to have made racist comments against the Vietnamese community during a business webinar posted to his website. 

While Gupta was still dean, the university publicly condemned the remarks, but kept the name on the building. It wasn’t until two years later, under Whipple, that the name was removed.

Pegler-Gordon cited Whipple as an interim administrator who may have been empowered to lead with particular responsiveness to students because of her temporary status.

"I think it’s a very legitimate question whether an interim administrator who had their eye on being a permanent administrator would have made that move," Pegler-Gordon said. 

Looking forward

While faculty members did single out interim administrators who they said had led effectively, they generally agreed that cutting down on the proportion of interim administrators at MSU would be a net positive.

President Kevin Guskiewicz — who replaced former Interim President Teresa Woodruff in March 2024 — told The State News he agrees, and expects the university to announce "a few more (permanent appointments) in the next two months, maybe sooner."

"Maybe not in the deanships, but in some of the other leadership roles where there are interim titles," he said during media availability following the Sept. 6 Board of Trustees meeting. 

"It’s important that we get stability and that we have individuals that are in these permanent roles, so we’re working hard at accomplishing that."

On the subject of solutions, Wagner suggested that while universities are conducting searches for permanent administrators, they should scrap the interim label altogether, because "in higher administration, your title really does matter."

"Interim means that you don’t have as much power, you don’t feel like you have as much power, and those around you don’t think you have as much power either," she said. "How you label this person may actually affect how they’re perceived."