Feature: M. Peter McPherson's First Five Years

            In five years, President McPherson has brought major changes to MSU and impacted all of higher education. And he's hardly done yet.

            The man works. On policy, on planning, on preparation. On student concerns, on coalitions, on crises. On Saturday, on Sunday, on Monday, and . . . well, you get the picture. MSU President Peter McPherson works, and people feel the impact. Ask them for their quickest take on McPherson, who this fall celebrated his five-year anniversary as MSU president, and you get answers as precise as the president's goals:

            'Outstanding leader for Michigan State University,' says Michigan Gov. John Engler, himself an alumnus of MSU.

            'Can do!' says Lansing Mayor David Hollister, who teamed with McPherson on a Blue Ribbon report for the Lansing Public Schools last year and on a resolution to keep GM in mid-Michigan this fall.

            'Dedicated,' says MSU senior Nate Smith-Tyge, who joined the president this fall in wrestling with student concerns ranging from alcohol use to communication issues. 

            Yes, in five years, McPherson has had an impact. He has indeed wrestled with student concerns, as well as community concerns, budgetary concerns, and the NCAA--not necessarily in that order. He's still grappling with issues of curriculum and faculty salaries, and there are more on the horizon. He has been effective, people say, but it hasn't all been easy. But it's his style--of getting things done, of focusing simultaneously on the goals at hand and those down the road, of keeping a sharp eye on the future even while honoring university tradition--that defines McPherson's tenure as the university faces the next century. 

            Even as he celebrates five years since he took the reins from outgoing president Gordon Guyer, McPherson is guiding MSU into its next five years in an absolutely go-for-it fashion. Around the corner are the university's Sesquicentennial, a major development campaign, technological advancements that in any other time in history might have taken decades.

            Add that to an economy in flux, a changing academic environment, an international job market in an ever-shrinking world and . . . . Well, you can see why the man works. There's a lot to do. 'We all need a vision--a vision that's bigger than ourselves, bigger than the mundane, bigger than the individual,' McPherson says. 'That's the focus that I would hope we can bring to the next five years.' 

            And yes, he's got some ideas. Over the next five years, he says, MSU must have: 

• The best undergraduate opportunities in the country. That means paying attention to what the faculty, the students, and the world of tomorrow need. 'We've talked about access in the first five years--with the Tuition Guarantee, for example--and that will continue to be important. But there are some obvious gaps in what we've been able to accomplish. We need to fill those.
• 'We must do what can be done to support our faculty. A strong faculty is critical. The faculty needs to be free to do the things that they do so well. They have a great impact on the students, and their futures.
• 'We absolutely must challenge our students in ways they've not been challenged before, and in ways they can only be challenged at Michigan State University. This needs to be a primary focus for all of us: faculty, staff, administration, and most importantly, the students themselves.'
• The global learning institution. 'We send the most students abroad to study of any university in the country--and we're going to double it,' McPherson says. 'No other university in the country is doing what we do internationally. We already know we have the best African Studies program in the country; we probably are the best in many other international areas as well.
• 'Today's students must study abroad; that's the world these students are going to live in. That is the world that the faculty now live in.'
• Indeed, he points, out, none of MSU's land-grant focal points--teaching, research, or public service--is locally based any more. Today's high-tech communications mean that work previously limited by time and distance now simply has no boundaries, save those constructed in the mind. 'Everyone, worldwide, now is working together,' he said. 'There are other centers of learning in the world that are excellent. We all need to be part of that network.'
• The research and outreach of the future--right now. 'Think about sophisticated research and problem-solving outreach, where basic research blends into problem solving, for the benefit of the state, the nation, the world,' he said. 'Today, we don't know precisely where that will take us; we do know, though, that society in the next five years will need more from us than in the previous five. We need to be ready to meet those needs.'
• The nurturing of traditions, and the building of the tomorrow's traditions on those of today. 'I want this campus to have something that carries on from generation to generation,' he said. 'The campus, Beaumont Tower, the football team, all these things tie this campus together.'
• So the man works--but not in a vacuum. New technology, new funding, new methods, all must be tied together and focused. 'These are all instruments in achieving excellent undergraduate education, problem-solving research,' he explains. 'I want to link all these thing to a strong commitment to tradition. 'After all, this is Michigan State University.'

            And so the man works. Somehow, on more things in a moment than most could handle in a day. Here's a snip of a McPherson day, and keep in mind his days don't really end; they just more or less move into the next 24-hour period:

            It's early one morning--if you have to ask how early, you don't work for McPherson--and he's intent on his conversation with you until the phone rings. Then, for a few minutes, he's intent on that. Phone in his right ear, feet on the desk, one of those 8-ounce cartons of milk from the cafeteria on his desk. He uses the unlit cigar between his fingers as punctuation. 'That's not unreasonable, is it?' he says as the telephone conversation ends. 

            Then the phone goes back up and his feet come down, and he picks your conversation up where he left it off, not missing a beat. It's hard to imagine him NOT working. Maybe it's the agricultural background coming out. 

            He doesn't brag about his roots, but like winter wheat on a sunny October day they surface as he talks about what motivates him, his work ethic, how he got where he is, how he wants to take the university where it needs to go.

            Born in Lowell to a farming family . . . seven siblings, all graduates of MSU . . . a childhood spent maneuvering the usual racecourse to adulthood, dodging the obstacles that might trip him up, competing with his siblings for everything but his parents' love, which always seemed abundant. He loved competition. Still does. But he also loved teamwork, and still does. 

            That's something, too, that people have noticed. 'I've worked with him more closely, and more substantively, than all the previous presidents combined,' Lansing Mayor David Hollister says. He ticks off a list of collaborative projects in which McPherson has, typically, taken the lead: 

• a coalition linking township officials, not only to meet as a group and discuss common concerns but to be linked by e-mail; a bipartisan caucus of urban legislators
• efforts to bring all the governmental agencies involved into a discussion about repairing the Kalamazoo Street bridge
• and of course, the Blue Ribbon education report, which mapped out a success plan for Lansing's public schools and will play an enormous role in the city's efforts to keep General Motors from leaving mid-Michigan.