His comments represent the first indication that Big Ten leaders — those with the power to actually establish the alliance — will formally consider the proposal. 

The idea for a Big Ten-wide alliance to combat the Trump administration first came from the faculty senate at Rutgers University, which passed its resolution late last month. 

They envisioned a formalized alliance among the conference’s universities, where all would "commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund" that would "provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement."

If a member of the alliance were to come under direct pressure by the Trump administration, that defense fund would pay for a coordinated response with "Legal representation and countersuit actions; strategic public communication; amicus briefs and expert testimony; legislative advocacy and coalition-building," the resolution said.

Since then, faculty senates at seven other Big Ten universities, including MSU’s, have passed resolutions in support of the proposed alliance. And, in coming weeks, faculty senates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are expected to vote on their own resolutions, Axios reported. 

The faculties’ moves have garnered widespread media attention. MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow praised the move, saying the "little NATO treaties" are a necessity for "any school that wants to survive."

"I’ll tell you, I have no connection to any of these efforts, but I would just say as an observer, just speaking strategically, my only note on this might be, 'go faster,'" Maddow said. 

Despite the buzz around the faculties’ proposal, it remains to be seen if it will come to fruition.

Leaders of universities where faculty senates have passed the mutual defense compact proposals have been mostly quiet on the matter, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. 

Guskiewicz followed that tact in an interview with The State News Friday, declining when pressed to give any thoughts on whether he supports the establishment of the proposed alliance. 

"I think it's good that the faculty are organizing," Guskiewicz said. "That's what’s happening at that level and we'll have to ultimately see what we decide to do as university presidents with it."

But Guskiewicz did seem to suggest that collaboration among universities to defend against certain Trump administration attempts to alter higher education has been fruitful in curbing them. 

He pointed specifically to a judge’s recent restraining order on the Trump administration’s plan to slash Department of Energy research funding to universities after MSU and seven others challenged the policy in a lawsuit. 

"That’s where we’re making an impact, that’s where I’m focused," Guskiewicz said. "Honestly on the compact, I have to give it more thought ... There’s only so much time in a day, energy that we have to combat some of this, and I'm trying to put my energy where I know we can make a difference."

Whether or not the Big Ten leaders ultimately decide to take up the faculties’ call for the alliance gets to a question being asked across the landscape of higher education amid the Trump administration's higher education alteration campaign: Will institutions 'fight back'?

But it also raises a question about the necessity of such an alliance, as the Trump administration’s most aggressive targeting of universities have to this point mostly been confined to the Ivy League. Northwestern, a member of the Big Ten, though, did indeed see $790 million in federal funding frozen as the Trump administration investigates its handling of campus antisemitism. 

MSU, specifically, has mostly remained above the fray, even being spared by the Trump administration’s investigation into 51 universities of their diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

Still, the impacts of some Trump administration actions, while not intended to target MSU directly, have certainly been felt by the institution. 

MSU researchers have seen their projects cancelled with the federal government’s drastic downsizing of the U.S. Agency for International Development grants, for example. And, most recently, the university ended affirmative action in hiring to comply with a Trump administration executive order.