Guskiewicz said he’s planning to announce a review of MSU’s general education curriculum, which would start a possibly lengthy process to modify the required courses for students in all majors.

The provost will lead the effort and convene a committee of faculty, but Guskiewicz said he’s also hoping to find ways to directly involve students in the process.

Their challenge will be balancing two priorities, Guskiewicz said. On one hand, he’s "a big believer in liberal arts education" and wants to see requirements that push students into subject areas unlike their majors. But, Guskiewicz said he also wants the new curriculum to offer flexibility, so as to support his goal of making it easier to study abroad, complete internships and participate in research.

Since arriving at MSU last year, Guskiewicz said he’s heard concerns about the current curriculum.  

"Anecdotally, I hear students are just checking a box to find a course that fits their schedule, and maybe not one that really provides, as I call it, vertical learning," he said.

Changing that could require both new course offerings from the faculty and a new system by which students select courses, he said.  

Guskiewicz cautioned students against expecting these changes anytime soon. He said a similar review he led at the University of North Carolina spent eight months just examining the current curriculum before the committee started designing and implementing new offerings.

Prep for Trump administration

Guskiewicz said he’s also been talking to administrators about how MSU can prepare for new federal education policies, as Trump and his allies talk up sweeping reforms.

Specifically, Guskiewicz said they are worried about changes to federal funding of research and student aid, the status of undocumented students and threats to the Department of Education and major accreditors.

The administration will examine the issue with a set of "tiger teams," a military term for groups of experts with different backgrounds who work together on a specific problem.

Guskiewicz said these teams will conduct "tabletop exercises" to prepare for federal actions that would affect MSU.

"They’ll say: If this happens, how do we respond and react?" he said. "I’m a big believer in role-playing, scenario-playing, hypotheticals, I think it’s always helpful."

Administrators conducted a similar exercise last summer, Guskiewicz said, with a "tiger team" preparing for "what we thought would be a challenging semester with the election and other campus protests."

Swim and dive

Guskiewicz also offered a discouraging reading for those hoping MSU will reinstate its swim and dive teams.

In some ways, the last year has been a good one for supporters of the controversially-cut program. After taking office in March, Guskiewicz said he met with advocates who hoped the university would resurrect the teams. Mike Balow, parent of an MSU swimmer turned advocate for the teams, was elected to the university’s board in November. And, the university is currently constructing a new recreation center with a large pool advocates had said could accommodate the team, potentially lessening the facilities issues that prompted the cut.

Still, Guskiewicz said the chances of bringing the program back were lower now than ever, thanks to national changes to the college sports landscape.

Looming court decisions about potential revenue-sharing for college athletes have some colleges considering more cuts. That isn’t on the table yet for MSU, Guskiewicz said, but adding teams is certainly out of the question.

"Bringing new teams on board would be even more difficult today than it would have been three or four years ago," when swim and dive was cut, he said.