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EAST LANSING, Mich. (WJBK) - The MSU Board of Trustees, over the objections of the university faculty that wanted a PhD, picked John Engler to be interim president. Engler, who refuses to resign despite pressure to do so, talks about what he brings to the table in this post Larry Nassar environment.
Being the interim president of his alma mater was not on Engler's wish list but he sent word if they wanted him, he would consider it. However, he was reluctant to run a university so soon after the Larry Nassar fallout.
"This was not something I wanted to do. I didn't want to be here. I had a pretty good life going," he said. "Look. Where there's trouble and you think you can help you know you respond and this was a university that was in trouble."
The MSU faculty realized the university was in trouble but it did not want a career politician to fix it, but the MSU trustees ignored the faculty demand and went with somebody with more political than academic credentials.
"How do we help Michigan State University move through this crisis? Whether that's donor support, legislative support, student enrollment, settling litigation, handling investigations, we talked about the investigations, which were frankly the more urgent issue with the Michigan Legislature," Engler said.
The House GOP Speaker raised the possibility that lawmakers might withhold state support if MSU didn't do the right thing on the Nassar situation. Engler did not consider that a real threat last February but there were investigations everywhere you looked, from the U.S. Congress, state lawmakers, the state attorney general's office, and the NCAA.
"What they needed was somebody to be a leader, to come in and begin to work with the board and staff here, to deal with the many investigations that were underway," Engler said.
But instead of calming the waters, Engler's style continued to fan the fires for resignation but he never budged from his mission and labored on to do stuff that he thought was more important. He reorganized the higheracy in the med school to make it more transparent to avoid any future Larry Nassars from slipping through the accountability cracks.
He tried to fire the former dean of the med school. Eventually Dr. William Strampel resigned with a buy out. He is still facing sexual misconduct charges in court.
Engler announced the construction of a new music building while huddling with the MSU board on other pressing issues.
"We moved on to set a 2-year budget in place, we froze tuition, we got our building projects underway, we got approval for the settlement. We did things that mattered," he said."
That $500 million out of court settlement with several hundred Nassar survivors was a major accomplishment although Engler is still battling with the liability insurance company to beef up its contribution to that hefty price tag.
"They are grudgingly yielding some ground but not nearly enough," Engler said.
The governor thinks the news media is obsessed with the reporting of the winners and losers in this larry nassar story while he has a different mission as he counts the days until he hands off the presidency to his replacement.
"We've left michigan state for you in a much better place than it was when I arrived here in February of 2018. That's the important thing," he said.
If you know this man, he's not a quitter and not afraid to step on toes and for those who still want him out -- unless he does something illegal, it's highly unlikely he quits.