Wayne State will play up assets against UM, MSU, new leader Espy says

Detroit — Incoming Wayne State University President Kimberly Andrews Espy said Friday that the Detroit-based university welcomes competition from Michigan's two largest universities as they expand their presence in the city but will play up its own advantages to attract students.

Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have been expanding their presence in Detroit. UM is collaborating with real estate billionaire Stephen Ross on a $250 million research and education center in the city, while MSU is forming a joint medical research center with Henry Ford Health System in the city's New Center neighborhood. Wayne State's enrollment has been declining in the past four years, while UM's enrollment has grown and MSU's has stayed flat.

Espy was unanimously approved by the university's Board of Governors to become the school's 13th president and first female president on Friday. Moments later, she talked with The Detroit News in a phone interview.

“Competition is a good thing in that it breeds innovation,” she said. “At the same time, Wayne State has a real distinctive, a set of assets, that’s different from the University of Michigan and different from Michigan State."

The 60-year-old provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas at San Antonio didn't elaborate on the university's strengths in the interview. But in her speech to the board, she emphasized the Detroit university's reputation of "scholarship and innovation" that has drawn and graduated students for generations.

"Many were the first from their family to go to college or from diverse backgrounds where many doors were historically closed. Or had children of their own at home to care for while in college pursuing their own dreams," she said from Texas during a Zoom call. "Wayne State’s doors were open then, and remain open today and into the future, welcoming students from every background with a straightforward message: You belong here, and you will succeed.”

Espy is set to become president on Aug. 1, when the contract of current President M. Roy Wilson ends. The board granted Espy a five-year contract, but her salary and contract were not made immediately available.

Espy is a neuropsychologist who has worked for three decades in higher education as a professor, researcher and administrator.

In her interview with The News, Espy said there's "no magic wand" to make sure that every student is on the path to success.

"The work," she said, "is day in and day out. It takes faculty paying attention to pedagogy in the classroom. It takes staff making sure that students are getting their advising appointments, using new technology to intervene, and to identify, before students have trouble, the needed resources and additional support so that they don’t stumble.

"It takes students to be encouraging with their peers, to be peer mentors and helping to identify when they may need extra mental health support, for example," Espy continued. "It takes everybody."

Espy also talked about the most important leadership skills she will bring to Wayne State.

"I am a neuroscientist by training, which means I really like to look at data, I like to listen to people and understand what their stories and experience are," Espy said. "It's creating those personal relationships and understanding (people's) perspectives — what challenges they’ve encountered, what their goals, hopes and dreams are for the university — that can really inform and compliment a data-informed approach to help move a university forward."

Wilson said during the board meeting he welcomed Espy's selection: "It’s a very exciting future we have ahead of us."

Wilson announced last year that he would step down from his post after 10 years and recently shared that he will take a sabbatical and return to the WSU faculty as an ophthalmology researcher and clinician. He participated in the special board meeting remotely from Rome, along with board members Michael Busuito and Anil Kumar.

Texas prof lauds provost

René Zenteno, chair of the Faculty Senate at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said via email that he and his colleagues "have no doubt that she will excel in her position and bring about positive change at Wayne State University, just as she did during her tenure at UTSA.

Zenteno pointed to the Carnegie Foundation, which categorizes higher education institutions, designating the Texas university in 2021 as an R1 Institution, meaning it has high research activity.

"I witnessed her dedication, visionary leadership and tireless efforts to advance our academic mission and promote shared governance," said Zenteno, a demography professor. "Her strong commitment to academic excellence, research and innovation has significantly influenced the trajectory of our university, leading UTSA to become a Carnegie R1 institution. Under her guidance, UTSA has experienced remarkable enrollment growth, improved student success rates, and embraced its identity as a Hispanic-serving institution.

"Dr. Espy has been responsive to the strategic priorities of the Faculty Senate, and together, we have addressed numerous transformative initiatives at UTSA, including academic policy changes, the introduction of new academic programs, enhancing faculty well-being and professional development, improving teaching and research infrastructure, and fostering budget transparency."

During the special meeting on Friday, WSU Board Chairman Mark Gaffney, who also chaired the presidential search that launched in September, said the search committee interviewed a number of highly qualified candidates and wanted a leader who shared the commitments of the previous president, especially in promoting social mobility for its students.

"The board and I are thrilled with our choice," said Gaffney, as members of the Wayne State community gathered in the university's law school auditorium to virtually meet Espy. "She has built a number of accomplishments at each of the institutions where she served."

"Her strong leadership roles in higher education and research and her national reputation for advancing institutional, academic and student success will be invaluable to maintaining the momentum of Wayne State into the next decade of growth and beyond," Gaffney continued. "We are confident the skills she brings to this important leadership position will keep our university advancing toward its vision of being a preeminent public, urban research university." 

Shirley Stancato, board vice chair, said that Espy was the first candidate to be interviewed.

"Her initial interview set a very high bar," said Stancato. "In each step, she continued to stand out as the candidate best qualified to lead our great university."

Espy said she was honored and humbled to be leading "this truly outstanding university."

Espy: 13 is lucky number

"While 13 is not commonly known as a lucky number, if one digs a little bit deeper, the number 13 represents transformation and renewal, the completion of one cycle and the beginning of another," said Espy on becoming the university's 13th president. "I actually can't think of a more fitting number for today."

She said WSU has served a vital mission and positively affected so many generations of people from all walks of life.

"Wayne State is a leader in redefining academic excellence that is enabling students to succeed through access to a world-class education with a faculty second to none," Espy said. "This mission of transformative social and economic mobility is at the center of my own values and one that I have championed throughout my career."

Espy becomes the seventh woman to lead a Michigan public university since 1972, according to Tania Carlson Reis, an associate professor of organizational leadership and learning at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, who has researched female presidents at public research institutions.

"The challenge for Dr. Epsy will be: Can she migrate to Wayne State, which is often viewed as an undiscovered gem in Detroit, and make it shine?" Reis said. "If Wayne State hopes to bolster its medical school, her credentials in psychology and neuropsychology could potentially bridge social science with medical science — thus bringing a broader and more impactful focus on health care and medical education. 

"She also needs to increase undergraduate enrollment during a time when most universities are fighting to find students."

Espy joins WSU after serving since 2018 at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a top public research university with an enrollment of 32,000 students, 43% of which are first-generation students or the first from their families to attend college. 

Prior to that, Espy was senior vice president for research at the University of Arizona, graduate dean and vice president for research and innovation at the University of Oregon, and associate vice president for research and acting graduate dean at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She began her career at Southern Illinois University, where she taught undergraduate, graduate and first-year medical students as well as served as the founding director of the Center for Integrated Research in Cognitive and Neural Sciences.

While at the University of Arizona, Espy was "a member of the leadership team that developed and implemented the historic academic partnership with Banner Health, which achieved record growth in clinical trials, life science research and NIH awards," according to her biography on the University of Texas at San Antonio website.

Wilson has said that one of the top priorities of the new WSU president should be to grow the academic partners for medical school students. WSU's medical school and Henry Ford Health System were on a path toward a partnership in 2019 that failed when there was a divided board; Michigan State University subsequently struck a 30-year deal with the Henry Ford system in 2021.

Throughout her career, Espy has had 28 awards as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator with a total value of $21.2 million from the National Institutes of Health, said James Finkelstein, George Mason University public policy professor emeritus, who studies college presidents.  Her last award was in 2016.  

"She appears to continue publishing in her discipline, mostly as a collaborator rather than as a principal author," Finkelstein said.  

Espy earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rice University in Houston and her master’s degree and doctoral degrees in psychology and clinical neuropsychology, respectively, from the University of Houston.

kkozlowski@detroitnews.com