Dynamic Decade

In announcing his intention to leave the Michigan State University presidency next January 1st, Peter McPherson noted that on March 31, Michigan State University announced that the capital campaign has surpassed the $800 million mark. Praising the earlier-than-expected achievement, McPherson said that the campaign will approach the $1 billion mark by the summer of 2005. He has said this record-setting accomplishment indicates "accelerated institutional momentum and broad confidence in our faculty, staff, and students as MSU prepares to celebrate its sesquicentennial."  

The institutional momentum McPherson cited reflects a decade of nationally recognized academic excellence, innovation, effectiveness, and cost-effective management.

Last October, McPherson marked his 10-year anniversary as MSU's 19 th president. He is the longest-serving MSU president since John Hannah. McPherson and Provost Lou Anna Simon are the longest currently serving president-provost team among major research universities in the nation.

McPherson has declared that in the coming months, as MSU embarks on celebrating its sesquicentennial anniversary, his time and energies will be particularly focused on two historic efforts: bringing the nation's Rare Isotope Accelerator to MSU and to continuing the expansion opportunities of the College of Human Medicine . "It will be a time to both make and celebrate history at MSU," he said.

Making history and creating a "great university that is responsive, effective, and efficient" have been the hallmarks of the McPherson presidency. As a Lansing State Journal editorial concluded in October, "Under McPherson, MSU has become more.more students, more research dollars, more private donations, more international study programs, more well-known." The Detroit News added, "He has made the university a better place for students, and a better bargain for Michigan taxpayers."

Some highlights:

• The "Guiding Principles," providing MSU with a renewed "practical vision."
• The Tuition Guarantee that allowed MSU for seven consecutive years in the 1990s to hold
• tuition to the rate of inflation, something no other major university in the nation was able to do.
• Affiliating with the then-Detroit College of Law , now the MSU School of Law.
• Growth in Honors College enrollment from 1,000 students to over 2,500.
• Declaring Study Abroad a university priority, resulting in MSU becoming the nation's leader in undergraduates studying internationally.
• The largest facilities growth since the Hannah Era, with major facilities constructions and expansions including the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg, Agriculture Hall Annex, Beaumont Tower renovation, Koo International Academic Center, Eustace-Cole Hall, Henry Center for Executive Development, McPhail Equine Performance Center, Smith Student-Athlete Academic Support Center, and the MSU Law School Bldg.
• Establishing the 2020 Vision Plan, an in-depth campus directive for space quality, land use, facilities development, and environmental sensitivity in long-range planning.

McPherson, a former Peace Corps volunteer himself, has consistently called upon MSU students "to dream and act globally-to think beyond yourselves in lives of public service." During his MSU presidency he has set an example. "He's a fixer, in the purest sense of the word," wrote Detroit News business columnist Daniel Howes last June. "He likes to tackle big problems-famine in Africa 20 years ago for the Agency for International Development, binge drinking on campus, meaningful education for blighted urban areas or the restoration of Iraq's economy." McPherson was appointed by President George W. Bush as chair of the Board of International Food and Agriculture Development and serves as co-chair of the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa. He chaired reform commissions on Michigan 's charter schools and Lansing 's public schools.

Last May, he took a five-month leave to head the economic reconstruction of Iraq, at the behest of President Bush.

"I think they call that practicing what you preach," Howes wrote.