Latrobe native chosen to lead Michigan State University

The Spartans are getting a Wildcat in the administration.

Michigan State University officials announced recently that Greater Latrobe High School alum Kevin Guskiewicz was elected to serve as the university’s next president. Guskiewicz, a 1984 Wildcat graduate, will begin his term in early March, university officials said.

The university’s board of trustees approved the hire during a special December meeting. Guskiewicz finished his tenure as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Dec. 15.

His hire wraps a national search led by a 29-member committee appointed by the MSU board that began its work last April.

Guskiewicz, 57, founded the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center and is a nationally recognized expert on sport-related concussions. His work has garnered awards and influenced concussion guidelines in the NCAA and the NFL.

Through nearly five years as chancellor, Guskiewicz led UNC-Chapel Hill’s $1.2 billion research enterprise, implemented its strategic plan, opened a hub to support the university’s networks of innovators and entrepreneurs, created a Campus Safety Commission and appointed a special commission examining the university’s 230-year history with race and recommending ways to reckon with its past, MSU officials said in a news release.

Guskiewicz was born in Latrobe. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in athletic training in 1989 from West Chester University, later earning a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in 1995 from the University of Virginia.

He is also a former member of the National Football League’s Head, Neck & Spine Committee and was the recipient of a 2011 MacArthur Fellow grant, colloquially known as a “genius grant.”