Supratik Rayamajhi, the associate dean for clinical affairs and professor of medicine in Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, is being recommended to serve as the interim dean of the college.
The college announced Monday that Rayamajhi will temporarily replace former Dean Aron Sousa beginning Oct. 1, pending approval from the Board of Trustees. Sousa stepped down earlier this month to become president and CEO of Chicago-based Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.
“It’s an absolute honor to serve our college in my new role,” Rayamajhi said in a press release. “Emblematic to the land grant mission of this university, the College of Human Medicine is a truly remarkable state-wide campus that touches the lives of most people within Michigan.”
The change in college leadership comes at a contentious moment for the university’s medical programs, as MSU leadership weighs, among other things, whether it will merge the College of Human Medicine and the College of Osteopathic Medicine. That proposal has been eyed skeptically by some involved faculty members in the College of Human Medicine, according to an internal survey of the college’s faculty circulated among faculty earlier this month.
Respondents to that survey said information about the plan and its potential impacts on their work has been scarce, and over half said they are at least somewhat opposed to voting for the merger.
Rayamajhi will also assume Sousa’s seat on the council evaluating the plan’s feasibility and will present final recommendations to President Kevin Guskiewicz later this semester.
In an interview with The State News, Rayamajhi said it’s too early for him to take a stance on any of the potential changes, and noted that the council is continuing to gather feedback from faculty, staff and students regarding the plan.
“It’s hard to be perfect when you’re taking on a monumental, unprecedented task like this,” Rayamajhi said. “So what I can see is that the council members are trying to do their best in terms of making it right, and that includes people being provided with the right kind of information, and then hopefully people can make informed decisions as to the survey questions.”
The proposed merger of the university's medical programs is one element of a broader initiative, dubbed "One Team One Health," that has also suggested creating a wholly new College of Health Professions. MSU leadership has touted the initiative as a way for the university to earn a competitive foothold in the future of health sciences, leverage a unified research agenda in order to secure more federal research grants and improve student education.
The consideration comes as the effects from the university's plan to cut 9% from its operating budget over the next two years begin to be felt on campus. Guskiewicz has acknowledged that coincidence, stressing the importance of collecting more feedback from the campus about the One Team One Health initiative in a recent update:
"We also recognize that this discussion is happening during a time when our campus community is facing financial challenges, leadership transitions and difficult decisions," he said. "This is why we are committed to an open, transparent and collaborative process."
Rayamajhi has been at the university for 15 years, during which he’s served in a variety of roles within the College of Human Medicine, MSU Internal Medicine Residency and the Department of Medicine.
This is Rayamajhi's second time taking on an interim leadership role, having served as interim chair of the Department of Medicine for two and a half years beginning in 2021.
